Are you really serious?
The Jinnahs, Gandhi And Khilafat
The following excerpt from Sheela Reddy's new book gives a glimpse into the dynamics of the relationship shared by Mr and Mrs Jinnah...
Jinnah was holidaying in Ooty with Ruttie from April 19 to June 3, 1920—Gandhi was giving him much more to worry about than merely proselytising. While Jinnah had been away in England for five months the previous year, Gandhi had once again changed tack and bounced back into the political mainstream by changing the rules entirely. He used a gambit that no politician before him had ever tried: uniting Hindus and Muslims by espousing a religious cause that concerned only Muslims. This was the ‘Khilafat’ issue. After the War, Indian Muslims were concerned over the fate of defeated Turkey facing dismemberment of its Ottoman empire and with it, the threat of their holy places in Arabia slipping from the custody of the Turkish Caliph into non-Muslim hands. The matter was serious enough to make Muslims want to protest against the peace treaty that the Allies were drawing up, especially because the British government was going back on its word given before the War that the Caliphate would not be disturbed.
In Jinnah’s view, the Khilafat question was unfortunate, but not really a political issue at all. Of course, he took an interest in it, representing to the government both in India and Britain, but it was more to appease his Muslim constituency than because his heart was in it. Gandhi, on the other hand, took it up with his usual missionary zeal. While Jinnah had been away, Gandhi had befriended the more radical Muslim leaders who wanted to fight for the Khilafat cause and had been spurring them on into forming their own organisation so that he could have their backing for his non-cooperation programme. He had become such a champion of the Khilafat cause that he started writing and speaking on it wherever he went. With his help and guidance, Khilafat committees sprang up in every province of the subcontinent. And by the time Jinnah returned, with his head full of the reforms bill and what could be done with it, Gandhi had effectively shifted public attention away from the reforms to the Khilafat issue. Even worse, the movement had acquired enough momentum for them to hold a political convention in Simla that was so big that it cast the Muslim League into shade. Representatives of every sect of Muslims from across the subcontinent were expected to attend, giving the convention a pan-Indian character that undermined the Muslim League’s importance.
On the surface, Jinnah showed no alarm at the developments. He was even able to put up a show of great liberality by expressing his ‘happiness’ at the growing signs of Hindu–Muslim unity, which he called the ‘most important thing necessary for success’ in an interview to the Bombay Chronicle the day after he landed. But his pride would not let him attend the conference in Simla, although he did receive an invitation. The prospect of being overshadowed by Gandhi at a Muslim conference was hardly an incentive.
Jinnah was holidaying in Ooty with Ruttie (above) from April 19 to June 3, 1920. But Gandhi was giving him much more to worry about.
It was a mistake, though, to allow Gandhi to take the field by himself and emerge as a leader of both Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi had attended the Simla convention with prominent Hindu leaders and after that had stepped up his involvement with the Khilafat issue by writing newspaper articles and giving speeches. His call for a ‘Khilafat Day’ got a huge response from both Muslims and Hindus, enabling him to re-emerge as the tallest national leader. And by the following month in Amritsar, where the Congress and Muslim League were holding their annual sessions simultaneously, Jinnah was literally forced to take a back seat, sitting directly behind Gandhi at the Congress sessions and helping him steer a difficult resolution past his opponents in the Congress.
At the Muslim League’s convention also it was Gandhi’s protégés, the Ali brothers, who stole the limelight. They had just been freed from imprisonment and arrived midway through the session and the proceedings were interrupted as members stood up to welcome them with loud cheers of ‘Allahu Akbar!’ The older of the two brothers, Shaukat Ali, took over the stage, delivering a thundering speech that called on ‘forty lakhs of Mussalmans to come forward and die for their religion’ while the audience fell to weeping at his words. His brother, Mohammed Ali, followed with another tearful speech and on that high note of emotion, regular proceedings had to be suspended for the day.
At the Khilafat conference, which was the highlight of this Congress session, Jinnah was again sidelined. He sat on the platform squeezed between dozens of Gandhi’s supporters, both Hindu and Muslim, facing a record 16,000 Muslims who had turned up at Gandhi’s call. He listened impassively as Gandhi demonstrated the power of speaking in Urdu rather than English, outshining even the Ali brothers, who were meant to be the star attraction. Gandhi’s speech delivered in his diligently acquired Urdu was of such ‘incredible power and lucidity’, as the
Bombay Chronicle reported the next day, that ‘he captured the Muslim heart and mind’.
After Amritsar, Gandhi stepped up his Khilafat campaign even further and went on an extensive tour with the Ali brothers in order to rally support for the cause among Hindus across the country. Gandhi had once again cast Jinnah into a major dilemma: he could not afford to detach himself from the Khilafat cause because of its significance to Muslims; yet he did not want to yield to pressure from Gandhi or Gandhi’s Muslim friends. His reason pulled one way while his pride pulled in the opposite direction. But he kept his troubles close to himself as was his habit.
https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-jinnahs-gandhi-and-khilafat/298451
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