द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

THE CLOUDS GATHER 53
ment on January 5th, 1918, in which he said, among other
things, that Great Britain would not pursue a vindictive
policy and had no intention of depriving the Turks of the
rich lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which were pre-
dominantly Turkish. At the end of the war, however, when
it was clear that the Allies were aiming at nothing less than
the complete dismemberment of Turkey, a deputation of
Indian Moslems was sent to Europe in March, 1920, to plead
the cause of the Turks. This deputation which was led by
Moulana Mohammed Ali, the younger of the Ali brothers,
failed to achieve anything in spite of the best efforts of Mr.
Montagu, the Secretary of State for India. By the middle
of 1920, Indian Moslems began to feel that in all probability
Turkey would cease to exist as an independent state—that the
head of the Islamic Church, the Khalifa, who was also the
Sultan of Turkey, would be deprived of his territories in
Europe and in Asia and that the Holy Places of Islam would
pass into non-Moslem hands. The realisation of this un-
avoidable calamity produced a blaze of resentment among
every section of the Moslem Community in India. But
however deep their resentment might be, they were not in a
position to take up arms against the victorious British
Government. Therefore all that they could think of doing
was to oppose the working of the New Constitution.
About the middle of 1920, anti-British feeling was stronger
among the Moslems than among the rest of the Indian
population. Mr. Montagu had been able to divide the
nationalist forces but he had failed to win over any section
of the 'Moslems, though he had left no stone unturned
in his efforts to placate them and had ultimately to resign
from the Cabinet for ventilating their grievances.¹ An
organisation was set up by the Moslems under the name of
the All-India Khilafat Committee with the object of restoring
¹ In 1922 the Government of India urged on the British Cabinet that
the Indian demand for the revision of the Treaty of Sèvres should be
made public. The chief items of that demand were—restoration of Asia
Minor and Thrace to the Turks; suzerainty of the Sultan over the Holy
Places and the evacuation of Constantinople by the Allied troops. Mr.
Montagu thought that he had been authorised by the Cabinet to give
publicity to the demand—but as the Cabinet disowned him, he had to
resign.