Betrayal of M.K. Gandhi
The support of the Indian leaders to the Khilafat movement (1919-1924) was a blow that India perhaps never recovered from. The Khilafat movement was one by Indian Muslims to support the Caliphate in Turkey. Essentially, the Indian leaders, especially Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi thought that by extending support to the Khilafat movement, he would get Indian Muslims to fight against the British and participate in the non-cooperation movement. He thought that Indian Muslims would join the nationalist movement en masse if he supported their demand for an Islamic caliphate.
What followed was mindless fanaticism by the Moplah Musalmans that resulted in the brutal murder of over 10,000 Hindus, the rape of thousands of Hindu women and the desecration of temples that Hindus held sacred. During the Malabar massacre in 1921, the Moplah Muslims went on a murder frenzy killing Hindus in the most brutal manner. On one particular incident on the 25th of September 1921, the Moplah Muslims massacred 38 Hindus by beheading them and throwing them in the well. It has been documented by the district collector of Malabar at the time how even after 2-3 days, several Hindus who were beheaded and thrown in the well were crying out for help.
The Malabar massacre of 1921 was not the only time Moplah
Muslims had unleashed genocide against Hindus. In the book written by the then
Deputy Collector Diwan Bahadur C. Gopalan Nair, he has documented over 50
incidents of communal strife when the Muslims of Malabar had heaped atrocities
against Hindus. Despite the history, the Indian leadership’s response at the
time was shameful, to say the least. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had extended
unquestioning support to the Khilafat movement by the Malabar Muslims in the
hopes that it would turn Muslims into ‘nationalists’ resulting in them fighting
the British empire in unison with Hindus.
Either MK Gandhi was oblivious of the history of atrocities or
he knew and chose to be naive – that aspect is only left to our inferences
considering our history books hardly critically analyse the Malabar massacre of
Hindus or the role of the Khilafat movement in the growth of radical Islam in
India. However, his intentions are clear from a speech he made when he, along
with Shaukat Ali visited Calicut. It was on the 18th of August 1920 that
‘Mahatma’ Gandhi delivered a speech at Calicut addressing the spirit of
non-cooperation and the question of Khilafat.
Gandhi said that he believed that Indians would succeed if they understood the
spirit of non-cooperation and that the Governor of Burma himself had said that
the British continue to rule India not by force but due to the cooperation by
the people. He exalted people to not tolerate the wrongs of the government.
“The Imperial Government have knowingly flouted religious
sentiments dearly cherished by the 70 millions of Mussalmans”, he said.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi said that he had understood the question of Khilafat
in a ‘special manner’ and he was convinced that the British Government had
wounded the sentiments of Mussalmans as they had not done before. “The Gospel
of non-cooperation is preached to them and if they had not accepted it, there
would have been bloodshed in India by this time. I am free to confess the
spilling of blood would not help their cause. But a man, who is in a state of
rage, whose heart is lacerated does not count on the results of his actions. So
much for Khilafat wrong”, Gandhi said.
Justifying the violence by the Indian Muslims being unleashed on
Hindus, Gandhi said, “I propose to take you for a moment to Punjab, the
northern end of India and what have both governments done for Punjab? I am free
to confess again that the crowds in Amritsar went mad for a time. They were
goaded to madness by a wicked administration but no madness on the part of the
people can justify the spilling of innocent blood and what have they paid for
it? I venture to submit that no civilised government would have made the people
to pay the penalty that had been inflicted on Punjab. Innocent men were passed
through mock trials and imprisoned for life”, Gandhi had said.
While addressing the Moplah Muslims, he invoked the Jallian Wala
Bagh massacre by the British and talk about how the government of the day did
not take action to whitewash the crimes committed by the Moplah Muslims.
Right
after talking about the Jallianwala Bagh and justifying the violence by the
Muslims by saying that they were somehow justified in the violence they had
unleashed because the “religious sentiments” had been hurt by the British, he
went on to talk about the “cause of Mussalmans and Islam”. Gandhi suggested
that participation in the non-cooperation movement was the way to avenge the
insult to Islam by the British and if the movement is properly adopted, it will
end in victory.
He
then asks, “Are the Mussalmans of India who feel the great wrong done to them
prepared for self-sacrifice? If we desire to compel the government to the will
of people, as we must, the only remedy open to us is non-cooperation”.
Most
problematically, Gandhi said, “If the Mussalmans of India offer non-cooperation
to Government in order to secure justice on the Khilafat, it is the duty of
every Hindu to co-operate with their Moslem brethren”. It is to be kept in mind
that this speech was made in August 1920 when the Muslims had already started
to massacre Hindus in their demand to establish a caliphate and in their
support for the caliphate in Turkey.
After
asking Hindus to cooperate as the Muslims massacred them, Gandhi exalted the
“unity” between Hindus and Muslims. He said, “I consider the eternal friendship
between Hindus and Mussalmans as infinitely more important than the British
connection. I, therefore, venture to suggest that if they like to live with
unity with Mussalmans, it is now that they have got the best opportunity and
that such an opportunity would not come for a century. I venture to suggest
that if the government of India and the Imperial Government come to know that
there is a great determination behind this great nation in order to secure
redress for the Khilafat and Punjab wrongs, the government would then do
justice to us”.
It
is extremely interesting to note how Gandhi equated the wrongs committed in
Punjab against patriotic Sikhs with the Khilafat movement which was essentially
one to fight for an Islamic Caliphate in Turkey and also to establish one in
India. This attempt to legitimise the demands of Indian Muslims for an Islamic
caliphate led to untold atrocities against Hindus while Gandhi spun dreams
about Hindus (who were being persecuted) attempting to stay united with their
own persecutors. By putting the onus of this elusive unity on the Hindus,
Gandhi told the Hindus that it was their national duty, essentially, to be
killed, tortured, raped and humiliated with a smile on their face.
After
talking about the “first step of non-cooperation” which was limited to
rejecting everything that the British offered, Shaukat Ali addressed the
Calicut Muslims specifically on their demands regarding the Khilafat movement.
As
can be seen from the first speech of Gandhi in Calicut, he had clearly put the
onus of unity on the Hindus who were being massacred. In fact, the question of
unity in this speech was not addressed in terms of India’s interest in pushing
the British out, but in terms of the establishment of an Islamic rule.
While
Gandhi made this speech on the 18th of August 1920, on the 28th of April 1920,
the Khilafat movement was officially launched. A resolution at the Malabar
District Conference was held at Manjeri, the headquarters of Ernad Taluk.
The
Malabar massacre of Hindus by the Muslim hoards around the 20th of August 1921.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi travelled to Calicut again the 15th of September
1921 evening. The speech was delivered on Triplicane Beach, Madras.
While thousands of men were being slaughtered, women were being
raped and children were being slaughtered, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi told
Hindus that they essentially had an obligation to remain “non-violent”. While
the Moplah Muslims were massacring Hindus because of their Muslim fanaticism,
Gandhi blamed the government for angering the Muslims enough that they became
“indisciplined and violent”.
Here is what the Madras Mail wrote about MK Gandhi’s speech in
Calicut on the 16th of September 1921 (Some relevant portions have been
highlighted):
It was open to the
Government, at powerful as they were, to invite the Ali Brothers and the
speaker to enter the disturbed area in Malabar and to bring about calm and
peace there. Mr Gandhi was sure that if this had been done much of the innocent
blood would have been spared and also the desolation of many a Hindu household.
But he must be forgiven if he again charged the Government with a desire to
incite the population to violence.
There was no room in this system
of Government for brave and strong men, and the only place the Government had
for them was the prisons, He regretted the happenings in Malabar. The Moplas who were undisciplined had gone
mad. They had thus committed a sin against the Khilafat and their own country.
The whole of India today was under an obligation to remain non-violent ern
under the gravest provocation. There was no reason
to doubt that these Moplahs were not touched by the spirit of Non-co-operation.
Non-cooperators were deliberately prevented from going to the affected parts. Assuming that all the strain came through
Government Circles and that forced conversions were true, the Hindus should not
put a strain on the Hindu-Moslem Unity and break it.
The
speaker was however not prepared to make such an assumption. He was convinced
that a mark who was forcibly converted needed no “Prayaschitham.” Mr
Yakub Hassan had already told them that those who were converted were
inadmissible into the fold of Islam and had not forfeited their rights to
remain in the Hindu fold. The Government were placing every obstacle in the way
of the Congress and Khilafat workers to bring relief to desolate homes and were
taking no pains to carry relief themselves. Whether the Government gave them
permission or not it was their clear duty to collect funds for the relief of
sufferers and see that these got what they required, They did not yet know
fully what measures the Government were going to take to repress the strength
and rising of the people in this land. He had no reasons to disbelieve the
testimony given to him yesterday that many young men were insulted because they
wore Khad-dar caps and dress. The keepers of the peace in India had torn
khaddar vests from young men and burned them. The authorities in Malabar had
invented new measures of humiliation if they had not gone one better than those
in the Punjab.
While the Malabar Muslims were slaughtering Hindus, raping women
and forcefully converting Hindus, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi insisted that they
had committed a sin against the “Khilafat movement” and not the Hindus. In
fact, he went ahead and insisted that Hindus must remain “non-violent” in the
face go “extreme provocation”.
Further, Gandhi said that even if it were true that the Muslims
were converting Hindus by force, the Hindus must not let this “put a strain on
the Hindu-Moslem unity and break it”. Of course, for Gandhi, the rapes, murders
and forced conversions were not breaking the unity but Hindus, who were being
persecuted, could potentially break that “unity” by getting mildly angry about
their own persecution.
It is evident that despite the genocide, the Indian leadership
which prominently included Gandhi asked the Hindus to get slaughtered with a
smile on their face and extended unbridled support to a movement that sought to
establish Islamic rule. The Malabar genocide of Hindus that followed should be
attributed directly to leaders who displayed exemplary cowardice and catapulted
to the barbaric Muslims of the times and sacrificed Hindu lives at the altar of
‘unity’.
