The Khilafat movement, took place from 1919 to 1924. It was an upheaval by Indian Muslims along with Indian nationalism in the years after World War I. Its objective was to press the British Government to keep the authority of the Ottoman Sultan as a caliph of Islam following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire at the termination of the war.
The Khilafat Committee was established in Bombay in March 1919. It had its leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali. They also pursued Mahatma Gandhi to take up the aim of building a united mass action.
Mahatma Gandhi played a crucial role during the Khilafat Movement and the struggle for freedom of India, mainly through the Non-Cooperation Movement. Mahatma Gandhi had already organised his ‘Satyagraha,’ a non-violent civil resistance nationalist movement, mostly against various inhuman acts of oppression by the British Government, such as the Rowlatt Act of 1919, the imposing of the Marshall Law in Punjab in 1919 and, after that, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of April in 1919, among others.
