History · Modern History
The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements (1919–22) were India's first truly mass nationalist upsurge, uniting Hindus, Muslims, peasants, workers, and women under Gandhi's non-violent programme before the Chauri Chaura violence of February 1922 forced an abrupt withdrawal.
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.
Three developments had prepared the ground for joint political action:
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 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.
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.
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.
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:
December 1920 — Nagpur Session (INC):
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).
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.
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.
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 shed purdah, donated ornaments to the Tilak Fund, and actively participated in picketing outside shops selling foreign cloth and liquor.
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.
The spirit of the movement generated allied local agitations:
In November 1921, the visit of the Prince of Wales to India was met with strikes and demonstrations.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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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This chapter covers Background / Context, Causes: Why Did These Movements Emerge Together?, The Khilafat Issue, Congress's Decision to Support Non-Cooperation, Chronology of the Movement. It is organized as revision-ready notes followed by a linked practice quiz.
For The First Mass Struggle: Gandhi, the Khilafat, and Non-Cooperation, focus on definitions, dates, places, institutions, distinguishing features, and factual comparisons in the chapter. Then use the quiz to check recall and identify gaps.
Use the The First Mass Struggle: Gandhi, the Khilafat, and Non-Cooperation chapter headings to organize an answer framework. Connect causes, consequences, comparisons, examples, and evidence wherever the notes provide them instead of memorizing isolated facts.