In 1920, Gandhi linked a Muslim campaign to save the Ottoman Caliphate with a new Non-Cooperation Movement. For the first time, millions of Hindus and Muslims joined one mass campaign against British rule. The alliance did not last. It broke apart after violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922.
Khilafat Movement: an Indian Muslim campaign (1919-1924) to pressure Britain into preserving the Ottoman Caliph’s authority after World War I.
Non-Cooperation Movement: Gandhi’s 1920 campaign asking Indians to boycott British goods, schools, courts, and titles.
Chauri Chaura incident: a 4 February 1922 clash in a United Provinces town where a crowd burned a police station, killing the policemen trapped inside.
Contents
1What two grievances sparked the movement?
Two separate grievances built up at the same time, and Gandhi later joined them into one campaign.
- The Rowlatt Act of 1919 let the British jail Indians without trial. It sparked protest across the country.
- On 13 April 1919, British troops fired on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, killing hundreds.
- Separately, the Treaty of Sevres in August 1920 broke up the Ottoman Empire after World War I. It threatened to end the Ottoman Caliphate.
- Indian Muslims saw the Caliph as the symbolic head of the global Muslim community. His fall became a religious grievance.
- The Khilafat Movement (1919-1924) led this religious campaign. Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, the Ali brothers, headed it.
One grievance was political repression at home. The other was religious symbolism abroad. They were separate causes that happened to build at the same time.
True or False: The Khilafat Movement and the Rowlatt Satyagraha grew from the same single original grievance.
2How did the movement spread beyond Congress’s control?
Once Non-Cooperation began, local leaders carried it into places the Congress leadership had not planned for.
- In Awadh, Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi and former indentured labourer in Fiji, led peasants against talukdars over rents and unpaid labour.
- Jawaharlal Nehru toured Awadh villages from June 1920. By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha had grown to over 300 village branches.
- By 1921, peasants attacked talukdars’ houses and looted bazaars. Some invoked Gandhi’s name for actions Congress had never sanctioned.
- In Assam, tea-garden workers needed rarely-granted permission to leave under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859.
- On hearing of Non-Cooperation, thousands defied the law, believing land awaited them under “Gandhi Raj.” A railway and steamer strike stranded them, and police beat them before they reached home.
3Why did Gandhi link Khilafat to Non-Cooperation?
Gandhi deliberately tied the Khilafat cause to his new Non-Cooperation Movement, launched in 1920. It asked Indians to boycott British goods, schools, courts, and titles.
- This became the first mass movement to unite Hindus and Muslims under one shared leadership. Millions took part.
- Gandhi called it a rare chance. He said such a moment “would not appear again within a hundred years.”
- Strict non-violence set it apart from earlier, more militant forms of resistance.
Was the Hindu-Muslim alliance a lasting bond, or a tactical move against a shared target?
Some historians read it as mainly tactical: both communities had separate grievances against the same British government, and that shared target made cooperation possible. The debate matters because the alliance did not hold. Communal tensions rose again later in the 1920s, once the shared target of Non-Cooperation was gone.
4What happened at Chauri Chaura?
On 2 February 1922, local Congress and Khilafat volunteers protested high food prices at Chauri Chaura. Police beat several protesters and locked them up.
- On 4 February 1922, about 2,500 people marched toward the market to shut down a liquor shop.
- Police fired into the crowd, killing three. The furious crowd chased the police into their station and set it on fire.
- Accounts of the death toll vary. The Allahabad High Court’s own count puts 23 policemen and volunteers killed in the fire, though some summaries say 22.
- Gandhi called off Non-Cooperation on 12 February 1922, just eight days later. He held that the killings broke the movement’s pledge of non-violence.
- Some Congress leaders, including Motilal Nehru and C. R. Das, opposed the sudden withdrawal. They felt the movement was close to a breakthrough.
For Gandhi, means mattered as much as ends, even at a high political cost. The Chauri Chaura incident ended the first mass phase of Non-Cooperation.
True or False: Every Congress leader, without exception, supported Gandhi’s decision to suspend Non-Cooperation.
5How did Malaviya save 151 lives?
The Gorakhpur Sessions Court sentenced 170 of the 225 people arrested after Chauri Chaura to death.
- Madan Mohan Malaviya returned to legal practice, together with Krishna Kant Malaviya, to appeal the case.
- They argued the appeal before the Allahabad High Court in 1923.
- Their defence reduced the confirmed death sentences from 170 to just 19, saving 151 people from the gallows.
UPSC CSP 2025, General Studies Paper I, Question 73
“Who provided legal defence to the people arrested in the aftermath of Chauri Chaura incident?” (a) C. R. Das (b) Madan Mohan Malaviya and Krishna Kant (c) Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Khwaja Hasan Nizami (d) M. A. Jinnah. Answer: (b). Exams often bundle real historical figures from the same era as distractors for a specific role only one of them actually played.
6What happened at Gandhi’s sedition trial?
British police arrested Gandhi on 10 March 1922, weeks after he suspended Non-Cooperation, and charged him with sedition.
- At his Ahmedabad trial, Gandhi pleaded guilty and asked for the harshest possible punishment. He refused to fight the charge.
- Judge C. N. Broomfield still sentenced him, telling Gandhi in open court: “You are in a different category from any person I have ever tried.”
- Gandhi received a six-year sentence. He served about two years before ill health won him early release in 1924.
The trial became a moral defeat for British authority, not a victory. A judge who sentenced a man still called him exceptional, in open court.
True or False: Gandhi fought the sedition charge vigorously at his trial, denying the accusations against him.
7Why did the alliance not last?
The Khilafat cause lost its reason to exist in 1924, when Turkey’s own leader abolished the institution it had set out to protect.
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in Turkey in 1924, removing the Khilafat Movement’s religious rationale.
- This phase established Gandhi as the Congress’s dominant mass leader, a position he held through most of the freedom struggle.
- Some historians argue the abrupt suspension left mobilised masses disillusioned, feeding communal tensions later in the decade.
- Gandhi’s next major campaign was the 1930 Civil Disobedience Movement and Salt March. His final mass phase was Quit India in 1942.
UPSC CSP 2025, General Studies Paper I, Question 20
Consider the following statements in respect of the Non-Cooperation Movement: 1. The Indian National Congress declared Swaraj by legitimate and peaceful means as its objective. 2. The non-cooperation programme was to be staged in phases, escalating to civil disobedience only if Swaraj did not come within a year and the Government resorted to repression. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2. Answer: (c). The 1920 Nagpur session declared Swaraj by legitimate and peaceful means as its goal, and the programme itself was staged, escalating only if needed.
- Exam angle: Q20 tests whether you know both statements about the Non-Cooperation programme are correct, not just one.
- Exam angle: Q73 tests that real but wrong figures, such as C. R. Das or Jinnah, are common distractors for a role only Malaviya and Krishna Kant actually played.
MCQ on Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements
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