Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement (Spectrum Digest, Ch 10)

Background: two grievances merge

• The Khilafat issue: Indian Muslims were aggrieved at the harsh treatment of the Ottoman Sultan (the Khalifa, spiritual head of many Sunni Muslims) after the First World War. The Ali brothers (Maulana Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali) led the Khilafat Committee.
• Gandhi saw an opportunity for Hindu-Muslim unity and joined the Khilafat cause to the national grievances over Jallianwala Bagh and the broken promises of self-government.

Adoption and programme

• The Khilafat Committee launched non-cooperation in 1920; the Congress adopted the Non-Cooperation Movement at the Nagpur session (December 1920), which also restructured the Congress (Provincial Congress Committees on linguistic lines, lower membership fees, a Working Committee).
• Negative (boycott) programme: surrender of titles and honorary offices; boycott of government schools and colleges, law courts, the legislative councils and foreign cloth; resignation from government service.
• Constructive programme: promotion of khadi and the charkha, national schools and colleges (Jamia Millia Islamia, Kashi Vidyapith, Gujarat Vidyapith), Hindu-Muslim unity, the removal of untouchability and temperance.

Mass participation

The movement saw unprecedented mass involvement: students left government colleges, lawyers (Motilal Nehru, C. R. Das, Rajendra Prasad) gave up practice, foreign cloth was boycotted and burned, and peasants, workers and women joined. It spread well beyond the towns of the Swadeshi era and gave the Congress a genuinely national mass base for the first time.

Chauri Chaura and withdrawal

On 1922-02-04 at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, United Provinces), an angry mob of protesters set fire to a police station, killing 22 (some accounts say 23) policemen. Gandhi, distressed at the turn to violence, withdrew the movement on 1922-02-12 (the Bardoli resolution of the Congress Working Committee), holding that the country was not yet ready for non-violent mass struggle. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years (released in 1924). The Khilafat issue itself collapsed when Turkey abolished the Caliphate (1924) under Mustafa Kemal.

The Swaraj Party

The withdrawal disappointed many. C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru founded the Swaraj Party (1923), arguing for council entry: contesting elections to the legislative councils to obstruct and expose the reformed government from within (the "pro-changers"), against the "no-changers" who favoured continued constructive work outside the councils.

Significance

• Established the technique of non-violent mass non-cooperation as the central method of the freedom struggle.
• Achieved a high point of Hindu-Muslim unity (which did not last).
• Made the Congress a mass party with a presence down to the village.

The security and human-rights angle

The state response (mass arrests, the prosecution of Gandhi for sedition under Section 124A IPC, lathi charges) again shows the colonial use of public-order and sedition law against peaceful protest. Gandhi's withdrawal at Chauri Chaura is a defining ethical case (often used in the Paper II ethics-and-leadership essay) of a leader subordinating tactical gain to the principle of non-violence and the rule against mob violence.

Common traps

• Non-Cooperation was adopted at the Nagpur session, December 1920.
• Chauri Chaura (1922-02-04) caused the withdrawal of the movement by Gandhi.
• The Swaraj Party (1923) is C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru; its aim was council entry.
• The Khilafat cause ended when Turkey abolished the Caliphate in 1924.

Authored practice

1. The Non-Cooperation Movement was withdrawn following which incident? (a) Jallianwala Bagh (b) Chauri Chaura (c) Kakori (d) Surat Split. Answer: (b) Chauri Chaura, 1922. Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.
2. Who founded the Swaraj Party in 1923? (Answer: C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru.) Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.