z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 148
148 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
hour of peril to the best of my ability, if his cause commends itself to me as just;
(4) The fourth refers to the extent Hindus should join hands with the Mahomedans. It is, therefore, a matter of feeling and opinion. It is expedient to suffer for my Mahomedan brother to the atmost in a just cause and I should, therefore, travel with him along the whole road so long as the means employed by him are as honourable as his end. I cannot regulate the Mahomedan feeling. I must accept his statement that the Khilafat is with him a religious question in the sense that it binds him to reach the goal even at the cost of his own life.”
Mr. Gandhi not only agreed with the Muslims in the Khilafat cause but acted as their guide and their friend. The part played by Mr. Gandhi in the Khilafat agitation and the connection between the Khilafat agitation and the Non-co-operation Movement has become obscure by the reason of the fact that most people believed that it was the Congress which initiated the Non-co-operation Movement and it was done as a means for winning Swaraj. That such a view should prevail is quite understandable because most people content themselves with noting the connection between the Non-co-operation Movement and the special session of the Congress held at Calcutta on 7th and 8th September 1920. But anyone, who cares to go behind September 1920 and examine the situation as it then stood, will find that this view is not true. The truth is that the nonco-operation has its origin in the Khilafat agitation and not in the Congress Movement for Swaraj: that it was started by the Khilafatists to help Turkey and adopted by the Congress only to help the Khilafatists : that Swaraj was not its primary object, but its primary object was Khilafat and that Swaraj was added as a secondary object to induce the Hindus to join it will be evident from the following facts.
The Khilafat movement may be said to have begun on
27th October 1919 when the day was observed as the Khilafat Day all over India. On 23rd November 1919 the first Khilafat Conference met at Delhi. It was at this session that the Muslims considered the feasibility of non-co-operation as a means of compelling the British Government to redress the Khilafat wrong. On 10th March 1920 the Khilafat Conference met at Calcutta and decided upon non-co-operation as the best weapon to further the object of their agitation.