"As I told you in my last letter I think Mr. Gandhi has made a
serious mistake in the Kailafat business. The Indian Mahomedans base
their demand on the assertion that their religion requires the
Turkish rule over Arabia: but when they have against them in this
matter, the Arabs themselves, it is impossible to regard the theory
of the Indian Mahomedans as essential to Islam. After all if the
Arabs do not represent Islam, who does? It is as if the German Roman
Catholics made a demand in the name of Roman Catholicism with Rome
and the Italians making a contrary demand. But even if the religion
of the Indian Mahomedans did require that Turkish rule should be
imposed upon the Arabs against their will, one could not, now-a-days,
recognise as a really religious demand, one which required the
continued oppression of one people by another. When an assurance was
given at the beginning of the war to the Indian Mahomedans that the
Mahomedan religion would be respected, that could never have meant
that a temporal sovereignty which violated the principles of
self-determination would be upheld. We could not now stand by and see
the Turks re-conquer the Arabs (for the Arabs would certainly fight
against them) without grossly betraying the Arabs to whom we have
given pledges. It is not true that the Arab hostility to the Turks
was due simply to European suggestion. No doubt, during the war we
availed ourselves of the Arab hostility to the Turks to get another
ally, but the hostility had existed long before the war. The
Non-Turkish Mahomedan subjects of the Sultan in general wanted to get
rid of his rule. It is the Indian Mahomedans who have no experience
of that rule who want to impose it on others. As a matter of fact the
idea of any restoration of Turkish rule in Syria or Arabia, seems so
remote from all possibilities that to discuss it seems like
discussing a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. I cannot conceive
what series of events could bring it about. The Indian Mahomedans
certainly could not march into Arabia themselves and conquer the
Arabs for the Sultan. And no amount of agitation and trouble in India
would ever induce England to put back Turkish rule in Arabia. In this
matter it is not English Imperialism which the Indian Mahomedans are
up against, but the mass of English Liberal and Humanitarian opinion,
the mass of the better opinion of England, which wants
self-determination to go forward in India. Supposing the Indian
Mahomedans could stir up an agitation so violent in India as to sever
the connection between India and the British Crown, still they would
not be any nearer to their purpose. For to-day they do have
considerable influence on British world-policy. Even if in this
matter of the Turkish question their influence has not been
sufficient to turn the scale against the very heavy weights on the
other side, it has weighed in the scale. But apart from the British
connection, Indian Mahomedans would have no influence at all outside
India. They would not count for more in world politics than the
Mahomedans of China. I think it is likely (apart from the pressure
of America on the other side. I should say certain) that the
influence of the Indian Mahomedans may at any rate avail to keep the
Sultan in Constantinople. But I doubt whether they will gain any
advantage by doing so. For a Turkey cut down to the Turkish parts of
Asia-Minor, Constantinople would be a very inconvenient capital. I
think its inconvenience would more than outweigh the sentimental
gratification of keeping up a phantom of the old Ottoman Empire. But
if the Indian Mahomedans want the Sultan to retain his place in
Constantinople I think the assurances given officially by the Viceroy
in India now binds us to insist on his remaining there and I think he
will remain there in spite of America."
This is an extract, from the letter of an Englishman enjoying a position in Great Britain, to a friend in India. It is a typical letter, sober, honest, to the point and put in such graceful language that whilst it challenges you, it commands your respect by its very gracefulness. But it is just this attitude based upon insufficient or false information which has ruined many a cause in the British Isles. The superficiality, the one-sidedness the inaccuracy and often even dishonesty that have crept into modern journalism, continuously mislead honest men who want to see nothing but justice done. Then there are always interested groups whose business it is to serve their ends by means of faul or food. And the honest Englishman wishing to vote for justice but swayed by conflicting opinions and dominated by distorted versions, often ends by becoming an instrument of injustice.
The writer of the letter quoted above has built up convincing argument on imaginary data. He has successfully shown that the Mahomedan case, as it has been presented to him, is a rotten case. In India, where it is not quite easy to distort facts about the Khilafat. English friends admit the utter justice of the Indian-Mahomedan claim. But they plead helplessness and tell us that the Government of India and Mr. Montagu have done all it was humanly possible for them to do. And if now the judgment goes against Islam, Indian Mahomedans should resign themselves to it. This extraordinary state of things would not be possible except under this modern rush and preoccupations of all responsible people.
Let us for a moment examine the case as it has been imagined by the writer. He suggests that Indian Mahomedans want Turkish rule in Arabia in spite of the opposition of the Arabs themselves, and that, if the Arabs do not want Turkish rule, the writer argues, no false religions sentiment can be permitted to interfere with self-determination of the Arabs when India herself has been pleading for that very status. Now the fact is that the Mahomedans, as is known to everybody who has at all studied the case, have never asked for Turkish rule in Arabia in opposition to the Arabs. On the contrary, they have said that they have no intention of resisting Arabian self-government. All they ask for is Turkish suzerainty over Arabia which would guarantee complete self-rule for the Arabs. They want Khalif's control of the Holy Places of Islam. In other words they ask for nothing more than what was guaranteed by Mr. Lloyd George and on the strength of which guarantee Mahomedan soldiers split their blood on behalf of the Allied Powers. All the elaborate argument therefore and the cogent reasoning of the above extract fall to pieces based as they are upon a case that has never existed. I have thrown myself heart and soul into this question because British pledges abstract justice, and religious sentiment coincide. I can conceive the possibility of a blind and fanatical religious sentiment existing in opposition to pure justice. I should then resist the former and fight for the latter. Nor would I insist upon pledges given dishonestly to support an unjust cause as has happened with England in the case of the secret treaties. Resistance there becomes not only lawful but obligatory on the part of a nation that prides itself on its righteousness.
It is unnecessary for me to examine the position imagined by the English friend, viz., how India would have fared had she been an independent power. It is unnecessary because Indian Mahomedans, and for that matter India, are fighting for a cause that is admittedly just; a cause in aid of which they are invoking the whole-hearted support of the British people. I would however venture to suggest that this is a cause in which mere sympathy will not suffice. It is a cause which demands support that is strong enough to bring about substantial justice.