Gandhi’s Khilafat support aimed to morally transform the British Empire internationally

Evidence

Whether or not Gandhi’s support for the Khilafat Movement was just ordinary political opportunism is a subject that has been debated endlessly. The historian Faisal Devji argues convincingly that at this point Gandhi was acting with a certain internationalism; as a responsible ‘imperial subject’ (which was how he saw himself in his years in South Africa), he was attempting to morally transform Empire and hold it accountable to all its subjects. Gandhi called Khilafat an “ideal” and asked that the struggle of “Non-cooperation be recognised as a struggle of ‘religion against irreligion’ ”. By this he meant that Hinduism and Islam should join forces to transform a Christianity that, as Gandhi saw it, was losing its moral core. It was during the first Non-Cooperation Movement that Gandhi made religion and religious symbolism the central tenet of his politics. Perhaps he thought he was lighting a wayside fire for pilgrims to warm their souls. But it ended in a blaze that has still not been put out. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 164