The Khilafat Movement in India 1919-1924

Preface

The first incentive to write this book originated from a post-graduate course in Asian history which the University of Amsterdam organized in 1966. I am happy to acknowledge that the university where I received my training in the period from 1933 to 1940 also provided the stimulus for its final completion.

I am greatly indebted to the personal interest taken in my studies by professor Dr. W. F. Wertheim and Dr. J. M. Pluvier. Without their encouragement, their critical observations and their advice the result would certainly have been of less value than it may be now. The same applies to Mrs. Dr. S. C. L. Vreede-de Stuers, who was prevented only by ill-health from playing a more active role in the last phase of preparation of this thesis. I am also grateful to professor Dr. G. F. Pijper who was kind enough to read the second chapter of my book and gave me valuable advice.

Beside this personal and scholarly help I am indebted for assistance of a more technical character to the staff of the India Office Library and the India Office Records, and also to the staff of the Public Record Office, who were invariably kind and helpful in guiding a foreigner through the intricacies of their libraries and archives.

I also remember with gratitude Miss M. D. Wainwright of the London School of Oriental and African Studies, who was the first to advise me in these matters. The staff of the library of the Technological University at Eindhoven was kind enough to facilitate my contacts with British libraries. Finally my thanks are due to Mrs. L. F. Richards for correcting my English manuscript, and to professor Dr. A. L. Vos for his readiness to supervise her work.

I am most grateful to the “Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde” for its willingness to publish my book as one of its “Verhandelingen”, and to the Foundation “Oosters Instituut” for subsidizing this publication. My thanks are also due to the Netherlands Foundation

VI THE KHILAFAT MOVEMENT IN INDIA for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) which gave me a grant and thereby made possible my research in London.

Secondly, I should like to say something about the nature of this book and my object in writing it. Having become interested in Hindu- Muslim relations as a factor in the Indo-Pakistan issue, I found my attention drawn to the Khilafat movement in pre-partition India, since it was instrumental in bringing the two communities together for a short period. I was thus confronted with the question: what was the Khilafat movement? I did not find a very clear answer in the current literature. There are many books devoting a few pages, sometimes even a chapter, to the Khilafat movement, but none of these is quite explicit about its background and its importance for Indian Muslims. I set about finding an answer to these questions myself, and the result is presented in this book. But because my interest was focused on Hindu-Muslims relations, my research covers only the period up to the time when the Khilafat question ceased to be an issue in Indian politics.

Another point is that every student of a subject of Indian history who conducts his study and research in Europe accepts, by that very fact, certain limitations, as he is not able to consult archives in India and Pakistan. In my own case there was also a personal limitation, since I do not know any Indian languages. On the other hand, the London archives contain a wealth of material, and many Indians who played a role of some importance in the history of their country or took an interest in events, wrote and published their views in English, and this compensated, to some extent at least, for these limitations. But this does not alter the fact that my study can by no means pretend to be exhaustive; it cannot be more than a contribution to the study of a subject on which other historians will be able to throw more light.

A special problem was constituted by the orthography of Oriental words and proper names. Not being an Orientalist I did not want to make a false pretence of learning by borrowing an orthography that would meet all scholarly requirements; I preferred to adopt a simple system which has proved its practical usefulness. This I found in the system used by Sir Percival Spear in the third edition of the Oxford History of India, which generally consists in the Hunterian system of spelling but without making use of diacritical marks.

Unpublished materials from the India Office Library and the India Office Records transcribed in this book, and also transcripts of Crown-

PREFACE VII copyright records in the Public Record Office, appear by permission of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

There is one more person I wish to thank: my wife, who encouraged me to take up these studies and ungrudgingly left me to them for so many evenings, week-ends and holidays when I might have been with her and my family.

Eindhoven, January 1972 A. C. NIEMEIJER

VIII

Contents

Preface Some General Kaede of Nationalinn in Hadi

Nationalism and Pan-Islamism in 19th-Century India .

Towards a Hindu-Muslim Entente

Chapter I Some General Aspects Of Nationalism In India

Nationalism is generally acknowledged to be one of the great driving forces — perhaps even the most powerful of them — in modern history. This statement will probably not meet with much opposition, but it might very well evoke a polite question as to its precise meaning, or even the blunt comment that it has no meaning at all. The problem is that no concise and acceptable definition of the concept of nationalism has been formulated thus far, notwithstanding the fact that a good many historians, and political theorists as well as practitioners, have attempted to find one.* Probably no definition combining conciseness with relevancy is possible in the case of a concept which, in common parlance, covers such disparate phenomena as the nationalism of revolutionary France about 1800, Italian nationalism about 1860, Indian nationalism about the beginning of our century, Russian nationalism in the era of Stalin, and African nationalism at present. For that reason, any general definition is apt to be lacking in substance, like this one quoted from H. Kohn, a well-known authority on the subject: “Nationalism is the state of mind, in which the supreme loyalty of the individual is felt to be due to the nation-state.” ? Apart from containing the word “nation”, badly in need of definition itself if this definition of nationalism is to be of any use, this sentence does not convey very much. But this is a fact of which Kohn is well aware: his definition is not a conclusion, but only a starting-point for further argument.

But luckily we are not obliged to solve all the problems arising here. We are not primarily interested in nationalism as a general concept, but with its concrete shape in the Indian environment. Therefore, we will feel free to use the term “Indian nationalism” if we are able to make clear what we mean by it. In other words: we think we may be content with a very vague definition of nationalism if we are able to point out the special features of Indian nationalism as we see it.

We might start from the truism that nationalism is a kind of group loyalty. But, like every truism, this one, too, poses more questions than it answers. What exactly is the group involved? And has the loyalty it commands any special qualities when compared with other loyalties?

The group involved is, of course, the nation, but then, what is a nation? To this question, there are two kinds of answer, an “objective” one, defining the nation by more or less outward qualities like the possession of a territory, of a common language, culture, religion, history, and so on, and a “subjective” one, stressing the consciousness of a group that it is constituting a nation because its members wish to do so. In the first case, the nation is mainly looking backwards for its legitimation. This attitude suited many European nations which in the 19th century already existed as fairly homogeneous groups — we are thinking of the Germans, the Italians, the Hungarians for instance. With them, nationalism was an attempt to make the boundaries of the state and those of the nation coincide. In the second case, however, it is the future which has to prove the nation’s right to exist. This attitude had to be assumed by many recently acknowledged Asian (and African) nations made up of rather heterogeneous components, which had been brought together by foreign domination and were united mainly by the urge to get rid of it.

In the Indian context, the possibility of these different approaches is important because the choice between them, to some extent, determines whether further analysis will result in one or two (or even more) nations in India — the “two-nation theory” justifying the demand for Pakistan was based partly upon the “subjective” theory of the nation. Therefore, it is not surprising that an adversary of the partition of India, like A. R. Desai, bases his view on the “objective” theory; he calls the Muslim community in pre-partition India “a socio-religious group’, or a “minority”, and not a nation because it did not have a territory of its own, nor a language or an economy which it did not share with non-Muslim Indians.* On the other hand, to a partisan of Pakistan, like K. K. Aziz, “the first and most prominent” of the conditions or beliefs making up nationalism is “the common group feeling which inspires the members of a nation.” ® Several modern theorists show a tendency to lean towards the latter point of view. One of them is Kedourie, considering nationalism in the last resort as an act of the will; ê another is R. Emerson, writing: “The simplest statement that can be made about a nation is that it is a body of people who feel that they are a nation; and it may be that when all the finespun analysis is concluded this will be the ultimate statement as well.” 7

Nor could it be contended that these theories are made up to accomodate the Pakistanis or some other of the “young” nations who recently claimed their place in the international community; they go back to, at least, Ernest Renan who, as early as 1882 already, wrote that “the existence of a nation is a plebiscite of every day.” ® But it is the emergence of Pakistan which, in our opinion, makes it difficult to deny any relevance to the “subjective” theory when considering nationalism in pre-partition India.

It is the subsequent history of Pakistan, however, which demonstrates the restricted validity of the same theory. Evidently, the desire to constitute a nation which is held together only by that desire and by a common religion, does not provide the new nation with a very secure basis for further development. Another way of putting this is that the outward qualities stressed by the “objective” theory are most helpful in creating the sense of belonging together required by the “subjective” theory. But we should bear in mind that an imaginary possession of these qualities may, to some degree, replace their real presence. An imagined or invented common past may have the same effect as a common past legitimated by historical research; myth may stand for reality to a large extent. But it is very much open to question whether a nation could do wholly without a basis in factual reality.

Possession of a territory is considered as the least dispensable of these outward qualities. Territory “...is the only element, with the will of the population itself, whose presence is generally considered as the sine qua non of the realization of a nation.” ° The reason — or one reason, at least — might be that a territory is necessary for the establishment of a state, which is the political self-expression of a nation. The doctrine of nationalism, as Kedourie expounds it, “divides humanity into separate and distinct nations, claims that such nations must constitute sovereign states, and asserts that the members of a nation reach freedom and fulfilment by cultivating the peculiar identity of their own nation and by sinking their own persons in the greater whole of the nation.” 1° It is this separateness of nations that makes it impossible for any of them to accept being ruled by another nation. Nationalism can never be a purely “national” matter; it is always, to some degree, setting off the nation it is serving against other nations, or against foreigners." Remarkably often it takes the form of a fight for freedom and independence, and quite naturally so in the case of colonial peoples. Anti-foreignism, notably anti-westernism, has been a clearly visible component in Indian nationalism since the days of Tilak at least. A drawback of this tendency, however, is that the foreigner may become the scapegoat for all evils besetting the nation. This too may be observed in the case of Indian nationalism; not a few nationalist leaders told their followers, and probably thought themselves, that poverty and internal strife would cease once the British Raj was ousted from power. Anti-westernism, in most colonial relationships, was intensified by racial antagonism, which in India seems to have made itself felt, notably since about the year 1890, more strongly than before.”

The concept of a nation as a separate identity with a character of its own raises, for those who are becoming aware of this fact, the question as to the nature of this identity. In plain words: when a man realizes that he is an Indian and as such fundamentally different from Englishmen, he will be inclined to ask himself what exactly it means to be an Indian, or wherein his Indian-ness exists. It is only when some progress on this road has been made that the fight for political independence will make sense. Minogue describes nationalism as a three-stage process, consisting of an initial stage of stirrings, characterized by the search for a cultural identity, a second stage marked by the struggle for independence, and a third stage of national consolidation.** This analysis of the process is quite appropriate, we think, in the case of Indian nationalism.** Looking at it this way, we may call Rammohan Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj movement, one of the first Indian nationalists, representing the initial stage of nationalism.

This observation leads to another, to which we have already alluded when comparing the two theories of nationalism: that nationalists are often championing nations which do not — or not yet — exist, a problem confronting nationalism notably in former colonies.*® Many nationalists, therefore, have declared themselves to be engaged in “nation-building” ; in India we might cite the case of Gokhale, mentioning it as one of the aims of his Servants of India Society.*® The British often spoke slightingly of Indian nationalists as “a microscopic minority” of the Indian people, or even denied the existence of an Indian nation. In a sense they were right, for early Indian nationalists were pleading the rights of the Indian nation in a time when national consciousness had not yet spread among the masses, and when they spoke about national rights, many of them probably had in mind only the rights of their own limited group. But it was not very statesmanlike to act upon the assumption that this situation would remain the same for ever, because a people not constituting a nation may become one.

Another aspect of the consciousness of a national identity is a sense of national dignity. Finding their own identity was the only way for colonial peoples to liberate themselves from the suffocating pressure exerted upon them by the rulers’ example, which always started from the assumption that the rulers’ civilization was a better one than that of the “natives”. And the feeling of being second-rate subjects of a foreign power is considered by Emerson to be one of the strongest motivations of nationalism, far more important than any other kind ef oppression or exploitation.'® In India this tendency is revealed by Tilak, advocating “militancy — not mendicancy” in dealings with the British rulers; it was also one of the prominent incentives of Gandhi's feelings and actions. His first full-time occupation with public work was occasioned by a law against which he revolted because, as he wrote: “It strikes at the root of our self-respect.” 1°

Thus far we have tried to establish some aspects characterizing the concept of the nation, but it may be useful to ascertain as well what is not a nation. We started from the statement that nationalism is a kind of group loyalty — but there are groups other than the nation, also commanding man’s loyalty: the family, the tribe, the caste, the religious community. In the context of our subject it is important to compare the nation with the religious community, since nationalism and communalism were rival forces in the last half-century of British rule in India.

W. C. Smith defines communalism in India °° “as that ideology which has emphasized as the social, political and economic unit the group of adherents of each religion, and has emphasized the distinction, even the antagonism, between such groups.” 74 We would like to adopt this definition, though much is left unsaid by it. Smith follows it up with the comment that no definition of communalism remains valid for long, because the phenomenon is changing and developing; in the last years — he refers to the period from about 1940 tot 1945 — it has developed into something that might be better called “nationalism”. But unfortunately he does not make quite clear wherein this development lies, a question to which we will come back later. The first problem in our context, however, seems to be the growth of communalism from about 1900, a growth all the more remarkable because, on the face of it, it would seem that circumstances — foreign oppression suffered by all Indians alike — were propitious for engendering a sense of national unity. The explanation given by Smith for this phenomenon may be outlined as follows: (a) the Muslim middle class was economically backward as compared with the Hindu middle class, and (b) the British played off the upper and middle classes of one community against those of the other”* This last part of his explanation actually means that he is denying that all Indians were suffering alike. Apart from British favouritism along communal lines which certainly occurred, but, in Our opinion, was not quite as deliberate and consistent as Smith represents it, we may think here about the colour bar. Even this, though operative against all Indians, hampered mainly the westernized élite in their social and economic aspirations, far more than it did the lower classes. This may be one reason why nationalism originated among that élite rather than among the masses.

The explanation Smith gives for the growth of communalism is closely bound up with the view he takes of the causes of communalism itself. As such he enumerates “many and intricate factors: economic, religious, psychological, and so on.” ** But he makes it quite clear that from this group he singles out economic circumstances as “the efficient cause”, whereas religion is “an accompanying factor.” ?* This accompanying factor, however, is apt to be put forward by communal leaders or other interested parties (like the British) as the main cause, concealing by this means the real issue: “In fact ... communal riots have been isolated instances of class struggles fought in communal guise.” 25

True, these contentions should not be taken in too narrow a sense; in the course of his elaborate argument he introduces many reservations and elucidations. So it is clear that by “class struggles” he understands not only conflicts between different classes, like peasants and landlords, but also competition between various sections within the same class, for instance between the Muslim middle class and their Hindu counterparts. And speaking about religion as an “accompanying factor”, he adds: “In emphasizing the fact that religion is not the efficient cause of communal riots, we do not mean to deny that when it is an accompanying factor it is an exceedingly important one.” 7° But all the same, the tenor of his whole exposition with regard to the growth of communalism is that — apart from the role the British played — economic factors are by far the most important agents in the process. Here we think the author is somewhat one-sided, and, as a consequence, is underrating the part other factors may have played.” We consider religion as one of these; as another, the changes in the structure and distribution of political power in India. They were apt to be combined because of the religious aspects of worldly power in Islamic thought.”®

Nevertheless, the analysis given by Smith may contain a good deal of truth. In the case of any political or religious movement it is very appropriate to ask: “Who is going to profit by it?”, or: “Which result would be the most profitable for the leaders?” It seems highly probable that “the leadership of these movements, even though they assume an idealistic terminology... may well be in the hands of groups which fight in the first place to oust and supplant those who, in the traditional structure, had a monopoly of certain prominent functions.” °° These suspicions may be confirmed by the observation that the purely religious content of communalism tends to be somewhat meagre: religious practices, customs, rites, and ceremonies gain importance, at the cost of genuine convictions and spiritual attitudes.®® We may safely assume that many members of the Muslim League were more concerned about opportunities for the Muslim upper and middle classes than about the interests of the Muslim community as a whole or about the future of Islam. The same, however, does not quite apply to revivalist movements. The Wahabi movement in India, though not communalist, prepared the way for later communalism by stressing the values of pure Islam as it saw them.** Pan-Islamism in India found its adherents among the Deoband ulama as well as among members of the westernized middle class; it was not communalist in itself, but it gave an impetus to communal distinctions which could easily lead on to communalism.*?

On the Hindu side, we may note the same effect with regard to the revivalist movement of the Arya Samaj which, quite understandably, found its following mainly in the Punjab, where the Hindus constituted a minority population.** In these cases we see what Dumont calls “the separative effect of revivalism.” ** Some leaders of these revivalist movements probably were motivated by genuine religious feelings; we think this is the case with at least some Khilafat leaders, like, for instance, the Ali brothers. On the other hand, the revivalist movements may have been used by political leaders who wanted to further their own worldly interests or those of the group they belonged to, but the following they recruited by emphasizing religious values and distinctions might be motivated by intentions other than those of the leaders. A process of this kind is, to our opinion, very aptly illustrated by the ultimate evolution of Muslim communalism in India. If this had not been, or had not become, anything more than the expression of a class struggle or of middle class competition, it would be difficult to explain the religious character Muslim nationalism in India assumed about 1940, and in this case the religious impulse came from the following rather than from the leaders.” Whether this religious impulse was strong enough to create a viable “Islamic state” as Pakistan wanted to be is another matter — but we think the impulse was a reality, something more than a “guise”. In other words, the following had given the movement a content other than that which many of its leaders may have wanted it to have.

Speaking about this development of communalism into nationalism we must say something about the difference between the nation and the community. In our opinion, an important point is their relationship to political power. A nation is considering the state as its natural expression in the political field, which means that a nation is either wielding sovereign power or is aspiring to do so. The religious community does not, as a rule, assume the same attitude. In a multi-communal state, like India was, the communities acknowledge the sovereign power of the ruler; in pre-partition India this was either an Indian prince or the British Raj. This situation influences their mutual relationship; conflicts between them are suppressed or settled by the sovereign power, and therefore the communities live mostly in a condition of enforced or voluntary compromise. Violence between them may occur, but is considered reprehensible.

The mutual relationship between nations is not the same. There is no authority above them. Nations with conflicting interests may compromise if they think it opportune, but violence is an accepted means of solving conflicts. The ulttma ratio of the nation is war, or, in the case of a nation under foreign domination, revolt; the use of violence in the service of a nation is not looked upon as reprehensible, but as perfectly legitimate or even laudable.*® The fact that violence became more and more accepted in intercommunal relations in the last decades of pre-partition India might perhaps be interpreted in the sense that the religious community was taking over the role of the nation, wanting to establish itself as a state.

These considerations may, partly at least, explain why a change in the structure and distribution of political power could not but influence the character of Muslim communalism in India.” Under the arbitrary rule of the princes in the pre-British period, and, thereafter, in those Indian states which maintained their “independence”, communal conflicts could hardly manifest themselves.** When, in British India, princely rule was replaced by the rule of law, one consequence was that economic power became independent from political power; it was the middle class of merchants and bankers, mainly Hindus, which profited by this development, whereas the Muslim élite, whose position had been closely connected with political power, lost its employment. The demand for privileges from this side was a natural reaction which had not to be. invented by the British. This was one cause of the growth of communalist tension. Moreover, the British government, not wanting to interfere with religious matters — certainly not after 1857 — did not do much to suppress these tensions which, as a consequence, were able to come out into the open. But the most radical change was coming when a democratic government along parliamentary lines came into the offing, at first advocated only by Congress but, after the announcement of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms in 1917, accepted as the aim of government policy. The prince had been replaced by the law; now the making of the law would — in a future which British officials hoped was very remote, but which Indians tried to bring as near as possible — be put in the hands of the Indians themselves.

But of which Indians? The Hindu upper and middle class, or the Hindu upper caste? The Muslim upper and middle class, or the Muslim religious leaders? Or an Indian upper and middle class, irrespective of creed or caste? These were the parties most likely to make a bid for power, and the Muslim upper and middle class, being the weakest and feeling unsafe, became intent on getting at least a share in sovereign power. This made them want an independent state,” and therefore they had to constitute a separate nation. But they then had to enlist the masses, and religion proved to be the most effective means to get a hold over them, evidently because their Muslim identity counted most for them. By this process, however, the nature of the political aspirations of the movement was also determined, to some extent at least: it became tinged with religion. This is how, in our opinion, Muslim communalism developed into Muslim nationalism.

The Khilafat movement probably did something to promote this development. In the first place, it made Indian Muslims fully realize what the loss of worldly power meant to them as Muslims; and, in the second place, by their participation in this movement they got entangled in international politics and therefore became aware that they had to act as the equals of other nations. This might have been, with regard to the Khilafat question, within the framework of an Indian nation, and many leaders, Hindu as well as Muslim, intended it to be so. Nevertheless, the Khilafat movement remained largely a communal movement; its failure furthered Muslim communalism, and, in its wake, Indian Muslim nationalism.

On the other hand, we should realize that this whole development did not present itself at the time as an unescapable fate, predictable from the very beginning, since there were counteracting forces. Indian nationalism, of which Congress was the main political exponent, was perhaps the most effective of them. On the Muslim side, part of the westernized middle class was willing to co-operate with Congress, especially when, after about 1910, they got the impression that England was an enemy of Islam; we are referring here to men like the Ali brothers and Dr. Ansari. No less important was that the ulama — at least those of the famous Deoband school — distrusted the middle class communalist leaders and were not averse to co-operation with Congress.*° Eventually they accepted Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s theory of composite nationalism, aiming at an integrated alliance between Hindus and Muslims in an Indian nation, in which, however, both communities would preserve their own identity.“ But these forces opposing communalism were, in the last resort, not able to carry the Muslim masses with them.

After this digression on communalism and some of the problems related to it, we want to return to the concept of nationalism proper. We have yet to say something on the kind of loyalty that the nation commands. As we said before, nationalism as we see it is based upon the assumption that humanity is divided into separate and distinct nations — a division ordained and willed either by God or by Nature, or by both of them.*? The individual is seen solely as a part of the organic entity of the nation. The nation, or the national state, takes on a quasi-religious character, and the key-words referring to the relation between the individual and the nation, or between the citizen and the national state, are service and sacrifice.