Non-Cooperation Movement and Khilafat Aandolan (1919–1922)

The years 1919–22 mark the first genuinely mass phase of India's national movement. Two distinct agitations — the Khilafat movement (rooted in pan-Islamic grievances over Turkey) and the Non-Cooperation Movement (rooted in India's political betrayal by Britain) — converged into a single, coordinated programme of non-violent resistance under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership.

Their convergence was not accidental. It was built on a decade of Hindu-Muslim political rapprochement (the Lucknow Pact, 1916), the shared outrage over the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and Gandhi's strategic vision of using the Khilafat grievance as a vehicle for mass, united anti-colonial mobilisation.

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Structural Grievances (Post-WWI)

• Economic distress: Post-war inflation, falling industrial output, rising rents and taxes hit every section of society simultaneously — industrialists, workers, peasants, artisans, and the educated middle class alike.
• Political betrayal: Indian cooperation in WWI had generated hope for significant political rewards. Instead, the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1919) were widely dismissed as token and unworkable, particularly the dyarchy scheme.
• Repression and its cover-up: The Rowlatt Act, the declaration of martial law in Punjab, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre exposed British brutality. The Hunter Committee's exoneration of Dyer — compounded by the House of Lords passing a motion in his support and the Morning Post raising £30,000 for him — inflamed Indian opinion across all communities.

The Hindu-Muslim Unity Context

Three developments had prepared the ground for joint political action:

1. Lucknow Pact (1916): Congress and Muslim League agreed on a joint scheme of constitutional reforms, establishing a precedent for cooperation.
2. Rowlatt agitation: Brought Hindus and Muslims into a shared struggle for the first time at mass scale.
3. Rise of radical Muslim nationalism: Leaders like Mohammad Ali, Shaukat Ali, Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Hasan Imam had displaced the conservative Aligarh school within the Muslim League. These younger leaders favoured militant nationalism and active anti-imperialism.

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Origins

Indian Muslims, like Muslims globally, regarded the Ottoman Sultan as the Khalifa — the spiritual head of the Islamic world. During WWI, Turkey had allied with Germany and Austria against the British. When the war ended, the British adopted a punitive policy toward Turkey — the sultanate was dismembered and the Khalifa's authority stripped.

Indian Muslim Demands

Indian Muslims demanded that: (i) the Khalifa's control over Muslim holy places be preserved, and (ii) sufficient territory be left with the Khalifa after post-war territorial settlements.

Organisational Response

In early 1919, a Khilafat Committee was formed under the Ali brothers (Shaukat Ali and Muhammad Ali), Maulana Azad, Ajmal Khan, and Hasrat Mohani. Initially the committee limited itself to meetings, petitions, and deputations. Later, a militant wing emerged demanding active non-cooperation.

At the All India Khilafat Conference in Delhi (November 1919), the committee called for a boycott of British goods and declared that if the post-war peace treaty was unfavourable to Turkey, all cooperation with the government would cease.

Gandhi's role: Gandhi was the president of the All India Khilafat Committee. He saw in the Khilafat issue an unparalleled opportunity to cement Hindu-Muslim unity and launch a mass non-cooperation campaign against British rule.

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Internal Debate

The Congress was not unanimously in favour. Tilak opposed an alliance over a religious issue and was sceptical of satyagraha as a political instrument. Some leaders, including C.R. Das, opposed the boycott of legislative councils. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, G.S. Kharpade, and B.C. Pal left the Congress entirely, preferring constitutional methods. Surendranath Banerjea founded the Indian National Liberal Federation and receded from mainstream politics.

Why Congress Ultimately Agreed

• It was a rare opportunity to cement Hindu-Muslim unity and bring Muslim masses into the national movement.
• The Congress was losing faith in constitutional struggle, especially after the Punjab atrocities and the partisan Hunter Committee report.
• The masses were visibly eager to act — the leadership sensed a revolutionary groundswell and felt it better to channel it than to be left behind.

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February 1920: Gandhi announced that the Khilafat question had overtaken the Punjab and constitutional issues, and threatened a non-cooperation campaign if peace terms failed to satisfy Indian Muslims.

May 1920: The Treaty of Sèvres was signed — it completely dismembered Turkey, confirming Indian Muslim fears.

June 1920: An all-party conference at Allahabad approved a programme of boycotting schools, colleges, and law courts, and asked Gandhi to lead it.

August 1, 1920: Tilak died (this was significant — his death removed the most prominent sceptic of the movement from the Congress arena).

August 31, 1920: The Khilafat Committee formally launched non-cooperation.

September 1920 — Calcutta Special Session: Congress approved the non-cooperation programme with the twin goals of redressing Khilafat and Punjab wrongs and establishing swaraj. The programme included:

• Boycott of government schools and colleges
• Boycott of law courts (justice to be dispensed through panchayats)
• Boycott of legislative councils
• Boycott of foreign cloth; promotion of khadi and hand-spinning
• Renunciation of government titles and honours
• Second phase: mass civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes

December 1920 — Nagpur Session (INC):

1. Non-cooperation programme was endorsed.
2. Crucial change in Congress creed: The goal shifted from "attainment of self-government through constitutional means" to "attainment of swaraj through peaceful and legitimate means" — explicitly committing Congress to extra-constitutional mass struggle.
3. Organisational restructuring: A Congress Working Committee (CWC) of 15 members was created; provincial Congress committees were reorganised on a linguistic basis; ward committees were established; entry fee was reduced to four annas.
4. Gandhi declared that if the programme were fully implemented, swaraj would arrive within a year.

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Students

Thousands left government schools and colleges, joining roughly 800 national institutions that emerged during this period: Jamia Millia (at Aligarh), Kashi Vidyapeeth, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, and Bihar Vidyapeeth. Key organisers included Acharya Narendra Dev, C.R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Zakir Hussain, and Subhash Bose (who became principal of the National College, Calcutta).

Lawyers

Prominent lawyers who suspended their legal practice: Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, C.R. Das, C. Rajagopalachari, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Vallabhbhai Patel, Asaf Ali, T. Prakasam, and Rajendra Prasad.

Trade and Economy

Foreign cloth imports fell by half. Public bonfires of foreign cloth were held. Shops selling foreign liquor and toddy were picketed. The Tilak Swaraj Fund was oversubscribed, collecting one crore rupees.

Peasants

Participation was massive and often transcended the Congress's intention. In Bihar, caste tensions (lower castes claiming the sacred thread) merged with Non-Cooperation. Peasants turned against both landlords and traders — using the movement to express accumulated economic and social grievances against Indian oppressors as well as British colonial rule.

Women

Women shed purdah, donated ornaments to the Tilak Fund, and actively participated in picketing outside shops selling foreign cloth and liquor.

Muslims

The movement achieved something historically remarkable — two-thirds of those arrested in many regions were Muslims. Gandhi addressed Muslim audiences from mosques and was even allowed (as the only non-blind-folded male) to speak at gatherings of Muslim women.

Regional Struggles

The spirit of the movement generated allied local agitations:

• Awadh Kisan Movement (UP) — peasant revolt against landlords
• Eka Movement (UP) — peasant solidarity movement
• Mappila Revolt (Malabar, 1921) — Muslim peasant uprising against Hindu landlords, which eventually turned communal
• Sikh Gurdwara Reform agitation (Punjab) — against corrupt mahants controlling Sikh shrines
• Tea plantation and railway strikes (Assam) — J.M. Sengupta was a prominent leader

In November 1921, the visit of the Prince of Wales to India was met with strikes and demonstrations.

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Talks between Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Reading broke down in May 1921. The government accused the Ali brothers of inciting violence (after they called on Muslims to resign from the army in July 1921; they were arrested in September). Gandhi saw this as an attempt to drive a wedge between him and the Khilafat leaders and refused to moderate his position.

By December 1921, the government moved decisively — volunteer corps were declared illegal, public meetings were banned, press censorship was imposed, and most leaders except Gandhi were arrested.

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The Incident (February 5, 1922)

In the sleepy village of Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district (United Provinces), police beat up a volunteer leader campaigning against liquor sales and high food prices and then opened fire on a protest crowd that had gathered before the police station. The enraged crowd torched the police station. Policemen who tried to escape were hacked to death and thrown into the flames. Twenty-two policemen were killed.

Gandhi's Decision

Gandhi, who had already been disturbed by the increasingly violent trend of the movement, immediately announced its withdrawal. The Congress Working Committee met at Bardoli in February 1922 and resolved to halt all law-breaking activity and redirect energy to constructive work — promotion of khadi, national schools, temperance, Hindu-Muslim unity, and anti-untouchability campaigns.

Reactions to Withdrawal

Most senior leaders — C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Subhash Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru — expressed bewilderment and disagreement. Subhash Bose called it "nothing short of a national calamity." They were all in prison at the time and could not intervene.

In March 1922, Gandhi was arrested and sentenced to six years in jail. His court statement became legendary.

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Gandhi's own reasoning: Non-violence was the soul of Satyagraha. A movement that turned violent would: (a) give the colonial government moral authority to use state force against protesters; (b) destroy the moral credibility that was the movement's greatest weapon; (c) betray all those who had risked their lives on the faith of non-violence.

Movement fatigue: No movement can sustain peak intensity indefinitely. The government had shown no inclination to negotiate.

Khilafat cause dissolved: In November 1922, Mustafa Kemal Pasha's nationalist revolution in Turkey stripped the Sultan of political power. Turkey became a secular republic — women were granted extensive rights, education was nationalised, and a European legal system was adopted. In 1924, the caliphate was formally abolished. The original grievance of the Khilafat movement ceased to exist.

Marxist interpretation: Gandhi and Congress leadership channelled a genuinely revolutionary mass movement into "safe" constitutional boundaries. The withdrawal came precisely when the masses were taking initiative — suggesting that the Congress leadership feared losing control more than it feared colonial repression.

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• First true mass movement: For the first time, every section of Indian society — peasants, artisans, students, women, traders, urban poor, Muslims, Hindus — participated in a sustained national struggle.
• Permanent politicisation: Nationalist sentiment penetrated every corner of the country. The masses permanently lost their fear of colonial rule.
• Two myths demolished: Colonial rule rested on the myth that it was (i) beneficial to Indians and (ii) invincible. The first had been challenged by moderate economic critics; the second was now shattered by mass Satyagraha.
• Organisational consolidation: The linguistic reorganisation of Congress provincial committees, the creation of the CWC, and the reduction of entry fees made Congress a genuinely mass organisation rather than an elite club.
• Communal ambiguity: The movement achieved remarkable Hindu-Muslim unity in the short term but also "communalised" national politics by anchoring Muslim participation in a religious (pan-Islamic) issue rather than in secular nationalist consciousness. The national leadership failed to secularise Muslim political identity — a failure that would have long-term consequences.
• Khilafat's double irony: The cause that unified Hindus and Muslims in India was rendered irrelevant by secular reforms within Turkey itself.

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• GS Paper I — Modern History: Directly addresses how Gandhi transformed the Congress from an elite body into a mass organisation; how communal unity was achieved and its limits.
• Nationalism and Colonialism: The movement demonstrates both the power and the vulnerability of non-violent mass politics under colonial conditions — the state can always provoke or wait for violence.
• Social Change: The inclusion of peasants, women, artisans, and tribals marks a qualitative shift in who "does" politics. Gender relations were visibly disrupted.
• Communalism and Secularism: The Khilafat alliance raised fundamental questions about whether religious identity can serve as a bridge toward secular nationalism — a debate that remains unresolved in Indian historiography.
• Continuity and Change: The Nagpur session's change in Congress creed (from "constitutional means" to "peaceful and legitimate means") is a pivotal moment of institutional change in Indian political history.
• Regional Movements: The Mappila Revolt, Awadh Kisan Movement, and Eka Movement show how national movements intersect with, and are transformed by, local agrarian and communal realities.

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• Chauri Chaura location: It is in Gorakhpur district, United Provinces (now UP) — not Bihar, not Bengal.
• Date of Chauri Chaura: February 5, 1922 — not February 1 (that was Gandhi's Bardoli ultimatum date).
• Tilak's death: August 1, 1920 — he died the day before the Non-Cooperation formally launched (August 31, 1920). Do not confuse with the Nagpur session.
• Treaty of Sèvres vs Treaty of Lausanne: The Treaty of Sèvres (May 1920) dismembered Turkey, triggering the movement. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) revised these terms after Turkey's military victories under Kemal Pasha. UPSC occasionally tests which treaty is associated with which event.
• Nagpur session change in creed: The change was from "constitutional means" to "peaceful and legitimate means" — NOT from "dominion status" to "complete independence" (that came at the Lahore session of 1929).
• CWC composition at Nagpur: 15 members (not 12, not 21).
• Entry fee reduction at Nagpur: Four annas (not one anna, not eight annas).
• Subhash Bose's role: He became principal of National College, Calcutta (not Bombay, not Madras).
• Khilafat Committee: Formed in early 1919 — the All India Khilafat Conference in Delhi was in November 1919 (not 1920).
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah left Congress at the Nagpur session (1920), not during the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Mappila Revolt: It is in Malabar (Kerala) — often confused with a general communal riot. It was a peasant uprising against Hindu landlords that turned communal; it is NOT the same as the Eka Movement (UP).

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• Khilafat Committee: 1919; Ali brothers, Maulana Azad, Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani.
• All India Khilafat Conference, Delhi: November 1919 — boycott of British goods announced.
• Gandhi: President of All India Khilafat Committee.
• Treaty of Sèvres: May 1920 — Turkey dismembered.
• Non-Cooperation formally launched: August 31, 1920.
• Tilak died: August 1, 1920.
• Calcutta Special Session (September 1920): Non-cooperation approved.
• Nagpur Session (December 1920): Congress creed changed; CWC (15 members) created; linguistic provincial committees; entry fee = 4 annas.
• Leaders who left Congress at Nagpur: Jinnah, Annie Besant, G.S. Kharpade, B.C. Pal.
• Surendranath Banerjea: founded Indian National Liberal Federation.
• Chauri Chaura: February 5, 1922; Gorakhpur, UP; 22 policemen killed.
• CWC Bardoli resolution: February 1922 — movement withdrawn.
• Gandhi arrested: March 1922; sentenced to 6 years.
• Caliphate abolished by Turkey: 1924.
• Mustafa Kemal Pasha: deposed Sultan, November 1922.