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
I have already my view of the retention of the Sultan in Constantinople.
It is an insult to the intelligence of man to suggest that 'the
maintenance of the Turkish Empire in the homeland of the Turkish race
with its capital at Constantinople has been left unimpaired by the terms
of peace. This is the other passage from the speech which I presume Mr.
Candler wants me to read together with the one already quoted:--
"While we do not challenge the maintenance of the Turkish Empire in
the home-land of the Turkish race with its capital at Constantinople,
the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea being
inter-nationalised, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine are in
our judgment entitled to a recognition of their separate national
condition."
Did that mean entire removal of Turkish influence, extinction of Turkish
suzerainty and the introduction of European-Christian influence under
the guise of Mandates? Have the Moslems of Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia,
Syria and Palestine been committed, or is the new arrangement being
superimposed upon them by Powers conscious of their own brute-strength
rather than of justice of their action? I for one would nurse by every
legitimate means the spirit of independence in the brave Arabs, but I
shudder to think what will happen to them under the schemes of
exploitation of their country by the greedy capitalists protected as
they will be by the mandatory Powers. If the pledge is to be fulfilled,
let these places have full self-government with suzerainty to be
retained with Turkey as has been suggested by the _Times of India_. Let
there be all the necessary guarantees taken from Turkey about the
internal independence of the Arabs. But to remove that suzerainty, to
deprive the Khalif of the wardenship of the Holy Places is to render
Khilafat a mockery which no Mahomedan can possibly look upon with
equanimity, I am not alone in my interpretation of the pledge. The Right
Hon'ble Ameer Ali calls the peace terms a breach of faith. Mr. Charles
Roberts reminds the British public that the Indian Mussalman sentiment
regarding the Turkish Treaty is based upon the Prime Minister's pledge
"regarding Thrace, Constantinople and Turkish lands in Asia Minor,
repeated on February 26 last with deliberation by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr.
Roberts holds that the pledge must be treated as a whole, not as binding
only regarding Constantinople but also binding as regards Thrace and
Asia Minor. He describes the pledge as binding upon the nation as a
whole and its breach in any part as a gross breach of faith on the part
of the British Empire. He demands that if there is an unanswerable reply
to the charge of breach of faith it ought to be given and adds the Prime
Minister may regard his own word lightly if he chooses, but he has no
right to break a pledge given on behalf of the nation. He concludes that
it is incredible that such pledge should not have been kept in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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