Having lived in Turkey for a few years and having admired
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk‘s rebuilding of that war torn nation into a modern Turkey,
I was always curious as to what Mustafa Kemal had to say about India. After
all, he had come eye to eye with many an Indian soldier working in the British
Army at Gallipoli and slew many (a lot of them still rest in Turkish graves)
and later hobnobbed with many an Indian Khilafat representative. This article
will lightly focus on the Kemalist approach to the Indian Khilafat movement. As
it all ended, it appeared that Mustafa Kemal had lost interest in the concept
of the Caliphate and walked away from the whole thing, leaving the Indian side
who had invested time, resources and huge amounts of money in Turkey’s support,
bewildered and shattered.
To understand all that we have to go back to a time well
before the freedom movement got into a full
The fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate,
established by the Ottoman Sultans in 1517, was therefore the period where the
Ottoman kings claimed authority of the caliph. The Caliph for practical
purposes was the supreme religious and political leader of the broad Islamic
state known as the Caliphate, and the titular ruler of the Islamic Ummah, as the
political successors to Muhammad. So what is an Ummah? For centuries, the Caliphate
represented the basis that all the Muslims of the world are equal members of a
single, global pan Islamic entity, the ummah. On one hand, the Sunni branch of
Islam stipulates that, as a head of state, a caliph should be elected by
Muslims or their representatives. On the other hand, Shia Muslims believe a
caliph should be an Imam chosen by God from the Ahl al-Bayt (the "Family
of the House", Muhammad's direct descendants). The main responsibility of
a Caliph is to oversee and protect the safety of pilgrims performing the hajj.
Needless to say, controlling the holy cities of Mecca and Medina is a
prerequisite for the Caliph.
As the World War I resulted in a defeat for the axis powers
of which Turkey was a part, the powers of the Ottoman Turks declined and their
vast holdings in Central Asia were at risk till eventually the Ottoman Empire
collapsed. Even though the victorious
Europeans decided to support the continuation of the Caliph in Turkey, the
Arabs were not too keen of Turkey’s domination in this scene (it is probably a
right time to recall the Lawrence of Arabia and his help for the Arabs). The
Sultan holding the Caliph’s position in the year 1918 was Mehmet Vahideddin VI,
the penultimate Ottoman monarch. Anyway the treaty of Versailles clipped the
Ottoman Empire and the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 resulted in many other
countries like Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt getting hived off the
Sultan’s vast Ottoman Empire. Turkish nationalists upset over the turn of
events, rejected the settlement by the Sultan Mehmet IV and his cronies.
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| Old Istanbul |
The event which really incited nationalist Turks was the Greek
landing at Smyrna (modern-day İzmir). This was a military operation by Greek
forces supported by the allies and which commenced on May 15, 1919. The action
involved landing of troops in the city of Smyrna and surrounding areas.
Violence and disorder followed with Greek troops and many Greek citizens of
Smyrna participating in these actions. The Turks soon rose in revolt in their
own nationalist movement, against proxy forces of the Allies combining Greece,
Armenia, France, Italy, and of course the British. A new government, the
Turkish Grand National Assembly was formed on 23 April 1920, in Ankara (then
known as Angora). The man who united the
Turks and headed the movement was none other than Mustafa Kemal Bey later on
known honorifically as Ataturk or the father of Turks. This new nationalist government
denounced the rule of Mehmet VI who had thrown his lot with the British.
The British started to institute a policy aimed to break
down authority in Turkey by separating the Sultan, the nationalist government,
and by pitting religious minorities in Istanbul against Muslims. On top of all
this, the new government of the puppet Sultan wishing and hoping to undermine
the Kemalists, passed a fatwa calling the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, and
demanding the death of its leaders. This as we will see was the final straw.
What about the Khilafat movement? Far away in India, the Muslims
of India had been anxious of the potential fate of the caliphate, the fate of their
religious centers and had risen in protests around 1918. The prospect of
British ascendance in Turkey and the feeling that Islamists around the world
would be humiliated started the Khilafat movement in India. The Khilafat
movement was therefore a pan-Islamic, political protest campaign launched
originally by the Muslims of British Raj to influence the British government
not to abolish the Ottoman Caliphate when such a threat loomed, following the
first world war.
The two organizations in India, The All India Khilafat
committee and the Jamiat Ulema-I hind worked hard to whip up the feelings of
Muslims all over India, and Mahatma Gandhi seeing an opportunity of getting
support from the Muslims of India for the overthrow of the British yoke by
joining the Satyagraha movement, decided to throw in his and the INC’s support
with the Khilafat leaders. Very soon, the INC and the Muslim organizations
protested together in support of the Caliph in Turkey.
Indians donated money and gold for the support of their
brethren in Turkey. In Turkey though Mustafa Kemal and his entourage expressed doubts
on the ability of the masses in India and their powers if any to sway the
British and he went on to hold that while there was much talk, no action could
really be expected from the India populace in their support.
In India agitation after agitation ensued, more monetary
collections were made and many petitions were submitted to the leery British.
They asked for three reliefs – evacuation from Constantinople, the Sultan’s
suzerainty over the holy mosques and the restoration of Ottoman Thrace
including the city of Adrianople (Edirne) and Symrna (Izmir). The Viceroy in
India Rufus Isacs or Lord reading as he was more popularly known, was largely
conciliatory and tried hard to pacify the Muslims of India. Agha Khan also
joined in support of the Khilafat movement.
But the festering problem however was that the so called
Caliph or Mehmet Vahiduddin had chosen to side with the British and the
occupying allied forces, while the nationalists under Mustafa Kemal were
against the Sultan. But naturally Mustafa Kemal was lukewarm in supporting the
Khilafathists who were trying to prop up the very Sultan who was against him
and taking the side of the occupiers of Turkey. In this confused situation
involving India, Britain, and the two factions of Turkey, stepped in yet
another player trying hard to tilt the scales, that being the Russians.
The Russians were hard at work since the inception of the
Great Game, trying to break through the buffer between them and the British India,
the buffer being none other than the NWFP or the wings of old Afghanistan. An
event in 1919 raised much alarm when Amir Habibullah, a supporter of the British
though outwardly neutral was assassinated in his tent while away hunting. He
had some weeks earlier chosen to form an alliance with the Emir of Bokhara to
resist any Soviet incursions and attempts. So it was somewhat apparent that the
Russians had engineered this assassination.
His son Amanullah supported by young Afghans who were furious
at Habibullah’s failure to rise up a against the west after uniting the
restless Muslims of Central Asia, quickly rose in revolt against the British
mounting attacks at British troops in what is known as the third Anglo Afghan
war. The British wisely sued for peace, deciding to concentrate on the
Southerly Indian rebellions with Gandhiji in the lead, but making heavy
weather. The Muslims wanted vigorous action, but the Hindus and Gandhi
supported passive revolt, and the Khilafat movement now spearheaded by the Ali
brothers, was starting to lose momentum.
Mustafa Kemal’s requirement for arms was in the meanwhile
met by Soviet Russia. According to Soviet documents, Soviet financial and war
materiel comprised supply of large numbers of rifles, machine guns, cannons, rifle
bullets, shells, patrol boats, gold ingots and over 11 million Turkish lira.
In Turkey, things had come to a boil. Anti-nationalistic
efforts by the British were bearing fruit and it was at this juncture that
Cemal Pasha of the Ittihad group reported from Kabul to Mustafa Kemal that
Afghanistan could play a pivotal role in the conflicts as the British feared a
union of the Bolsheviks with the Muslims of Turkey, Afghanistan, Central Asian
states. He suggested that Turkey use the Afghan territory to support activities
in India with himself in charge. Mustafa Kemal supported the idea. The Afghans
meanwhile signed treaties with Russia and Turkey, making the British even more
wary and Cemal Pasha was on the rise.
The Bolsheviks wanted to annex the parts of the Caucasus,
including the Democratic Republic of Armenia, which were formerly part of
Tsarist Russia. They also saw a Turkish Republic as a buffer state or possibly
a communist ally. Around this time, the British worked out an arrangement of
splitting Central Asia between them and Russia (after throwing a scare into the
Russian minds about a large Muslim confederation building up on their southern
borders) resulting in the Russians pulling out of the Asian Muslim federation.
Next to follow was Cemal Pasha’s murder in Tiblis by the Armenians. The British
then executed a final phase of the divide and rule method to bring about a
split between Mohammed Ali and Gandhiji over the publication of a letter where
Ali supporting nonviolent methods apologized to Gandhiji. Following this
intrigue, the Khilafat movement ran aground with the lack of support from the
INC and the Hindus. Violence flared, and the Moplah revolt at Malabar followed.
Meanwhile in Turkey a Khilafat leader with a claimed access
to many thousands of pounds in
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| Saghir |
As the event flared up in Angora, the British made some futile
lukewarm efforts to get Saghir freed. Presumably they wanted the hanging of an
Indian Saghir to reverberate in India and polarize the Indians against Turkey. The
British perhaps wanted to manipulate the situation and declare war on the
nationalists, but it did not quite work out that way. Nevertheless the British
made a hue and cry about Saghir a Khilafath leader being killed by Turks, the
very people the Khilafat movement was rooting for. Mustafa Kemal declared that
the proof they had unearthed proved otherwise.
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| Mustafa Kemal Ataturk |
What followed in India was anticlimactic. The Khilafat leaders
were more in support of Kemal Bey and on top of it, Maulana Azad mentioned that
Saghir was one of those unfortunate Mohamedans who had sold his conscience and
religion for some little worldly benefit. Did it mean that monetary
compensation was provided to Saghir? It is not known for sure though the trail
mentioned large amounts of 20 or 50 thousand pounds. What the leaders Mohammed
Ali and Shaukat Ali had to say about Saghir is a matter I have still not
unearthed. If they knew he was an imposter and a spy, why did they keep quiet?
(The British diplomats did record internally that Saghir was their spy and that
his hanging was a matter of fact). Mustafa Kemal went onto fight his wars with
the Greeks in Izmir and evicted them. The Canak crises was heating up and
moving in favor of Kemal Pasha. In India they rejoiced stating that Mustafa
Kemal pasha had saved the Khilafat. They now formed the Ankara legion to
support the Turks if so needed and demanded that Istanbul be turned over to
Mustafa Kemal.
But a few months later, the Grand National Assembly
abolished the sultanate in Nov 1922. Days
later the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet VI boarded a British warship and fled to Malta.
His last resort fatwa against the Kemalists had infuriated Mustafa Kemal and
made him abolish the Sulatante.
But Mustafa Kemal still wanted to retain the position of a
caliph. He stated all he wanted was to free the Caliph from the Allies and that
the person would be selected democratically. Mustafa Kemal cabled the Indian Khliafat
leader Chotani thanking the Indian Khilafat for the moral and financial support
provided thus far. Chotani replied stating that they agreed to the decision of
the Turkish national assembly. The All India Muslim league followed suit and
the Mulims and Hindus of India decided to now refocus their energies into
liberating India as Turkey and the Khilafat was in the good hands of Mustafa
Kemal.
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| Ankara 1920's |
Initially, the National Assembly seemed willing to allow a
place for the Caliphate in the new regime, agreeing to the appointment of
Mehmed's cousin Abdülmecid II as Caliph upon Sultan Mehmet's departure. But the
position had been stripped of any authority, and Abdülmecid's purely ceremonial
reign would be short lived. When Abdülmecid was declared Caliph, Mustafa Kemal
refused to allow the traditional Ottoman ceremony to take place, bluntly
declaring: The Caliph has no power or position except as a nominal figurehead. In
response to Abdülmecid's petition for an increase in his allowance, Kemal replied
“Your office, the Caliphate, is nothing
more than a historic relic. It has no justification for existence”.
At this juncture appeared the infamous Ameer Ali Agha Khan
(letter) missive insisting on increased powers for the Khalifa. Mustafa Kemal
and the assembly were starting to understand how religion would henceforth
become a contender in Turkey’s foreign policy considerations. He started to understand
how the khilafat movement was starting to get manipulated by the British. But
there were factions who wanted to abolish the Calipahate and others who wanted
to retain it and the prestigious position of Turkey as its head. In 1924, a
draft resolution to abolish the Khilafat was discussed. A major outcome was the
opinion that Turkey had no interest to rule or in influencing their fate and
that no other country had any role in influencing Turkey’s fate. The resolution
was put to vote, and passed. That ended the Khilafat of Turkey.
Britain quickly supported and lauded the divergence of
Turkey from the Islamic world stating that a secular Turkey was no longer a
threat to Britain. The Muslim Kurds of Mosul were appalled and protested. In
India Mohammed and Shaukat Ali, the leaders of the Khilafat movement were
hugely upset. Mohammed Ali made a speech blaming the Turks of abandonment and
treating India like a dirty handkerchief and discarding it after use. Shaukat
Ali wrote to Ataturk to reconsider his stance.
Mustafa Kemal replied that
Turkey’s decision was final. Shaukat asked him at least to accept a delegation
for discussions. Abdul Kalam Azad was appointed the leader of this group going
to Ankara, but the British disallowed it and would not grant him a passport.
The despondent Khilafat supporters now tried as a last
resort, by asking Mustafa Kemal to take over the mantle of Caliph himself. They
also transferred close to a million pounds of collections to Turkey and this
money became eventually the seed money which started Turkey’s Is bank.
Mustafa Kemal replied firmly that he was not interested in
becoming a Caliph and that he could not be the titular leader of the Muslims of
a country already being ruled by another emperor. He further stated that as the
British would not obey his orders, the title was just that and had no power or
purpose any longer. He argued that 8 million Turks cannot reasonably represent
the 80 million plus Muslims of other countries.
His next words nailed the coffin. He said “Gentlemen, I have
to speak plainly and explicitly. Those who are still occupied with fooling the
Muslims by the assumed giant image of the Khilafat are nothing but enemies of
Muslims, especially that of Turkey. To tie hopes to a game like this can only
be a sign of ignorance and of indolent indifference”!!!! He went onto say that
Turkey was tired and exhausted with their own struggles and could not take on
any other heavy burdens beyond their borders.
The National Assembly abolished the Caliphate on March 3,
1924. Abdülmecid was sent into exile along with the remaining members of the
Ottoman House, marking the official end of the Ottoman Caliphate. And with that
ended the role of Turkey in the Ottoman Khilafat.
Many meetings and plans followed, around discussions of whether
the Hashemite’s of Jordan or the Sauds of Saudi Arabia donning the mantle of
Caliph, but these were not fully supported by the South Asian communities who
were still rooting for a Turkish Caliph. The Khilafat movement died and Jinnah
who was against it all along, rose to limelight with his philosophy of a
separate identity and a nation for Muslims. Mecca’s custody passed on to the house
of Saud by 1925 after the Hejaz battles.
During the final years of the Khilafat movement, Mohammed
Ali was jailed and was a very sick man with advanced diabetes. Ali did attend
the round table conference of 1930, died in London in 1931 and is buried in
Jerusalem. Shaukat Ali was also arrested and jailed during those years and
later joined up with Jinnah in the Muslim league.
All this had a number of unintended effects during the 1920
decade, in Malabar the infamous 1921 revolt occurred resulting in terrible
tragedies for the populace of Malabar. In South Eastern Turkey the Kurds got
alienated and Mosul was finally ceded to Iraq, as the British continued their
machinations and string pulling behind the curtain. In India the unity between
Muslims and Hindus took a hit and as it became worse, a large number of people lost
their lives. Turkey became a secular nation and the country and the Is bank
prospered. It took another great world war, the loss of many thousand lives and
another two and a half decades for India to get independence. Pakistan remained
a friend of Turkey, while India drifted away into other spheres.
Nobody in Turkey talked about or remembered the Khilafat
movement or the support which it got at a crucial juncture from India. All they
remembered was that one Raj Kapoor acted in a glorious movie called Awara. The
Hintlis of Hindistan, which is how India is known in Turkey, became just some friendly
place in the east, home to many strange spiritual beliefs. Few enlightened
leaders like Bulent Ecevit continued Indian studies and learned the Gita and the
Gitanjali. Most Turks had no care of lands beyond their borders. When I was
shifting to Istanbul, some wizened and old people said - Oh! You are going to
Kemal Pasha’s country and some recalled their parents and the Khilafat years.
Those were the 90’s in Turkey.
Was Mustafa Kemal right? Well, from a Turkish nationalistic
point of view, he was infuriated by the inefficient and bureaucratic Ottoman
sultanate and made no bones about his contempt for them during the early part of
the second decade of the 20th century. His actions did prove right
and the sick man of Europe, as Turkey was known, did stand up and walk, to
become a modern nation though not showing robust health or cantering off at a
gallop. Many decades later, Necmettin Erbakan stirred some interest with a
variation of the Khilafat concept (but excluding Indian Muslims) once again,
but there were hardly any takers. Things are changing these days as the Turkish
nationalists are slowly moving away from a westernized, moderate and secular state
towards one increasingly swayed by religion. But that is a subject I will not
get into.
I must also confess that with this study I am now able to
conclude that Mustafa Saghir whose story I recounted some years ago and whose
fate I could not quite conclude properly, has cleared up. Saghir, the ill-fated
man, was nothing but a pawn in the whole affair, just a sacrificial goat who
was placed in the middle of that hungry and angry crowd in Angora, to be torn
apart and consumed. He was the sacrifice intended to stir up the Muslims in
India against Turkey. Perhaps he knew this all too well and as the story goes
was well compensated on the eve of his departure by the British. Poor fellow!
References
The Turkish war of Independence and the Khilafat movement –
Mim Kemal Oke
Gray wolf Mustafa Kemal – HC Armstrong
A clash of empires – Bulent Gokay
The Khilafat Movement – Gail Minault
The critical triangle India Britain and Turkey - Raj Kumar
Trivedi
Pan Islam in British Indian politics – M Naeem Qureshi
The Turkish Nationalists and the Indian Khilafathists – Ali Asghar
Khan
The Turkish revolution and the abolition of the Caliphate -
Mohammed Sadiq
Ali Brothers – Khalid Ali
Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey - Andrew
Mango
1 comments:
Highly informative.
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