Dr. Susmit Kumar, Ph.D.

Gandhi knew it would not be easy to capture the Congress and bend it to his will. The Congress met in August 1918 at a special session in Bombay to consider the proposals for reforms as contained in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report published in the previous month. To all except Gandhi the report seemed to promise less than expected. Gandhi, who in less than a year was to lead the nation against the British Raj, felt quite contented with the proposals which he thought, ‘gave India as much as she could chew’. But Gandhi was ignored and a suggestion that he be made the President of the special session of Congress was instantly dismissed by Mrs. Annie Besant on the grounds that he was not a politician. [i]

This also became apparent to him when the meeting of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) at Banaras in May 1920 did not entertain a proposal for adopting a policy of non-cooperation and decided to call a special session of the Congress to consider Gandhi’s program.[ii] A large number of Muslims attended the session and it looked like a Muslim session. Jinnah was shouted down by the Ali brothers, among others.[iii] Gandhi had the backing of the delegates from the South and the Muslim delegates. In fact, all the Muslim members of the Subjects Committee except Jinnah supported the main resolution. [iv] Apart from this, Gandhi also lured Congress members by claiming the Swaraj in one year which we would see was not possible even after more than twenty-five years.

Jinnah particularly deplored the Khilafat agitation, which had brought the reactionary mullah element to the surface. When during the 1918 December Muslim League Delhi Session, a resolution was moved asking the British Government to protect the Caliphate, Jinnah "raised a point of order and gave his opinion that under the Muslim League constitution it had no right to dabble in the foreign politics of the Government." When the resolution was passed, Jinnah left the meeting. [v]

Also, as per Subhas Chandra Bose, “…when later on Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, as the leader of the New Turkey, forced the [Turkey’s] Sultan to abdicate and abolished the office of Khalifa altogether, the Khilafat question lost all meaning and significance and the majority of the members of the Khilafat organizations were absorbed by sectarian, reactionary and pro-British Moslem organizations. [the mistake was …] in allowing the Khilafat Committee to be set up as an independent organization throughout the country, quite apart from the Indian National Congress.” [vi]

Khilafat Movement Once Gandhi Took Over

On 18 August 1919, at a conference sponsored by the Bombay Khilafat Committee, Gandhi, the only prominent Hindu to attend the gathering, associated himself directly with the Muslim demands about the Khalifa. He used the occasion to chastise the Khilafat Committee for its lack of direction and precise aims. With the moral support of tens of thousands of Hindus, he urged, the Muslims could dictate their own terms to Government. Gandhi followed up his rallying cry to the conference with an article in Young India calling on the Khilafat Committee to make their demands clear and unambiguous. Having failed to carry the Home Rule Leagues with him in his Rowlatt Bills agitation, Gandhi turned his full attention to the Khilafat question and offered to construct a coherent political organization out of the loose and conflicting strands of Muslim opinion that were gathering around the Khilafat.[vii]

Gandhi's public support had a dramatic effect on the Khilafat cause. Hitherto it had been an amorphous campaign within the Muslim League, but now it emerged to all-India significance. The timing of Gandhi's decision to take up the Muslim cause is significant. When he appeared in Bombay in August 1919 championing the Khilafat cause, [his 1919] satyagraha [agitation against the 1919 Rowlatt Bills] had just collapsed and the Khilafat issue showed distinct signs of developing into an India-wide agitation. The Bombay Khilafat Committee had taken great pains to get support from upper India, and from Abdul Bari in particular. Later in September the Bombay meeting was followed by a larger conference at Lucknow, when the Central Khilafat Committee was formally launched. [viii]

These brought about cordial relations between Gandhi and the Muslims so that the Muslims became "stronger supporters of Gandhi than were his fellow Hindus". The Muslims invited Gandhi to preside over the Khilafat Conference in Delhi on 24 November 1919 and in the annual session of the Muslim League at Amritsar in December 1919, they passed a resolution, at the instance of Gandhi, expressing gratitude to his Majesty, the king Emperor, for the spirit in which the Royal Proclamation had been issued and promising to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, a hearty welcome. Whereas Gandhi was able to have a resolution passed by the Congress sessions, which was also going on at the same time at Amritsar, only after considerable opposition. Further the Khilafat Committee, in its meeting at Bombay on 28 May 1920, adopted the Non-Cooperation Program put forth by Gandhi, whereas the All-India Congress Committee in its meeting at Benares on 30 May 1920, did not approve of the Non-Cooperation …. For "all the Hindus in the Congress readily fell in with the proposal to postpone the decision". This forced Gandhi to refer the question of non-cooperation to a conference of leaders of all parties invited to attend the Khilafat Conference at Allahabad. Here the Muslim leaders appealed to the Hindus to cooperate with them and support non-cooperation. Several Hindu leaders spoke expressing sympathy with the Muslim cause but differed as to the remedy suggested by Gandhi. So, in the meeting only members of the Central Khilafat Committee were allowed to take part in the discussion and vote, while delegates and visitors attended. As the Khilafat Committee passed the resolution for Non-Cooperation, Gandhi, overwhelmed with emotions, said he knew fully well that the Muslims had realized that non-cooperation was the only remedy 'now' left to India and, he wanted a committee be appointed to work out the scheme. This was agreed and a committee consisting of six Muslims, called the Non-Cooperation Sub-Committee, was appointed. In pursuance of the decision arrived at the above Khilafat Conference, a letter signed by about 90 Muslim leaders from various parts of India was sent to the Viceroy as an ultimatum and the Non-Cooperation Movement was launched on 1 August 1920. Thus, Gandhi was helped by the Muhammadans to launch his Non-Cooperation Movement, while the Congressites … postponed the decision on non-cooperation to a special session of the Congress that was still to meet [in Calcutta in 1920 September]. [ix]

How Gandhi Planned to Capture Congress

Gandhi planned to capture the Congress by a three-pronged attack: through the All-India Home Rule League, through the Khilafat Committees, and through such support as he could muster in the Congress committees themselves. The regions which Gandhi visited tell us from where he expected this support. In July [1920] his full non-cooperation program was endorsed by the Gujarat Provincial Conference and the Swarajya Sabha in Bombay city. But Gandhi's greatest effort was devoted to a personal tour of the principal Muslim areas in Madras, Punjab and Sind, the three provinces which had supported the full program of non-cooperation at the Allahabad meeting early in June. During this tour, Gandhi spoke mainly to Muslims and not to Hindus. In Madras city, at a meeting organized by the ulama of a local mosque, Gandhi called on all the Muslims 'to go to the Congress and make it impossible for the Congress to give any other verdict'. [x]

Arrangements were made to bring Khilafat members to the 1920 September Special Congress Session in Calcutta. A special train was arranged for the congress delegates, and it carried 200 Khilafat Muslims from North Arcot, Trichy and Bangalore to attend the Calcutta meeting.[xi]

1920 June Congress Meeting

[At the June 1920 joint meeting of Hindus and Muslims at Allahabad] It was envisaged that non-cooperation would be in four stages: first, the giving up of titles and the resignation of honorary posts; second, resignation of public servants from Government employment; third, the resignation of the police and the army; and fourth, the suspension of the payment of taxes. Speaking of the third stage Gandhi said that this was 'a distant goal' while the fourth stage was 'still more remote'. This was the program, with some modifications, which Gandhi put before the joint meeting of Hindus and Muslims at Allahabad in June. Few Hindu leaders attended. Neither Tilak nor Das was present, and although Gandhi later tried to claim that the vote for non-cooperation was a joint decision of Hindus and Muslims, all the Hindus withdrew before the vote was taken. Nehru, Sapru, Malaviya and Lajpat Rai all spoke against non-cooperation and voiced fears that it might precipitate an Afghan invasion. Until June, therefore, Gandhi could claim little support for non-cooperation even from the Hindu leaders of upper India with whom he had been conducting an elaborate flirtation since his return from South Africa in I9I5. Even this program of non-cooperation was revised by the Muslims, and a subcommittee was appointed to prepare the final scheme. [xii]

Subjects Committee Vote in the 1920 September Special Congress Meeting in Calcutta

Bal Gangadhar Tilak died on August 1, 1920. Hence one of the Congress stalwarts was not there at the 1920 September Special Congress Session in Calcutta. Otherwise nearly all senior members were there.

The vote in the open session recorded a clear victory for Gandhi's full program. Historians have been misled by this fact. Gandhi had a large following among the delegates, but he won in the Subjects Committee, the only body that really mattered, by a very narrow margin. Once he had carried the Subjects Committee, victory in the open Congress was a matter of course. So, the situation in the Subjects Committee, not the vote in the open session, needs to be examined. It is, of course, difficult to analyze the composition of the Subjects Committee, but certain points emerge. Gandhi's tours in the preceding two months, encouraging delegates to come to the Congress, paid high dividends. Khilafat special trains brought delegates to Calcutta, mainly Muslims from Bombay and Madras. The high proportion of Muslim delegates at Calcutta was clearly reflected in the Subjects Committee. The Madras delegation, for example, had the right to elect fifteen delegates to the Subjects Committee; it returned at least seven Muslims. The pro-council entry partly led by S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar failed to get one man elected to the Subjects Committee. By careful canvassing, two Muslims were elected to the Committee from Bombay city and, more surprisingly, one from the Southern division. There are few details about other delegations. Bengal had thirty seats on the Subjects Committee, and in addition ten seats as the hosts of the Congress; Muslims, it can be assumed, took their share of these forty seats. Indeed, Jayakar believed that one reason why the Congress was invited to Calcutta rather than to Bezwada or Berhampore was the Muslim strength in Calcutta. It seems that on most delegations Muslims held the balance between those for and those against Gandhi and were sufficiently numerous on the Subjects Committee to tip the balance in Gandhi's favor. [xiii]

In the first round of battle was fought in the Congress Subjects Committee which met before the open session and was responsible for the resolutions to be placed before the full session, and in so doing would virtually swung the whole Congress. In Calcutta, Gandhi’s supporters won seats in every provincial bloc on the committee. One Bengali paper commented that no one stood a chance in the election unless they declared for non-cooperation. The committee quickly disposed of the other resolutions for Congress, and then for two days engaged on the issue of non-cooperation. Gandhi’s plan being set against a modified plan proposed by … B.C. Pal, which would have temporarily shelved the controversial parts of Gandhi’s proposal. The discussions were not only prolonged but also acrimonious. At one point, Shaukat Ali [one of the Ali brothers] had to be physically restrained from attacking M.A. Jinnah! [xiv] In fact, all the Muslim members of the Subjects Committee except Jinnah supported the main [i.e. Gandhi's] resolution. [xv]

In her book, Modern India: The Origins of An Indian Democracy, Judith Margaret Brown, a British historian of modern South Asia and the Beit Professor of Commonwealth History and a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, wrote:

Particularly significant were the Muslims engaged in the Khilafat campaign who came in large numbers to Congress itself to vote for non-co-operation… At the Nagpur Congress there was similar evidence of Muslim support for Gandhi… But for more often men revered or followed Gandhi because he had personally conducted a local campaign in an area such as Gujarat or Bihar where they had come under his influence and seen what he could offer them, or because he had championed a particular cause of significance to a group such as the Muslim sympathizers of the Khalifah. [xvi]

The second important factor in the voting in the Subjects Committee was the defection of certain politicians who had until this moment opposed the non-cooperation movement, in particular Motilal Nehru of the UP and Gangadhar Rao Deshpande, Tilak's chief lieutenant in the Karnatak. Nehru's conversion was crucial, as C.R. Das, who was deeply angered by it, realized. Nehru was important to Gandhi. This can be gauged by Gandhi's readiness to water down the non-cooperation resolution by inserting the word 'gradual' in relation to the boycott of schools, colleges, and courts. Nehru's volte-face came at a stage when it looked as if Gandhi would be forced to compromise with the nationalists. By appearing to oppose non-cooperation the nationalists found themselves in reluctant alliance with Mrs. Besant and her theosophists. To disassociate themselves from the theosophists, who came in for a good deal of abuse, Das and his nationalist allies proposed a compromise. His plan contained four parts: the first, that the Congress should enter the councils to work for the immediate attainment of  swaraj by forcing government to amend the constitution; the second, that only Congressmen who pledged to refuse office should be elected; the third, that where it achieved a majority, the Congress party should work to make government impossible; and finally, that where it won a minority of the seats, it should resign and seek re-election, and repeat this tactic with the same objective, namely to bring government to a standstill. [xvii]

When the vote in the Subjects Committee was finally taken, Gandhi's motion was carried by a small majority of only twelve votes, I44 voting for and I32 against. [xviii]

Nehru's defection may well have swung the UP delegation in favor of Gandhi. In 1918, Nehru had been the only leader of any standing in the province to follow the advanced Home Rule party. He had been able to capture the Provincial Congress by working through the branches of the Muslim League and the Home Rule Leagues. To a large extent, Nehru depended upon Muslim political support, and was widely known for his pro-Muslim sympathies. As an Urdu-speaking Kashmiri Brahmin, he had voted with the Muslims for the UP Municipalities Bill in 1916 and he had kept clear of the agitation against it which the Hindu Sabha and the Provincial Congress launched. When Nehru saw how strongly Muslims supported non-cooperation in 1920, he may have been persuaded to tolerate the movement against his better judgement. But his decision rested, ultimately, upon more rational considerations than his wish to curry Muslim favor. It was based upon his calculations about the chances of the UP Congress of winning a majority at the 1920 elections, and of being able to dominate the new council. Electoral preparations in the UP had not gone far. Nehru calculated that Congress had little chance of winning the elections. So, for the time being council boycott made sound political sense. At Calcutta in November 1922, Nehru told the AICC that he had seconded the non-cooperation resolution at Calcutta in 1920. 'I recently had the opportunity', he went-on, of seeing that speech of mine and I am glad to tell you that the reasons which held good then hold good today. That reason was related to the actual entry into the Councils and not to standing for election, and it was the main and real reason that it was absolutely certain then that it [the Congress] would not possibly get a majority. [xix]

General Vote in the 1920 September Special Congress Meeting in Calcutta

At Calcutta, Gandhi did not sweep to power on a wave of enthusiasm for his program. The dominating fact of the Congress was the large Muslim contingent. This was the first time Muslims came in significant numbers to the Congress. In his closing speech as President, Lajpat Rai referred pointedly to these Muslims, adding that he was 'a little sorry that Mr Gandhi in his wisdom should have considered it necessary and proper in a way to tack the Indian National Congress to the Central Khilafat Committee.' Granted the determined opposition of the nationalists, Gandhi could not have captured the Congress without the support of the Central Khilafat Committee. The largest difference between the Congresses of 1918 and 1919 and the Special Congress of 1920 was the presence of the Khilafatists at the latter. The Central Khilafat Committee, both inspired and led by Gandhi, was calling the tune in Indian politics in September 1920, and took the Nationalists by surprise. Few could have thought that Gandhi would carry the day, and no one tried to counter Gandhi's elaborate preparations throughout July and August. [xx]

Still it was to be proved in the special session of the Congress that was to meet in September 1920 at Calcutta. Here also the Muslims defended the scheme of Gandhi and helped Gandhi to have the required majority for his scheme and to consolidate his leadership, while his political opponents in the Congress frantically tried their best to defeat the scheme of Gandhi. In the session, Gandhi's resolution was “seconded by Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and supported by Ali Brothers and almost by the entire Muslim bloc"; whereas his opponents in the Congress for leadership, Annie Besant, C.R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai (the President of the special session) Madan Mohan Malaviya opposed the resolution. Even Congress circles close to Gandhi could not accept his programme. Still the resolution was passed by 1855 to 873 votes, thanks to Muslims. For the Muslims not only seconded and defended the resolution but also voted for the resolution in large numbers. For example, though Kasturi Ranga Iyangar and Satyamurthi, respectively the President and Secretary of the Madras Pradesh Congress Committee, were opposed to the resolution, 161 of the delegates from Madras voted in favor of the resolution; of them 125 were Muslims. [xxi]

A ‘Khilafat Special’ [train] had brought over 200 delegates, mostly Muslims, from predominantly Hindu Madras, and nearly half the Madras members of the Subjects Committee were Muslims … western Indian opponents of Gandhi complained bitterly of his playing ‘the Muslim hand’ and flooding Congress with Khilafat activists. [xxii]

While discussing how Gandhi used the Khilafat members to capture the Congress Party in her another book, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, Judith Margaret Brown, wrote about a letter which Sir Dinshaw Wacha, one of the founding members of the Congress Party, wrote to G.A. Natesan, a publisher in Madras Presidency, that both he and Pherozeshah Mehta, another founding member of the Congress Party, had always been dubious of Gandhi’s: [xxiii]

“… sagacity and political circumspection. The man is so full of overweening conceit and personal ambition and the vast unthinking multitudes, let alone the so called ‘leaders’ of the hour, and the lip ‘patriots’, seem to be quite mad & willing … in following like a flock of the sheep, this unsafe shepherd who is bringing the country on the wrongs this madman is now inflicting on the poor country in his mad and arrogant career.”

1920 December Nagpur Congress Meeting and Change of Constitution

Muslims helped Gandhi, once again, to consolidate his all-India leadership in the annual session of the Congress at Nagpur in December 1920. While leaders like Kasturi Ranga Iyangar, after the Calcutta session of the Congress, regarded the boycott of educational institutions, courts and Legislative councils respectively as "positively suicidal, impracticable and inadvisable", the Muslims stood absolutely committed to the cause of Gandhi. They turned up in large numbers to the Nagpur Congress so that the session itself looked to be almost a Muslim session. Probably the presence of large numbers of Muslims should have disheartened C.R. Das, who had brought a contingent of about 250 delegates from East Bengal and Assam to undo what was done in Calcutta. The same factor should have disheartened the other opponents of Gandhi in the Congress that the resolution passed at Calcutta was ratified with very few dissentient voices of Mrs Besant, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Bipan Chandra Pal, confirming the undisputed leadership of Gandhi in the Congress. Thus, the Muslims and the Khilafat Movement helped Gandhi to rise as an all-India leader of first-rate order and to consolidate that position. But for the Muslim help Gandhi's rise as an all-India leader of first-rate order and its consolidation might well have been delayed. [xxiv]

In the following Nagpur Congress Session in December 1920, Gandhi persuaded the Congress to adopt a new constitution, which declared the attainment of Swaraj (self-rule) by “peaceful and legitimate” (replacing the word “constitutional”) means as the aim of the Congress, and spelled out his program of non-violent non-cooperation. The voice of dissent was silenced; even C. R. Das changed his stand and gave his full support to the non-cooperation movement. The only one who had the courage to oppose Gandhi was Jinnah. He said, “With great respect for Gandhi and those who think with him, I make bold to say in this Assembly that you will never get your independence without bloodshed.” [xxv]

The session marked a watershed in the history of the Congress and of the freedom struggle. Whereas at former sessions the Congress President was the first among equals, Gandhi emerged as the supreme leader. [xxvi]

After winning the vote, crucial changes were made at Gandhi’s insistence in Congress organization, in an effort to make it into a real mass political party for the first time; a regular four-anna membership; a hierarchy of village-taluka-district or town committees; reorganization of PCCs on a linguistic basis, with the number of delegates to be fixed in proportion of population; and a small 15-member Working Committee as the real executive head. [xxvii]

As per, Subhas Chandra Bose, “The Working Committee since 1929 has been elected according to Gandhi’s dictation and no one can find a place on that committee who is not thoroughly submissive to him and his policy.”[xxviii]

Jinnah Reaction

Jinnah was amazed that the Hindu leaders had not realized that Khilafat movement would encourage the Pan-Islamic sentiment that the Sultan of Turkey was encouraging to buttress his tottering empire and dilute the nationalism of the Indian Muslim. He recalled how Tilak and he had labored to produce the Lucknow Pact and bring the Congress and League together on a common political platform. The British, he added, were playing a nefarious game in by-passing the pact and making it appear that the Muslim could always hope for a better deal from them than from the Congress. “Well,” he concluded, “I shall wait and watch developments, but as matters stand, I have no place in Gandhi’s Congress.” [xxix] He decided to quit and on that day his fifteen years of close association with Congress came to the end. Jinnah’s political life from then until 1934 was that of a leader in search of a party.