Your Excellency.
As one who has enjoyed a certain measure of your Excellency's
confidence, and as one who claims to be a devoted well-wisher of the
British Empire, I owe it to your Excellency, and through your Excellency
to His Majesty's Ministers, to explain my connection with and my conduct
in the Khilafat question.
At the very earliest stages of the war, even whilst I was in London
organising the Indian Volunteer Ambulance Corps, I began to interest
myself in the Khilafat question. I perceived how deeply moved the little
Mussalman World in London was when Turkey decided to throw in her lot
with Germany. On my arrival in India in the January of 1915, I found the
same anxiousness and earnestness among the Mussalmans with whom I came
in contact. Their anxiety became intense when the information about the
Secret Treaties leaked out. Distrust of British intentions filled their
minds, and despair took possession of them. Even at that moment I
advised my Mussalman friends not to give way to despair, but to express
their fear and their hopes in a disciplined manner. It will be admitted
that the whole of Mussalman India has behaved in a singularly restrained
manner during the past five years and that the leaders have been able to
keep the turbulent sections of their community under complete control.
The peace terms and your Excellency's defence of them have given the
Mussalmans of India a shock from which it will be difficult for them to
recover. The terms violate ministerial pledges and utterly disregard
Mussalman sentiment. I consider that as a staunch Hindu wishing to live
on terms of the closest friendship with my Mussalman countrymen. I
should be an unworthy son of India if I did not stand by them in their
hour of trial. In my humble opinion their cause is just. They claim that
Turkey must be _punished_ if their sentiment is to be respected. Muslim
soldiers did fight to inflict punishment on their own Khalifa or to
deprive him of his territories. The Mussalman attitude has been
consistent, throughout these five years.
My duty to the Empire to which I owe my loyalty requires me to resist
the cruel violence that has been done to the Mussalman sentiment. So far
as I am aware, Mussulmans and Hindus have as a whole lost faith in
British justice and honour. The report of the majority of the Hunter
Committee, Your Excellency's despatch thereon and Mr. Montagu's reply
have only aggravated the distrust.
In these circumstances the only course open to one like me is either in
despair to sever all connection with British rule, or, if I still
retained faith in the inherent superiority of the British constitution
to all others at present in vogue to adopt such means as will rectify
the wrong done, and thus restore confidence. I have not lost faith in
such superiority and I am not without hope that somehow or other justice
will yet be rendered if we show the requisite capacity for suffering.
Indeed, my conception of that constitution is that it helps only those
who are ready to help themselves. I do not believe that it protects the
weak. It gives free scope to the strong to maintain their strength and
develop it. The weak under it go to the wall.
It is, then, because I believe in the British constitution that I have
advised my Mussalman friends to withdraw their support from your
Excellency's Government and the Hindus to join them, should the peace
terms not be revised in accordance with the solemn pledges of Ministers
and the Muslim sentiment.
Three courses were open to the Mahomedans in order to mark their
emphatic disapproval of the utter injustice to which His Majesty's
Ministers have become party, if they have not actually been the prime
perpetrators of it. They are:--
(1) To resort to violence,
(2) To advise emigration on a wholesale scale,
(3) Not to be party to the injustice by ceasing to co-operate with the
Government.
Your Excellency must be aware that there was a time when the boldest,
though the most thoughtless among the Mussulmans favoured violence, and
the "Hijrat" (emigration) has not yet ceased to be the battle-cry. I
venture to claim that I have succeeded by patient reasoning in weaning
the party of violence from its ways. I confess that I did not--I did not
attempt to succeed in weaning them from violence on moral grounds, but
purely on utilitarian grounds. The result, for the time being at any
has, however, been to stop violence. The School of "Hijrat" has received
a check, if it has not stopped its activity entirely. I hold that no
repression could have prevented a violent eruption, if the people had
not had presented to them a form of direct action involving considerable
sacrifice and ensuring success if such direct action was largely taken
up by the public. Non-co-operation was the only dignified and
constitutional form of such direct action. For it is the right
recognised from times immemorial of the subject to refuse to assist a
ruler who misrules.
At the same time I admit that non-co-operation practised by the mass of
people is attended with grave risks. But, in a crisis such as has
overtaken the Mussalmans of India, no step that is unattended with large
risks, can possibly bring about the desired change. Not to run some
risks now will be to court much greater risks if not virtual destruction
of Law and Order.
But there is yet an escape from non-co-operation. The Mussalman
representation has requested your Excellency to lead the agitation
yourself, as did your distinguished predecessor at the time of the South
African trouble. But if you cannot see your way to do so, and
non-co-operation becomes a dire necessity, I hope that your Excellency
will give those who have accepted my advice and myself the credit for
being actuated by nothing less than a stern sense of duty.