MUSLIM LEADERS DURING 
INDIA'S FREEDOM STRUGGLE

When India launched on its struggle for freedom from British rule, its two major communities, the Hindus and the Muslims, joined in it with equal enthusiasm, like they had done so during the First Indian War of Independence in 1857. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. Nationalist leaders from all communities participated in its activities in the first four decades of its existence. Indeed, its second President was a Muslim, Badruddin Tyabji. Soon after the first World War, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian freedom movement. It was he who set the Congress on a mass militant but non-violent course. Till then, the organization had been largely an elitist protest movement against the denial of rights and opportunities to qualified Indians to participate in the governance of the country in order to ensure that India's interests were not subverted to those of Britain. Under Gandhi's inspired leadership, the social base of the Congress was widened and it acquired the character of a mass national organization. Meanwhile, in pursuit of their worldwide imperial interests the British decided to dissolve the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey. The repression let loose in Muslim countries in the wake of this decision caused a stir in the Indian Muslim community which launched its own separate movement against the British, referred to as the Khilafat. Mahatma Gandhi, who perceived that the common impulse behind both movements was nationalism, called for a united effort. The Indian National Congress made common cause with the Khilafat, and leaders of the two organizations conducted a common struggle against British imperialism. Among the most steadfast freedom fighters were the Pathans of undivided India's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now a part of Pakistan. Led by their austere leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was popularly known as Frontier Gandhi, the Pathans were throughout uncompromising in their opposition to British rule. Since NWFP was a sensitive border area, the British had to employ even more repression here than elsewhere in the country. They resorted to strong-arm methods to suppress the Khudai Khidmatgars, the soldiers of the disciplined and non-violent militia raised by the Khan. Thousands of these volunteers were victims of this repression. They not only spent years in British prisons but fell victims to their batons and bullets.