Khilafat & Non-Cooperation Movement (1919–1922)

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is one of the highest-scoring blocks in Modern History. SSC and RRB papers pull 2–3 questions from the 1919–1922 period in almost every cycle. The favourites are fixed: the reason for withdrawal of Non-Cooperation (Chauri Chaura), the Congress sessions of Calcutta (September 1920) and Nagpur (December 1920), the death of Bal Gangadhar Tilak on the day the movement began, and the national schools set up during the boycott. Banking exams touch this chapter less often, but when they do, they ask the same session-and-year pairs.

Prepare three things with full confidence: the exact sequence of events from the Khilafat issue to the Bardoli resolution of February 1922, the changes made to the Congress constitution at Nagpur, and the names attached to each item of the boycott programme (which lawyer left which practice, which university opened where). Match-the-pair questions from this chapter are common, and the pairs come straight from the tables at the end of this chapter.

1. The Khilafat Issue

The Sultan of Turkey was also the Khalifa (Caliph), the religious head of Sunni Muslims worldwide. Turkey fought World War I on Germany's side and lost. Indian Muslims feared that the victorious Allies would dismember the Ottoman Empire and strip the Khalifa of control over Islamic holy places. During the war, the British had assured Indian Muslims that Turkey would be treated fairly. After 1918 that assurance looked empty.

The Treaty of Sevres (1920) confirmed the fear. It carved up the Ottoman Empire and left the Khalifa with almost nothing. Indian Muslims saw this as a direct breach of the wartime promise.

The Khilafat Committee

• A Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919. The leading figures were the Ali brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Hasrat Mohani.
• 17 October 1919 was observed across the country as Khilafat Day.
• The All India Khilafat Conference met at Delhi in November 1919. Mahatma Gandhi presided over it. Here the idea of withdrawing cooperation from the government was raised for the first time on the Khilafat platform.
• A Khilafat delegation under Muhammad Ali went to England in early 1920 to press the Turkish case. It returned empty-handed.

Why Gandhi took up Khilafat

Gandhi saw in the Khilafat agitation an opportunity that, in his words, would not come for a hundred years: a chance to unite Hindus and Muslims in one national struggle. He became president of the All India Khilafat Committee and linked the Khilafat demand with the two purely Indian grievances, the Punjab wrongs (Jallianwala Bagh and martial law, whitewashed by the Hunter Committee report of May 1920) and the demand for Swaraj. Non-Cooperation thus rested on three demands: undo the Punjab wrong, undo the Khilafat wrong, and grant Swaraj.

Exam tip: SSC often frames this as "Non-Cooperation was launched on which three issues?" The answer set is Khilafat, Punjab wrongs, Swaraj.

2. From Amritsar to Calcutta: Congress Comes Around

The Congress did not adopt non-cooperation overnight.

• Amritsar session, December 1919 (president: Motilal Nehru): held in the shadow of Jallianwala Bagh. The Congress still spoke of working the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, though it condemned the Punjab atrocities.
• June 1920, Allahabad: a joint conference of Khilafat and Congress leaders approved a programme of non-cooperation.
• The Central Khilafat Committee formally launched the movement on 1 August 1920. On the same day, Bal Gangadhar Tilak died in Bombay. Gandhi returned his Kaisar-i-Hind medal (given for his ambulance work in the Boer War and in World War I) along with his Boer War and Zulu War medals.
• Special session at Calcutta, September 1920 (president: Lala Lajpat Rai): the Congress formally accepted the Non-Cooperation programme. Gandhi's resolution passed despite reservations from senior leaders such as C.R. Das, Bipin Chandra Pal, Annie Besant, and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Gandhi promised Swaraj within one year if the programme was carried out fully.
• Regular session at Nagpur, December 1920 (president: C. Vijayaraghavachariar): the Calcutta decision was ratified. C.R. Das, who had opposed the programme at Calcutta, now moved the main resolution himself. Muhammad Ali Jinnah left the Congress at Nagpur; he objected to the new methods and to the changed creed.

The Nagpur constitutional changes

The Nagpur session (1920) rewrote the Congress constitution. This list is asked repeatedly.

Change	Detail
New goal	"Attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means" replaced the old goal of self-government within the Empire
Working Committee	A Congress Working Committee (CWC) of 15 members created to run day-to-day affairs
Provincial Congress Committees	Reorganised on a linguistic basis (21 provinces)
Membership	Opened wide; membership fee fixed at 4 annas per year
Reach	Ward and village-level committees; use of Hindi encouraged

With the CWC, the Congress converted itself from a yearly debating platform into a continuously functioning political machine capable of running a mass movement.

3. The Non-Cooperation Programme

The programme had two arms: things to give up (negative/boycott) and things to build (positive/constructive).

Boycott items

1. Surrender of titles and honorary offices conferred by the government.
2. Boycott of government schools and colleges.
3. Boycott of law courts by lawyers and litigants.
4. Boycott of foreign cloth; public bonfires of foreign clothes.
5. Boycott of the elections to the new councils under the Government of India Act, 1919 (elections of November 1920).
6. Boycott of government functions and, at a later stage, refusal to serve in the army or pay taxes (this last stage was never reached at the all-India level).

Constructive items

1. Establishment of national schools and colleges.
2. Setting up panchayats for settling disputes outside British courts.
3. Promotion of khadi, hand-spinning (charkha) and hand-weaving.
4. Hindu-Muslim unity and removal of untouchability.
5. Collection of the Tilak Swaraj Fund: the target of Rs 1 crore was raised, and crossed, by June 1921 (decided at the AICC meeting at Vijayawada, March 1921, which also set targets of one crore Congress members and twenty lakh charkhas).

National educational institutions, 1920–21

Institution	Place	Association
Jamia Millia Islamia (1920)	Founded at Aligarh, later shifted to Delhi	Maulana Mahmud Hasan, Muhammad Ali, Hakim Ajmal Khan (first chancellor)
Kashi Vidyapith (1921)	Varanasi	Founded with support of Babu Shiv Prasad Gupta
Gujarat Vidyapith (1920)	Ahmedabad	Founded by Gandhi
Bihar Vidyapith (1921)	Patna	Rajendra Prasad associated
Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapith (1921)	Poona	Named after Tilak

Teachers and organisers of these institutions included Zakir Husain, Lala Lajpat Rai (Tilak School of Politics, Lahore), and Subhas Chandra Bose, who became principal of the National College, Calcutta after resigning from the Indian Civil Service in 1921.

Lawyers who gave up their practice

C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, Vallabhbhai Patel, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Asaf Ali, and T. Prakasam are the standard exam names. C.R. Das's sacrifice was the most talked about; his practice was among the largest in Calcutta.

4. Spread of the Movement (1921)

1921 was the year of mass mobilisation. Congress membership shot up, foreign cloth imports fell to nearly half their 1920–21 value, and bonfires of foreign cloth became a common public ritual.

Regional currents that exam papers pick up:

• United Provinces (Awadh): the Kisan Sabha movement under Baba Ramchandra merged its energy with Non-Cooperation; in early 1922 the Eka (unity) movement under Madari Pasi grew more radical than the Congress liked.
• Punjab: the Akali movement for freeing gurdwaras from corrupt mahants ran parallel to Non-Cooperation and drew on the same spirit.
• Assam: tea-garden labourers struck work and left the plantations.
• Andhra: forest-law violations; tribals in the Godavari region defied grazing restrictions. (Alluri Sitarama Raju's Rampa rebellion of 1922–24 grew out of this climate, though it was armed and outside the Congress fold.)
• Malabar (Kerala): the Moplah (Mappila) rebellion of August 1921 began as an anti-landlord and Khilafat upsurge among Muslim tenants against mostly Hindu landlords, then turned communal in places. Its brutal suppression included the wagon tragedy (November 1921), in which around 70 prisoners suffocated in a closed railway wagon at Podanur.
• Midnapore (Bengal) saw a no-union-board tax campaign; Chirala-Perala and Pedanandipadu in Andhra saw local no-tax efforts.

The Prince of Wales boycott and repression

The Prince of Wales landed in Bombay on 17 November 1921. The all-India hartal that greeted him was near total; in Bombay the day ended in riots. The government answered the movement with mass repression: the Congress and Khilafat volunteer organisations were declared illegal, public meetings were banned, and by the end of 1921 about 30,000 people were in jail, including almost every front-rank leader except Gandhi.

The Ali brothers were arrested in September 1921 for speeches at the Karachi Khilafat Conference (July 1921) calling on Muslims not to serve in the British Indian Army. Gandhi repeated their words and had them repeated from a hundred platforms.

• Ahmedabad session, December 1921: president-elect C.R. Das was in jail, so Hakim Ajmal Khan acted as president. The session affirmed the movement, asked people to court arrest, and appointed Gandhi the sole executive authority of the Congress on the matter.
• In late 1921, the Viceroy Lord Reading (Viceroy 1921–26; the movement had begun under Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy 1916–21) explored a settlement, and Malaviya attempted mediation, but talks failed over the release of prisoners.

5. Chauri Chaura and the Withdrawal

Gandhi announced that if the government did not relent, he would launch mass civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes, from Bardoli taluka in Surat district (Gujarat) in February 1922. On 1 February 1922 he informed the Viceroy of this ultimatum.

Then came Chauri Chaura, 5 February 1922. In this small town in Gorakhpur district, United Provinces, a Congress-Khilafat procession was fired on by police. The crowd set the police station on fire, killing 22 policemen.

Gandhi held that a people who could turn violent so quickly were not ready for mass civil disobedience. On his insistence the Congress Working Committee met at Bardoli on 12 February 1922 and passed the Bardoli resolution suspending the movement. Constructive work (khadi, national schools, temperance, Hindu-Muslim unity) was to continue.

Reactions to withdrawal

Most jailed leaders were bitter. Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das and Lala Lajpat Rai wrote angry letters from prison asking why an entire nation should pay for one village's crime. Subhas Chandra Bose later called the withdrawal a "national calamity". Jawaharlal Nehru too recorded his dismay. Out of this frustration came the council-entry idea and the Swaraj Party (1923), which the next chapter covers.

Gandhi's arrest and the Great Trial

With the movement suspended, the government moved. Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922 and tried at Ahmedabad for sedition under Section 124A for three articles in Young India. Before Judge C.N. Broomfield, Gandhi pleaded guilty and asked for the highest penalty. Broomfield, in a courtroom speech remembered for its courtesy, sentenced him to six years' imprisonment, the same term once given to Tilak in 1908. This proceeding is called the Great Trial of 1922. Gandhi was released in February 1924 on health grounds after an appendicitis operation.

6. End of the Khilafat Question

The Khilafat issue died in Turkey itself, not in India.

• In November 1922, the Turkish nationalists under Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) abolished the Sultanate.
• In March 1924, Turkey abolished the Caliphate altogether and set up a secular state. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) had already replaced the humiliating Treaty of Sevres.

With the Caliphate gone, the Khilafat movement in India lost its object and collapsed. The Hindu-Muslim unity of 1920–22 also frayed quickly; the mid-1920s saw a wave of communal riots.

7. Assessment: What the Movement Achieved

Non-Cooperation did not win Swaraj in one year, and the Khilafat demand became irrelevant. But its gains were real and exams do ask "significance" questions in statement form.

1. It was the first all-India mass movement led by the Congress. Nationalism reached towns, villages, workers, peasants, students, and women for the first time on this scale.
2. It destroyed the myth that British rule could not be challenged. Ordinary people learned to lose the fear of jail.
3. The Congress became a mass organisation with a working constitution, funds, and village-level reach.
4. Khadi and the charkha became lasting symbols of the national movement.
5. It produced the whole leadership line of the next 25 years: Rajendra Prasad, Patel, Rajagopalachari, and a generation of young workers.
6. For roughly two years it achieved a Hindu-Muslim political unity never seen before and rarely seen after.

Its main limits: the movement's goals were vague on class questions, the Khilafat plank mixed religion with politics (a point critics raised then and historians raise now), and the abrupt withdrawal demoralised many activists.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• The Khilafat Committee was formed at Bombay in March 1919 by the Ali brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali).
• 17 October 1919 was observed as Khilafat Day.
• Gandhi presided over the All India Khilafat Conference at Delhi, November 1919.
• The Treaty of Sevres (1920) dismembered the Ottoman Empire and triggered the Khilafat agitation's final phase.
• Non-Cooperation rested on three demands: Khilafat, Punjab wrongs, Swaraj.
• The Hunter Committee report on Jallianwala Bagh came in May 1920 and was seen as a whitewash.
• Non-Cooperation was formally launched on 1 August 1920; Tilak died the same day.
• Gandhi returned the Kaisar-i-Hind medal in 1920.
• The special Calcutta session (September 1920), presided over by Lala Lajpat Rai, adopted Non-Cooperation.
• The Nagpur session (December 1920), presided over by C. Vijayaraghavachariar, ratified it.
• At Nagpur the Congress goal became "attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means".
• Nagpur created the 15-member Congress Working Committee and linguistic Provincial Congress Committees; membership fee: 4 annas.
• Jinnah left the Congress at the Nagpur session (1920).
• Gandhi promised Swaraj within one year at Calcutta (1920).
• The Tilak Swaraj Fund target of Rs 1 crore was met by June 1921.
• Jamia Millia Islamia (1920) was founded at Aligarh; Hakim Ajmal Khan was its first chancellor.
• Gujarat Vidyapith (1920) was founded by Gandhi at Ahmedabad; Kashi Vidyapith (1921) at Varanasi.
• Subhas Chandra Bose resigned from the ICS in 1921 and headed the National College, Calcutta.
• Lawyers who gave up practice: C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Patel, Kitchlew, Asaf Ali.
• The Moplah rebellion broke out in Malabar in August 1921; the wagon tragedy followed in November 1921.
• The Prince of Wales landed at Bombay on 17 November 1921 to an all-India hartal.
• The Ali brothers were arrested in September 1921 for the Karachi resolution against army service.
• At the Ahmedabad session (December 1921), Hakim Ajmal Khan presided in place of the jailed C.R. Das; Gandhi was made sole executive authority.
• Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, UP), 5 February 1922: a mob burnt the police station, killing 22 policemen.
• The Bardoli resolution (CWC, 12 February 1922) suspended the movement.
• Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried by Judge Broomfield for articles in Young India, and sentenced to six years; released in February 1924.
• The movement began under Viceroy Chelmsford and was withdrawn under Viceroy Reading.
• Turkey abolished the Caliphate in March 1924 under Mustafa Kemal, ending the Khilafat question.
• Subhas Bose called the withdrawal a "national calamity".

Memory Tables

Table 1: Year → Event chronology (1919–1924)

Date	Event
March 1919	Khilafat Committee formed at Bombay
17 October 1919	Khilafat Day observed
November 1919	All India Khilafat Conference, Delhi (Gandhi presides)
December 1919	Amritsar Congress session (Motilal Nehru president)
May 1920	Hunter Committee report; Treaty of Sevres signed (1920)
1 August 1920	Non-Cooperation launched; Tilak dies
September 1920	Special Calcutta session adopts NCM (Lala Lajpat Rai)
November 1920	Council elections boycotted
December 1920	Nagpur session ratifies NCM (C. Vijayaraghavachariar); Jinnah quits Congress
March 1921	AICC Vijayawada: Tilak Swaraj Fund target Rs 1 crore
August 1921	Moplah rebellion, Malabar
September 1921	Ali brothers arrested
17 November 1921	Prince of Wales lands at Bombay; hartal
December 1921	Ahmedabad session (Hakim Ajmal Khan acting president)
1 February 1922	Gandhi's Bardoli ultimatum to the Viceroy
5 February 1922	Chauri Chaura incident (22 policemen killed)
12 February 1922	Bardoli resolution: movement suspended
10 March 1922	Gandhi arrested; Great Trial; six years' jail
February 1924	Gandhi released on health grounds
March 1924	Turkey abolishes the Caliphate

Table 2: Person → Role in this chapter

Person	Role
Muhammad Ali & Shaukat Ali	Founders and faces of the Khilafat movement; arrested September 1921
Mahatma Gandhi	Linked Khilafat with Swaraj; led NCM; sole executive authority (Dec 1921); Great Trial 1922
Lala Lajpat Rai	President, special Calcutta session, September 1920
C. Vijayaraghavachariar	President, Nagpur session, December 1920
C.R. Das	Opposed NCM at Calcutta, moved its resolution at Nagpur; gave up legal practice; president-elect Ahmedabad 1921 (in jail)
Hakim Ajmal Khan	Acting president, Ahmedabad session 1921; first chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia
Motilal Nehru	President, Amritsar session 1919; gave up legal practice
M.A. Jinnah	Left the Congress at Nagpur, 1920
Subhas Chandra Bose	Resigned ICS (1921); principal, National College, Calcutta; called withdrawal a "national calamity"
Baba Ramchandra	Kisan Sabha leader, Awadh
Madari Pasi	Eka movement, Awadh, 1921–22
Judge C.N. Broomfield	Tried Gandhi in the Great Trial, March 1922
Lord Chelmsford / Lord Reading	Viceroys when NCM began / when it was withdrawn
Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)	Abolished the Caliphate in Turkey, 1924

Table 3: Institution → Place (national education)

Institution (year)	Place
Jamia Millia Islamia (1920)	Aligarh, later Delhi
Gujarat Vidyapith (1920)	Ahmedabad
Kashi Vidyapith (1921)	Varanasi
Bihar Vidyapith (1921)	Patna
Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapith (1921)	Poona

Practice MCQs

Q1. The Non-Cooperation Movement was formally launched on which date? (a) 13 April 1919 (b) 1 August 1920 (c) 5 February 1922 (d) 12 February 1922

Q2. Bal Gangadhar Tilak died on the very day that: (a) The Nagpur session began (b) The Non-Cooperation Movement was launched (c) The Rowlatt Act was passed (d) Gandhi was arrested

Q3. Who presided over the special Congress session at Calcutta in September 1920 which adopted the Non-Cooperation programme? (a) C. Vijayaraghavachariar (b) Motilal Nehru (c) Lala Lajpat Rai (d) C.R. Das

Q4. At which session did the Congress change its creed to the "attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means"? (a) Calcutta, 1920 (b) Nagpur, 1920 (c) Ahmedabad, 1921 (d) Amritsar, 1919

Q5. Muhammad Ali Jinnah left the Indian National Congress at which session? (a) Surat, 1907 (b) Lucknow, 1916 (c) Nagpur, 1920 (d) Lahore, 1929

Q6. The Chauri Chaura incident of 5 February 1922 took place in which district? (a) Gorakhpur (b) Champaran (c) Surat (d) Faizabad

Q7. Which treaty with Turkey provoked the final phase of the Khilafat agitation in India? (a) Treaty of Versailles (b) Treaty of Sevres (c) Treaty of Lausanne (d) Treaty of Trianon

Q8. Match the institution with its place:

1. Kashi Vidyapith — A. Ahmedabad
2. Gujarat Vidyapith — B. Patna
3. Bihar Vidyapith — C. Varanasi (a) 1-C, 2-A, 3-B (b) 1-A, 2-B, 3-C (c) 1-B, 2-C, 3-A (d) 1-C, 2-B, 3-A

Q9. Who acted as president of the Ahmedabad session (December 1921) in place of the jailed C.R. Das? (a) Hasrat Mohani (b) Hakim Ajmal Khan (c) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (d) Rajendra Prasad

Q10. The Tilak Swaraj Fund, with a target of Rs 1 crore, was decided at the AICC meeting held at: (a) Bardoli (b) Vijayawada (c) Bombay (d) Allahabad

Q11. Gandhi was tried in the "Great Trial" of March 1922 for sedition on the basis of articles published in: (a) Harijan (b) Navajivan (c) Young India (d) Indian Opinion

Q12. Arrange the following events in chronological order:

1. Moplah rebellion begins
2. Nagpur session
3. Bardoli resolution suspending the movement
4. Prince of Wales lands at Bombay (a) 2, 1, 4, 3 (b) 1, 2, 3, 4 (c) 2, 4, 1, 3 (d) 1, 2, 4, 3

Q13. Who among the following was the Viceroy of India when the Non-Cooperation Movement was withdrawn? (a) Lord Chelmsford (b) Lord Reading (c) Lord Irwin (d) Lord Hardinge

Q14. Which of the following statements about the Nagpur session (1920) is NOT correct? (a) It created a 15-member Congress Working Committee (b) It reorganised Provincial Congress Committees on a linguistic basis (c) It fixed the Congress membership fee at 4 annas (d) It elected Gandhi as Congress president for 1921

Q15. The Caliphate was finally abolished in March 1924 by: (a) The British government under the Treaty of Sevres (b) The Arab revolt (c) The Turkish national assembly under Mustafa Kemal (d) The League of Nations

Answer Key

Q	Answer	One-line reason
Q1	(b)	The Central Khilafat Committee launched Non-Cooperation on 1 August 1920.
Q2	(b)	Tilak died on 1 August 1920, the launch day of the movement.
Q3	(c)	Lala Lajpat Rai presided over the special Calcutta session, September 1920.
Q4	(b)	The Nagpur session (December 1920) changed the Congress creed to Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means.
Q5	(c)	Jinnah quit the Congress at Nagpur, 1920, opposing the new creed and methods.
Q6	(a)	Chauri Chaura is in Gorakhpur district, United Provinces (now UP).
Q7	(b)	The Treaty of Sevres (1920) dismembered the Ottoman Empire.
Q8	(a)	Kashi Vidyapith–Varanasi, Gujarat Vidyapith–Ahmedabad, Bihar Vidyapith–Patna.
Q9	(b)	Hakim Ajmal Khan was acting president at Ahmedabad, 1921.
Q10	(b)	The Vijayawada AICC (March 1921) fixed the Rs 1 crore Tilak Swaraj Fund target.
Q11	(c)	Gandhi was tried for three articles published in Young India.
Q12	(a)	Nagpur (Dec 1920) → Moplah (Aug 1921) → Prince of Wales (Nov 1921) → Bardoli resolution (Feb 1922).
Q13	(b)	Lord Reading (Viceroy 1921–26) was in office at the withdrawal in February 1922.
Q14	(d)	Nagpur's president was C. Vijayaraghavachariar; Gandhi was not elected president there.
Q15	(c)	Mustafa Kemal's Turkish national assembly abolished the Caliphate in March 1924.