Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation — John Shaqi
Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present SituationGandhi, Mahatma
Religion
Freedom's Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation
Gandhi, Mahatma
British -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; Nonviolence
It is just my sense of moral responsibilities which has made me take up
the Khilafat question and to identify myself entirely with the
Mahomedans. It is perfectly true that I am assisting and countenancing
the union between Hindus and Muslims, but certainly not with "a view of
embarrassing England and the Allied Powers in the matter of the
dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire," it is contrary to my creed to
embarrass governments or anybody else. This does not how ever mean that
certain acts of mine may not result in embarrassment. But I should not
hold myself responsible for having caused embarrassment when I resist
the wrong of a wrong-doer by refusing assistance in his wrong-doing. On
the Khilafat question I refuse to be party to a broken pledge. Mr. Lloyd
George's solemn declaration is practically the whole of the case for
Indian Mahomedans and when that case is fortified by scriptural
authority it becomes unanswerable. Moreover, it is incorrect to say that
I have "allied myself to one of the prevailing anarchies" or that I have
wrongly countenanced the movement to place the cruel and unjust
despotism of the Stamboul Government above the interests of humanity.
In the whole of the Mahomedan demand there is no insistance on the
retention of the so-called unjust despotism of the Stamboul Government;
on the contrary the Mahomedans have accepted the principle of taking
full guarantees from that Government for the protection of non-Muslim
minorities. I do not know how far the condition of Armenia and Syria may
be considered an 'anarchy' and how far the Turkish Government may be
held responsible for it. I much suspect that the reports from these
quarters are much exaggerated and that the European powers are
themselves in a measure responsible for what misrule there may be in
Armenia and Syria. But I am in no way interested in supporting Turkish
or any other anarchy. The Allied Powers can easily prevent it by means
other than that of ending Turkish rule or dismembering and weakening the
Ottoman Empire. The Allied Powers are not dealing with a new situation.
If Turkey was to be partitioned, the position should have been made
clear at the commencement of the war. There would then have been no
question of a broken pledge. As it is, no Indian Mahomedan has any
regard for the promises of British Ministers. In his opinion, the cry
against Turkey is that of Christianity _vs._ Islam with England as the
louder in the cry. The latest cablegram from Mr. Mahomed Ali strengthens
the impression, for he says that unlike as in England his deputation is
receiving much support from the French Government and the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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