z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 151
PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN
151
to the cause of persuading the Congress to adopt non-co-operation and strengthen the Khilafat movement. With that object in view Mr. Gandhi toured the country between 1st August and 1st September 1920 in the company of the Ali Brothers who were the founders of the Khilafat movement impressing upon the people the necessity of non-co-operation. People could notice the disharmony in the tune of Mr. Gandhi and the Ali Brothers. As the Modern Review pointed out: “Reading between the lines of their speeches, it is not difficult to see that with one of them the sad plight of the Khilafat in distant Turkey is the central fact, while with the other attainment of Swaraj here in India is the object in view”. This dichotomy* of interest did not augur well for the success of the ultimate purpose. Nonetheless Mr. Gandhi succeeded in carrying the Congress with him in support of the Khilafat cause.†
For a long time the Hindus had been engaged in wooing the Muslims to their side. The Congress was very anxious to bridge the gulf between itself and the Muslim League. The ways and means adopted in 1916 for bringing about this consummation and which resulted in the Lucknow Pact signed between the Congress and the Muslim League have been graphically told by Swami Shradhanand in his impressions of the Congress Session held in that year at Lucknow. Says the Swami § :
“On sitting on the dias (Lucknow Congress platform) the first thing that I noticed was that the number of Moslem delegates was proportionately fourfold of what it was at Lahore in 1893. The majority of Moslem delegates had donned gold, silver and silk embroidered chogas (flowing robes) over their ordinary coarse suits of wearing apparel. It was rumoured that these ‘chogas’ had been put by Hindu moneyed men for Congress Tamasha. Of some 433 Moslem delegates only some 30 had come from outside, the rest belonging to Lucknow City. And of these majority was admitted free to delegate seats, board and lodging. SirSycd Ahmad’s antiCongress League had tried in a public meeting to dissuade
- Mr. Gandhi repudiated the suggestion of the Modern Review and regarded it as “cruelest cut”. Dealing with the criticism of the Modern Review in his Article in Young India for 20th October 1921 Mr. Gandhi said “I claim that with us both the Khilafat is the central fact, with Maulana Mahomed Ali because it is his religion, with me because, in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the Musalman knife.”
† The Resolution of non-co-operation was carried by 1886 votes against 884. The late Mr. Tairsee once told me that a large majority of the delegates were no others than the taxi drivers of Calcutta who were paid to vote for the nonco-operation resolution.
§ Liberator, 22nd April 1926.