The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements (1919 to 1922)

The Non-Cooperation Movement, launched by Gandhi in 1920 along with the Khilafat agitation, was the first mass movement of the freedom struggle, and was called off after Chauri Chaura in 1922.

The Khilafat Movement

• Cause: Muslims revered the Sultan of Turkey as Khalifa (spiritual head). After Turkey lost the First World War, they feared harsh peace terms (the Treaty of Sèvres, 1920).
• Leaders: Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali (the Ali Brothers), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani, M.A. Ansari.
• The All India Khilafat Conference (Delhi, 23 November 1919) was presided over by Gandhi. He saw it as a chance for Hindu-Muslim unity.
• The Khilafat issue faded when Turkey's Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate (1924).

The decision of the Congress

• The Calcutta Special Session (September 1920), under Lala Lajpat Rai, approved the Non-Cooperation Movement. The Nagpur Session (December 1920), under C. Vijayaraghavachariar, ratified it.
• Gandhi launched it on 1 August 1920, the day Tilak died.
• The Congress changed its aim to "attainment of Swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means", reorganised along linguistic provinces, and began a four-anna membership.

Programme

Progress

• Lawyers such as C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Asaf Ali gave up practice. Students left government schools, and new institutions were set up (Jamia Millia Islamia, Gujarat Vidyapith, Kashi Vidyapith, Bihar Vidyapith).
• Foreign cloth was burned. The Prince of Wales's visit (November 1921) was boycotted.
• Peasant and tribal movements joined: Awadh Kisan Sabha, the Eka Movement, Moplahs in Malabar (1921), the Rampa revolt in Andhra, Assam tea workers, and the Akali movement.

Chauri Chaura and the withdrawal

• On 5 February 1922, a crowd at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, UP) set fire to a police station, killing 22 policemen.
• Gandhi suspended the movement on 12 February 1922 (the Bardoli resolution), as he felt that people were not ready for non-violence. Many leaders (Nehru, Bose, C.R. Das) were unhappy.
• Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition at Ahmedabad (Judge Broomfield), and sentenced to six years. He was released in February 1924 after an appendicitis operation.

Assessment

It created mass awareness, brought in peasants, workers, students and women, and made the Congress a mass party, and Hindu-Muslim unity reached its high point. But the unity weakened soon after, and the movement ended without winning its aims.