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

76 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
unique position among the public. This was due partly to
their own activities and their suffering during the Great
War—partly to the new awakening among the Moslems—but
largely to the propaganda conducted in their favour by the
Mahatma. The Mahatma associated himself so closely with
them that they came to be looked upon as the right and the
left hand of the Mahatma. In their company the Mahatma
toured the country and one clearly remembers that in those
days whenever there was a popular shout of 'Victory to
Mahatma Gandhi' (Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai), it would be
accompanied by a shout of 'Victory to the Ali brothers' (Ali
Bhai-o-Ki Jai). Though after some years the Ali brothers
parted company with the Mahatma, I do not think one could
find fault with the latter for his intimate association with
them. The real mistake in my opinion did not lie in con-
necting the Khilafat issue with the other national issues,
but in allowing the Khilafat Committee to be set up as an
independent organisation throughout the country, quite apart
from the Indian National Congress. The result of this was
that when later on Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, as the
leader of New Turkey, forced the Sultan to abdicate and
abolished the office of Khalifa altogether, the Khilafat question
lost all meaning and significance and the majority of the
members of the Khilafat organisations were absorbed by
sectarian, reactionary and pro-British Moslem organisations.
If no separate Khilafat Committees had been organised and
all Khilafatist Moslems had been persuaded to join the ranks
of the Indian National Congress, they would probably have
been absorbed by the latter when the Khilafat issue became
a dead one.
After the middle of the year, the political situation began
to grow tense. Neither the Government nor the Congress
knew at the time when the storm would break, but signs of
the coming clash began to appear in different parts of the
country. Throughout all these episodes the public took the
offensive and the Government played a defensive rôle
Reference has already been made to the no-tax campaign in
Midnapore District in Bengal and to the defiant conduct of
the Congress leaders after the incarceration of the Ali