20th-century-in-india

"The Nehru-Liaqat Pact of 1950, concluded with Pak Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan amid mass killing of Hindus in East Bengal, prevents the Government o fIndia from any form of interference when Hindus are maltreated in Pakistan and its partial successor state Bangladesh."

"[Nehru] himself (and the entire secularist establishment till today) reneged on his duty to defend the non-Muslims surviving in the Islamic state which he had helped to create. In the Nehru-Liaqat Pact of 1950, he had given up every right to interfere on behalf of the minorities in Pakistan. By effectively condoning the persecution of non-Muslims in Pakistan, he must accept a share in the responsibility for the retaliatory tribal violence which killed Rasschaert."

"During the proceedings of the Second Round Table Conference in the year 1931, Gandhi circulated a memorandum, in the second session of the Conference, which demanded that the new Constitution should include a guarantee to the communities concerned, of protection of their culture, language, script, education, profession, and practice of religion and religious endowments, personal law, political, and other rights of minority communities. His views found their place in the rights relating to religion and in the cultural and educational Rights in the Constitution of Independent India."

"“Girls abducted from Mirpur side are sold in Jhelum city at Rs. 10 or 20 each. The local police refuses to interfere on the ground that the girls were not removed from the Punjab and also they express their helplessness because of the attitude of the armed Pathans possessing these girls. I am bringing this to the notice of the West Punjab Government but I am afraid nothing would come out of it and in our helplessness all these girls shall have to stand hardships for all their lives and suffer misery.” According to the information received most of the girls abducted from Jammu and Kashmir States and some of the girls abducted from Gujranwala, Jhelum, Mianwali, Jhang and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are taken to the North-west Frontier Province and from there to the tribal territory. At Mansera and some other places (North-West Frontier) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold."

"The kidnapping of young women and the treatment to which they were subjected constitute a sordid chapter in the history of human relations. Poor innocent girls, young married women, sometimes with infants in their arms, were forcibly taken away to distant places. They were molested and raped, passed on from man to man. bartered and sold like cheap chattel. Some- times it was impossible to trace their whereabouts. When representatives of the Indian Dominion went to recover them they were concealed and denied access to their relations. Large numbers of them, when recovered, were brought to a refugee camp at Kunjah. Conditions in this camp beggar description. A young woman of 21, describing her experiences, said: “I stayed in the camp for two months. Camp life was very miserable. We were given chappatis full of lime and were constantly molested by the soldiers, Maulvis used to come and preach to us against the Indian Dominion...They told us that we would go to heaven sf we lived with them They said that it was foolish on our part to go to India... A party of young women who were brought to the camp said “We reached the camp on the fifteenth day It was nothing less than hell The flour was mixed with lime and drinking water smelt so foul that it made us ill to drink it... Sick children were given wrong medicines and some of them became blind and died as the result of the poisons given to them. The military guards brought their friends at night and molested the young girls in the camp. They pinched our breasts and made indecent jokes , those who were pregnant were shot down... A young girl of 14 or 15 sleeping by my side was dragged away and raped. When she resisted they kicked her Her face in the morning looked as if it had been scratched by a knife”"

"“On 4-10-47, a small caravan of about fifteen non-Muslims tried to cross the bridge Ravi from Pakistan to this side. They were entrapped by the Muslim Military picket on the other side of the bridge. That caravan included four women. The male members of the caravan were murdered during the night. Our Military picket on this side of the bridge heard shrieks and cries of the victims. The Gurkha Jamadar in charge of the picket saw the women with Military (Muslim). They kept those women in their tents during the night and the military picket on our side heard their shrieks too during the night as if they were being raped. Later on those women never crossed the bridge on this side."

"The following strategy, the Report continues, was used wherever the mobs attacked: First of all minorities were disarmed with the help of local police and by giving assurances by oaths on holy Quran of peaceful intentions. After this had been done, the helpless and unarmed minorities were attacked. On their resistance having collapsed, lock breakers and looters came into action with their transport corps of mules, donkeys and camels. Then came the ‘Mujahadins’ with tins of petrol and kerosene oil and set fire to the looted shops and houses. Then there were maulvies with barbers to convert people who somehow or other escaped slaughter and rape. The barbers shaved the hair and beards and circumcised the victims. Maulvis recited kalamas and performed forcible marriage ceremonies. After this came the looters, including women and children."

"No one could predict how long this sold-off woman would remain there. These poor women were housed by the government in the Kunja camp as there was fighting going on in Kashmir. The army handed them over to us when they were useless...All 600 had been used by the Pakistani army...Pakistan's attitude was that it should be thankful that it had managed to recover so many women. Naturally, they would not admit that they had any hand in the situation the women found themselves in."

"A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot."

"When everybody had got into the train and as the engine was whistling to indicate that the train was going to start, a huge crowd of Muslims came from the side of the Mandi and factories. They were armed with rifles, chhuras, axes, barchas and other lethal weapons... The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed... The children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of the women were removed and taken away by the mob... During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained that they were being very badly used by their abductors."

"The assailants did not spare even little children. It was naked beastliness performing a devil’s dance. Children would be snatched from the hands of their parents, tossed on spears and swords, and sometimes thrown alive into the fire. Other cruelties equally horrible were perpetrated. Women’s breasts, noses and arms would he lopped off. Sticks and pieces of iron would be thrust into their private parts. Sometimes the bellies of pregnant women were ripped open and the unformed life in the womb thrown out. In some places processions of naked Hindu and Sikh women are also reported to have been taken out by the Muslims mobs. (81)... At Nara, in the tehsil of Kahuta, Sikh women and children were burnt alive, and the women were tortured in ways most devilishly ingenious and sadistic, which it is not possible for any decent human being to describe.... All this was done in village after village after the Muslims had given assurances of safety on the Koran to Hindus. Hindu women were molested and abducted. Altogether 50 villages in this tehsil were looted with arson, murder and abduction of women. Ears, noses and breasts of women were cut off, and they were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons."

"They shot everyone who couldn't recite the kalima - the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture."..."They had returned with war booty," he says. "Some had brought cattle, some horses. Most of them had brought arms, and many brought women. One Afridi tribesman walked back with two women in tow. They wept incessantly and just wouldn't stop.""

"The Punjabi Sikh and Hindu girls and Kashmiri women are proverbially beautiful, so they were in great demand in the Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East. They were sold there by the barbarian Muslim kidnappers for very high prices. These ill fated women were confined in their purchasers' harems and bound to accept concubinage"

"The trouble for the non-Muslims in general, and for the women in particular, started in March, 1947. Whatever may be the causes of the Rawalpindi and Multan riots, it is admitted that these were of terrific nature Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, aftcr visiting district Rawalpindi reported to the British Government in England, "The whole of the Hindu-Sikh part is an absolute wreck, as though it has been subjected to an air raid."2 Several Hindu and Sikh villages were wiped out. Justice Teja Singh, a member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, stated before the Commission that during the Rawalpindi riots, "A large number of people were forcibly converted, children were kidnapped, and young women abducted and openly raped."3 Though a separate number of female casualities is not available, the official figure of deaths in the district of Rawalpindi was 2,263 which was considered far below the actual numbcr.4 Thc womcn were subjected to maximum humiliation and torture. Their agony can be judged by the fact that a number of women jumped into wells to save their honour. It is as unbelievable today as it was at that time. But fortunately Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited the village on 14th March, 1947, and he was told about thc incidents of ladies jumping into wells. His staff photographer took photographs of the bottom of the well with the help of a flashlight. These photographs showed the decomposed limbs of the bodies. One copy of a photograph was given to me by late Sant Gulab Singh in whose land the well existed. He told me that his wife was the first to jump into the well. The photograph has been published in my book Shahidian."

"Usually, rape and sexual assault were invariably followed by abduction of the victimised women. These abducted women typically became domestic servants and sex slaves. Many abducted women were sold into prostitution and some, in very rare instances, were married to their abductors and later claimed to be leading happy and respectable lives."

"One Muslim member of the Legislative Assembly was said to have five hundred girls in his possession in West Punjab, while an abducted Muslim girl from a well-known family was reported to be with the Maharaja of Patiala. In West Punjab police officials, members of the Muslim League and landed magnates were involved."

"Armed Pathans, operating in bands, were perhaps the worst offenders in West Punjab, especially in the districts of the Rawalpindi division (where they were concentrated), for it was they who systematically preyed upon the refugee trains and convoys, carrying off women to be sold for as little as Rs10 or 20 to Muslim men. Non-Muslim women from Kashmir also were offered for sale in West Punjab, ending up as 'slave girls' in factories. A report from Sargodha district claimed,The Pathans brought a very large number of abducted women and children from the Kashmir front and they had been selling these like cattle and chattel. There were cases in which a woman had been sold thrice or four times. The Pathans had made this a regular trade."

"In this nefarious design, the Pakistan Government made an internal secret agreement called “Zen and Zar “with the Pathan mercenaries according to which if Mirpur city was captured, the captured women would be taken by the Pathans and the immovable property would be the share of Pakistan Government."

"There is a marked difference in the behaviour of Muslims and Sikhs towards women and children captured during this fight. While Muslims everywhere dishonoured, abducted or murdered Hindu and Sikh women and children, Sikhs never resorted to anything of which they might have reason to be ashamed. On the first day of attack, several Muslims got killed by an infuriated Sikh crowd in a locality which was at the junction of a Muslim and non-Muslim zone, not very far from the centre of the Sikh influence. More than one hundred Muslim women and children, whose menfolk had either been killed or had run away for safety, fell into the hands of the Sikhs. Sikhs kept them safe and fed them for the two or three days that the fighting lasted and all communications in the town were cut off, and later sent them under escort to the City Police Station, These women acknowledged the chivalry and courtesy of the treatment of the Sikhs towards them. (156)"

"The scale, intensity, and extent of Muslim mob violence in Kohat was so unprecedented and incomparable to anything that had happened in the past that it shook even the Imperial British Government. The Kohat Deputy Commissioner and Brigade Commander almost gave up citing helplessness against this level of determined mob barbarism."

"The Kohat tragedy formed a subject of discussion in the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. The manner in which it was treated by these three bodies throws interesting light on the way in which the communal question was looked at by different sections of Indians. Motilal Nehru, who moved the resolution on the subject in the Congress, began by saying that “in Kohat a tragedy has taken place the like of which has not been known in India for many years’', but scrupulously avoided casting any blame on any party, merely observing that "this is not the time for us to apportion the blame upon the parties concerned", though more than three months had passed since the incident. The Congress resolution deplored the incident, urged the Musalmans of Kohat to assure their Hindu brethren of full protection of their lives and property and invite them to return, advised the refugees not to return except upon any such invitation, and asked everybody to suspend judgement till a proper inquiry was made."

"The Kohat matter also took an ugly turn. Muslims were the overwhelming proportion of the population. Hindus and Sikhs had been set upon and driven out. They had been thrashed, killed, forced to undergo conversions. But to the astonishment of all, in December 1924 at the session in Bombay of the Muslim League (of all things), the till-recently president of the Congress, Maulana Mohammed Ali, moved an embellishment to what, even to begin with, was a partisan resolution. The resolution maintained that ‘the sufferings of the Hindus of Kohat are not unprovoked, but that, on the contrary, the facts brought to light make it clear that gross provocation was offered to the religious sentiments of the Mussalmans, and the Hindus were the first to resort to violence; and further that, though their sufferings were very great, and they are deserving of the sympathy of all Mussalmans, it was not they alone that suffered...’"

"The most serious outbreak occurred at Kohat in N. W. P. P., a predominantly Muslim area. On the morning of 9 September, 1924. the Muslims looted and burnt all the shops of the Hindus. On the night of 10 September the Muslims made a number of breaches in the mud walls of the city, and committed wholesale plunder and incendiarism, the alleged provocation being firing from some Hindu houses in self-defence. Before noon there were wide- spread fires in Hindu quarters. The Deputy Commissioner and Brigade Commander were unable to prevent the raid, and apprehending that theie was a grave danger of who- lesale slaughter of the Hindus, removed them to the Cantonment. Later on the Hindus removed to Rawalpindi. Gandhi, who made a joint inquiry into the incident with Shaukat Ali, observed : On 10 September, "the Muslim fury knew no bounds. Destruction of life and property, in which the Constabulary freely partook, which was witnessed by the officials and which they could have prevented, was general. Had not the Hindus been with- drawn from their places and taken to the Cantonment, not many would have lived Even some Khilafat volunteers, whose duty it was to protect the Hindus, and regard them as their own kith and kin, neglected their duty, and not only joined in the loot but also took part in the previous incitement.""

"The relations between the two communities were strained throughout 1923-24. But in no locality did this tension produce such tragic consequences as in the city of Kohat. The immediate cause of the trouble was the publication and circulation of a pamphlet containing a virulently anti-Islamic poem. Terrible riots broke out on the 9th and 10th of September 1924, the total casualties being about 155 killed and wounded... As a result of this reign of terror the whole Hindu population evacuated the city of Kohat..."

"The Kohat riots from 9th September 1924 onwards deserve special mention, for they sent waves of shudder throughout the country. Pattabhi Sitaramayya wrote: ‘“‘The Kohat riots really broke the backbone of India.’’ Hindus were just five per cent of the population of Kohat, a small town in N.W.F.P. As many as 150 Hindus were murdered. The entire Hindu population had to seek shelter in Rawalpindi-320 km away. The terrible death dance of murder, rape, loot, abduction, etc., let loose on the Hindus there made Gandhiji, accompanied by Shaukat Ali, visit Rawalpindi."

"Left Delhi on the 3rd morning. Kohat was the only subject discussed at Hakimji’s residence right up to 10.30 p.m. on the preceding night. Dr Ansari and Hakimji (Ajmal Khan) held the view that the separate inquiry reports were best left unpublished. But Motilalji Nehru strongly opposed. ‘That’s impossible. The public was certain to expect the publication of the Inquiry Committee’s findings and it is incumbent upon us to satisfy it.’ It was at last decided to publish the reports, but with some changes. Shaukat Ali accompanied us in the train up to Sawai Madhopur on the 3rd morning to make them. Bapu first revised Shaukat Ali’s report. He kept his every view intact, but cancelled only unnecessary repetitions. Shaukat Ali accepted the deletions. His last paragraph was a little clumsy and Bapu rewrote it for him. Bapu then began to amend his own report. Shaukat Ali vehemently insisted that Bapu must drop the comparison with (Gen.) Dyer, the paragraph showing Bapu’s reasons for his blaming Muslims and the sentence that it was, by and large, not the Muslim community that had suffered but the Hindus. Bapu slashed all that. I protested, though not strongly, against all those incisions and said that that mind itself was vitiated which could not bear the statement of even bare facts. ‘But what else can be done?,’ Bapu rejoined, ‘that is the only way to change his attitude. Moreover, he too has conceded much.’"

"Never do anything in a hurry. The resolution of Zafarali Khan is really better than yours. You have meant well but you have done badly. Your resolution reads as if Hindus richly deserved what they got. You state as facts that provocation was from Hindus, that violence too was commenced by them. You state that the Hindu suffering was great, (but) the Hindus were not the only ones to suffer, meaning thereby that both suffered almost equally or if not equally, certainly not so much as to call for any special mention. The resolution, after recording its emphatic findings on the main facts, asks the public to suspend its judgment on the details of the allegations of the Government. Does it not follow that the Government version being true on the main facts, their finding on the details is likely to be true? If all parties are agreed on the main facts, is it worthwhile asking for a Commission on details? You make the League ask the Mussalmans to invite the Hindus to go to Kohat and to settle their differences with the Mussalmans honourably and amicably. This means that the Hindus are the offenders in the main. But if such is your opinion, then again why a Commission? You then proceed to invite the Hindus not to provoke and ask the Mussalmans not to resort to violence. This means that there was extraordinary provocation by the Hindus. The fact is that the kind of language used in the vile verses has become the normal condition of the Punjab. You might have said that such language was unpardonable for Kohat. Your condemnation of the Government coming at the end and in the language it is couched has no force whatsoever and you have made no case for condemnation either. Zafarali Khan’s resolution is in every way much superior to yours, and far less offensive. You have erred grievously in that you have made no mention of the destruction of temples. How I wish you had remained silent: I have read the resolution again and again and the more I read it the more I dislike it. Yet you must hold on to it, if you don’t feel that it is wrong. What I want to do is to act on your heart and thereon (on) your head. I am not going to desert you whilst I have faith in you. The resolution is a revelation of the working of your mind. However crude the language, it shows your belief. I must, therefore, put forth greater effort still and see if I cannot bring you to a correcter perspective. You should not be ignorant of Hindu opinion on these matters. You must not say that Hindus even denied provocation and initial violence. They may be wrong in so believing, but seeing that they believe so, you should not have stated what you have. If you could not have the resolution like the Congress one, you might have protested and voted against it without dividing the League."

"The Kohat tragedy formed a subject of discussion in the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. The manner in which it was treated by these three bodies throws interesting light on the way in which the communal question was looked at by different sections of Indians. Motilal Nehru, who moved the resolution on the subject in the Congress, began by saying that “in Kohat a tragedy has taken place the like of which has not been known in India for many years’*, but scrupulously avoided casting any blame on any party, merely observing that “this is not the time for us to apportion the blame upon the parties concerned**, though more than three months had passed since the incident. The Congress resolution deplored the incident, urged the Musalmans of Kohat to assure their Hindu brethren of full protection of their lives and property and invite them to return, advised the refugees not to return except upon any such invitation, and asked everybody to suspend judgement till a proper inquiry was made. The Muslim League repeated all these but added the following : “The All-India Muslim League feels to be its duty to place on record that the sufferings of Kohat Hindus are not unprovoked, but that on the contrary the facts brought to light make it clear that grosss provocation was offered to the religious sentiments of the Mussulmans and the Hindus were the first to resort to violence. The Hindu Mahasabha “expressed grief at the loss sustained by Hindus and Muslims in life and property, the burning of about 473 houses and shops, the desecration or destruction of many temples or Gurudwaras which compelled the entire Hindu and Sikh population to leave Kohat and to seek shelter in Rawalpindi and other places in the Punjab.’’ Lala Lajpat Rai, speaking on the motion, asked “whether, even admitting that the Hindus were at faulr, their fault was such that it deserved the punishment inflicted on them.” All the three resolutions blamed the Government for the tragedy and urged the necessity of an independent public inquiry. A joint inquiry was made by Gandhi and Shaukat Ali, and as they differed on essential points, both issued individual statements. There was not much difference about the atrocities committed by the Muslims. Shaukat Ali exonerated them on the ground that the burning and firing on the 9th were quite accidental and the Hindus gave the first provocation on the 10th. Gandhi did not endorse this view and observed : “During these days temples including a Gurudwara were damaged and idols broken. There were numerous forced conversions, or conversions so-called, i.e. conversions pretended for safety. Two Hindus at least were brutally murdered because they ( the one certainly and the other inferentially ) would not accept Islam. The so-called conversions are thus described by a Musalman witness. ‘The Hindus came and asked to have their Sikhas cut and sacred threads destroyed, or the Musalmans whom they approached for protection said they could be protected only by declaring themselves Musalmans and removing the signs of Hinduism’. I fear the truth is bitterer than is put here if I am to credit the Hindu version”. Shaukat Ali admitted the murder of two Hindus for refusing to embrace Islam and the pretended conversions which, he added, were really no conversion at all. But he was not satisfied that there were any forced conversions to Islam."

"For a very long lime the courts in British India have held without reservation and qualification that under all circumstances apostasy automatically and immediately puts an end to the married slate without any judicial proceedings, any decree of court, or any other ceremony. That has been the position which was taken up by the Courts. Now, there are three distinct views of Hanafi jurists on the point. One view which is attributed to the Bokhara jurists... The Bokhara jurists say that marriage is dissolved by apostasy. In fact, I should be more accurate in saying—I have got authority for that—that it is, according to the Bokhara view, not dissolved but suspended. The marriage is suspended but the wife is then kept in custody or confinement till she repents and embraces Islam again, and then she is induced to marry the husband, whose marriage was only suspended and not put an end to or cancelled. The second view is that on apostasy a married Muslim woman ceases to be the wife of her husband but becomes his bond-woman. One view, which is a sort of corollary to this view, is that she is not necessarily the bond-woman of her ex-husband but she becomes the bond-woman of the entire Muslim community and anybody can employ her as a bond-woman. The third view, that of the Ulema of Samarkand and Balkh, is that the marriage lie is not affected by such apostasy and that the woman still continues to be the wife of the husband. These are the three views."

""Apostasy was considered by Islam, as by any other religion, as a great crime, almost amounting to a crime against the State. It is not novel for the religion of Islam to have that provision. If we look up the older Acts of any nation, we will find that similar provision also exists in other Codes as well. For the male a severer punishment was awarded, that of death, and for females, only the punishment of imprisonment was awarded. This main provision was that because it was a sin, it was a crime, it was to be punished, and the woman was to be deprived of her status as wife. It was not only this status that she lost, but she lost all her status in society; she was deprived of her properly and civil rights as well. But we find that as early as 1850 an Act was passed here, called the Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850, Act XXI of 1850. . . ."

"To what length this concern for the conservation of their forces can lead the Hindus and the Musalmans cannot be better illustrated than by the debates on the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act VIII of 1939 in the Central Assembly. Before 1939, the law was that apostasy of a male or a female married under the Muslim law ipso facto dissolved the marriage, with the result that if a married Muslim woman changed her religion, she was free to marry a person professing her new religion. This was the rule of law enforced by the courts, throughout India at any rate, for the last 60 years."

"Be that as it may, the legal arguments had nothing to do with the real motive underlying the change. The real motive was to put a stop to the illicit conversion of women to alien faiths, followed by immediate and hurried marriages with someone professing the faith she happened to have joined, with a view to locking her in the new community and preventing her from going back to the community to which she originally belonged. The conversion of Muslim woman to Hinduism and of Hindu woman to Islam, looked at from a social and political point of view, cannot but be fraught with tremendous consequences. It means a disturbance in the numerical balance between the two communities. As the disturbance was being brought about by the abduction of women, it could not be overlooked. For woman is at once the seed-bed of, and the hothouse for, nationalism in a degree that man can never be./12/ These conversions of women and their subsequent marriages were there-fore regarded, and rightly, as a series of depredations practised by Hindus against Muslims and by Muslims against Hindus, with a view to bringing about a change in their relative numerical strength. This abominable practice of woman-lifting had become as common as cattle-lifting, and with its obvious danger to communal balance, efforts had to be made to stop it. ... Thus what underlies the change in law is the desire to keep the numerical balance and it is for this purpose that the rights of women were sacrificed."

"BJP leader V.K. Malhotra has aptly ridiculed this facile allegation in a speech in the Lok Sabha: "The country has witnessed 2500 riots between 1950 and 1990. Godhra city had communal riots in 1947, 52, 59, 61, 65, 67, 72, 74, 80, 83, 89 and 90. Were all of these caused by the Rathyatra ?" He pointed out that those who were painting a grim picture of the minorities being massacred, were doing a great disservice to the country and giving it a bad name. The fact was that 90% of the people killed in Hyderabad were Hindus. (...)"

"An unusual feature of the current clashes was the heavy toll inflicted on the majority community, forcing many of them to flee their hearth and homes south of the Musi, which were immediately occupied by members of the minority community... House-to-house searches in the [predominantly Muslim] old city yielded a rich haul of weapons, imported from the north."

"Police were finding it difficult to enforce curfew in the lanes and by-lanes of the [predominantly Muslim] Old City. People on the roof- tops were pelting stones on the police. On Friday morning, about 200 people gathered... at around 11a.m. and began pelting stones at the houses of members belonging to one [i.e.Hindu] community, besides indulging in stabbing, looting and torching houses and shop. to quell this mob, police opened fire...resulting in the death of one person and injuries to three others. In view of the seriousness of the situation, police clamped curfew at around 12.30 p.m... By this time, nearly 15 persons had been stabbed."

"The violence was, according to press reports, started by revenge action of Muslims against the police, for killing an influential Muslim goonda, Mohammed Sardar. This man was a convicted murderer, and while free on parole, he had killed a policeman, and gone underground. When the police caught up with him, he was killed in an exchange of firing. This encounter triggered a wave of stabbing by people belonging to the same community as this Mohammed. ... In the Hyderabad riots, Muslims attacked a Harijan quarter, primarily because they expected these Harijans to be unorganized and weak."

"Others who opposed the Khilafat movement argued that the mobilized Muslims might invite the Afghans to invade India, in which case the country might be subjugated to Muslim Raj from British Raj. Chittaranjan Das wrote to Lala Lajpat Rai that he did not fear the seven crore Muslims of India, but ‘the seven crores of Hindustan, plus the armed hordes of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Turkey will be irresistible’ and posed a grave national threat to India."

"Bipin Chandra Pal opined that this emergent pan-Islamism that was catching up in India too was ‘the common enemy of Indian nationalism in its truest and broadest sense’."

"Freedom fighter and eminent journalist cum advocate Sri. C. Narayana Pillai in one of his texts wrote like this in 1973. “The dismal failure of all attempts made by Mahatma Gandhi for the freedom and unity of the nation with Hindu Muslim amity was caused by the Moplah rebellion of Malabar in addition to paving the way for division of the nation. Discarding all advices and protesting voices from his coworkers and other highly placed political luminaries, Gandhiji included Khilafat in the action program of Congress with a mistaken notion that it will eventually lead to long lasting Hindu Muslim friendship. Inclusion of a sectionalist agenda like Khilafat in the Congress action plan was a grave blunder, which has since been acknowledged generally by all serious thinkers on the subject.”"

"As to regarding the Khilafat as a matter of life and death to the Muslims, events were soon to prove that it was a rhetoric or hyperbole and can hardly be regarded as a serious fact; for in less than five years the Muslims of Turkey usurped the rights of the Caliph to a far greater degree than the British ever did, and not a leaf stirred in the whole Muslim world outside India. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to believe that the Muslims of India were the only true followers of the Prophet or the most genuine champions of the cause of Islam, it is difficult to understand or explain the weight they attached to the Khilafat question, save on the theory that it was a phase of that Pan-Islamic movement to which the Indian Muslims looked forward as the only guarantee against the influence of a Hindu majority with whom faith had linked them in India. ... ‘by his own admission that the Khilafat question was a vital one for Indian Muslims, Gandhi himself admitted in a way that they formed a separate nation; they were in India, but not of India’."

"There was another prominent fact to which I drew the attention of Mahatma Gandhi. Both of us went together one night to the Khilafat Conference at Nagpur. The Ayats (verses) of the Quran recited by the Maulanas on that occasion, contained frequent references to Jihad and killing of the Kaffirs.But when I drew his attention to this phase of the Khilafat movement, Mahatmaji smiled and said, ' They are alluding to the British Bureaucracy '. In reply I said that it was all subversive of the idea of non-violence and when the reversion of feeling came the Mahomedan Maulanas would not refrain from using these verses against the Hindus."

"I have no intention of offending anybody’s susceptibilities, but if the existing conditions are properly analyzed, it will be seen that sectarianism and narrow-minded bigotry have been very much strengthened within the last three years. The Khilafat movement has particularly strengthened it among the Mohammedans, and it has not been without its influence and reaction on the Hindus and Sikhs . . . it was unfortunate that the Khilafat movement in India should have taken its stand on a religious, rather than political basis . . . it was still more unfortunate that Mahatma Gandhi and leaders of the Khilafat movement should have brought religion into such a prominence in connection with a movement which was really, and fundamentally, more political than religious. .... ‘Indian Muslims are more pan-Islamic and exclusive than the Muslims of any other country of the globe, and that fact alone makes the creation of a united India more difficult than would otherwise be.’"

"The Khilafat question will not recur for another hundred years. If the Hindus wish to cultivate eternal friendship with the Mussalmans, they must perish with them in the attempt to vindicate the honour of Islam."

"The Khilafat Movement was a tragicomical mistake, aiming at the restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate against which the Arabs had risen in revolt and which the Turks were dissolving, a process completed with the final abolition of the institution of the Caliphate in 1924. It was a purely retrograde and reactionary movement, and more importantly for Indian nationalism, it was an intrinsically anti-nationalist movement pitting, specifically, Islamic interests against secular and non-Muslim interests. Gandhi made the mistake of hubris by thinking he could reconcile Khilafatism and Indian nationalism, and he also offended his Muslim allies (who didn’t share his commitment to non-violence) by calling off the agitation when it turned violent. The result was even more violence, with massive Hindu-Muslim riots replacing the limited instances of anti-British attacks, just as many level-headed freedom fighters had predicted. Gandhiji failed to take the Khilafat Movement seriously whether at the level of principle or of practical politics, and substituted his own imagined and idealized reading of the Khilafat doctrine for reality."

"Early in 1920 the Indian Muslims started a vigorous agitation to bring pressure upon Britain to change her policy towards Turkey. The success of this movement, known as Khilafat movement, was assured by the large measure of sympathy and support which the Muslims received from Gandhi."

"Annie Besant characterized Gandhi’s 1920 mass agitation (Non-Cooperation, co-opted into the Khilafat Movement) as ‘a channel of hatred’."

"I could find no explanation worthy of the Mahatma for his decision to accept leadership of the khilafat movement. The decision, it seemed to me, revealed the great man's proverbial Achilles' heel."

"It has been one of the many injuries inflicted on India by the encouragement of the Khilafat crusade, that the inner Muslim feeling of hatred against “unbelievers” has sprung up, naked and unashamed (…) We have seen revived, as guide in practical politics, the old Muslim religion of the sword (…) In thinking of an independent India, the menace of Mohammedan rule has to be considered."

"Gandhi .... even advocated that he ‘would gladly ask for postponement of Swaraj activity if thereby we could advance the interest of the Khilafat’."

"Gandhi felt that the Muslim demand about the Khilafat was just and he was bound to render all possible help to secure the due fulfilment of the pledge that the British Prime Minister had given to the Indian Muslims during the War. In the letter which Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy immediately after the War Conference at Delhi, he particularly stressed the Khilafat question. Henceforth Gandhi missed no opportunity of pressing upon the Government of India the need of a just settlement of the Khilafat question... He even went to the length of placing the Khilafat problem on the same level of political importance as the Home Rule for India."