The Khilafat representation addressed to the Viceroy and my letter on the same subject have been severely criticised by the Anglo-Indian press. The Times of India which generally adopts an impartial attitude has taken strong exception to certain statements made in the Muslim manifesto and has devoted a paragraph of its article to an advance criticism of my suggestion that His Excellency should resign if the peace terms are not revised.
The Times of India excepts to the submission that the British Empire may not treat Turkey like a departed enemy. The signatories have, I think, supplied the best of reasons. They say "We respectfully submit that in the treatment of Turkey the British Government are bound to respect Indian Muslim sentiment in so far as it is neither unjust nor unreasonable." If the seven crore Mussulmans are partners in the Empire, I submit that their wish must be held to be all sufficient for refraining from punishing Turkey. It is beside the point to quote what Turkey did during the war. It has suffered for it. The Times inquires wherein Turkey has been treated worse than the other Powers. I thought that the fact was self-evident. Neither Germany nor Austria and Hungary has been treated in the same way that Turkey has been. The whole of the Empire has been reduced to the retention of a portion of its capital, as it were, to mock the Sultan and that too has been done under terms so humiliating that no self-respecting person much less a reigning sovereign can possibly accept.
The Times has endeavoured to make capital out of the fact that the representation does not examine the reason for Turkey not joining the Allies. Well there was no mystery about it. The fact of Russia being one of the Allies was enough to warn Turkey against joining them. With Russia knocking at the gate at the time of the war it was not an easy matter for Turkey to join the Allies. But Turkey had cause to suspect Great Britain herself. She knew that England had done no friendly turn to her during the Bulgarian War. She was hardly well served at the time of the war with Italy. It was still no doubt a bad choice. With the Musssalmans of India awakened and ready to support her, her statesmen might have relied upon Britain not being allowed to damage Turkey if she had remained with the Allies. But this is all wisdom after event. Turkey made a bad choice and she was punished for it. To humiliate her now is to ignore the Indian Mussulman sentiment. Britain may not do it and retain the loyalty of the awakened Mussulmans of India.
For "The Times" to say that the peace terms strictly follow the principle of self-determination is to throw dust in the eyes of its readers. Is it the principle of self-determination that has caused the cessation of Adrianople and Thrace to Greece? By what principle of self-determination has Smyrna been handed to Greece? Have the inhabitants of Thrace and Smyrna asked for Grecian tutelege?
I decline to believe that the Arabs like the disposition that has been made of them. Who is the King of Hedjaj and who is Emir Feisul? Have the Arabs elected these kings and chiefs? Do the Arabs like the Mandate being taken by England? By the time the whole thing is finished, the very name self-determination will stink in one's nostrils. Already signs are not wanting to show that the Arabs, the Thracians and the Smyrnans are resenting their disposal. They may not like Turkish rule but they like the present arrangement less. They could have made their own honourable terms with Turkey but these self-determining people will now be held down by the 'matchless might' of the allied i.e., British forces. Britain had the straight course open to her of keeping the Turkish Empire intact and taking sufficient guarantees for good government. But her Prime Minister chose the crooked course of secret treaties, duplicity and hypocritical subterfuges.
There is still a way out. Let her treat India as a real partner. Let her call the true representatives of the Mussalmans. Let them go to Arabia and the other parts of the Turkish Empire and let her devise a scheme that would not humiliate Turkey, that would satisfy the just Muslim sentiment and that will secure honest self-determination for the races composing that Empire. If it was Canada, Australia or South Africa that had to be placated, Mr. Lloyd George would not have dared to ignore them. They have the power to secede. India has not. Let him no more insult India by calling her a partner, if her feelings count for naught. I invite The Times of India to reconsider its position and join an honourable agitation in which a high-souled people are seeking nothing but justice.
I do with all deference still suggest that the least that Lord Chelmsford can do is to resign if the sacred feelings of India's sons are not to be consulted and respected by the Ministers. The Times is over-taxing the constitution when it suggests that as a constitutional Viceroy it is not open to Lord Chelmsford to go against the decision of his Majesty's Ministers. It is certainly not open to a Viceroy to retain office and oppose ministerial decisions. But the constitution does allow a Viceroy to resign his high office when he is called upon to carry out decisions that are immoral as the peace terms are or like these terms are calculated to stir to their very depth the feelings of those whose affair he is administering for the time being.