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.