Muhammad Ali Jauhar

Muhammad Ali Jawhar (10 December 18784 January 1931) was an Indian politician and activist of the Indian independence movement. He was a co-founder of the All-India Muslim League and Jamia Millia Islamia.

Born into an anti-colonial family, Jawhar was a member of the Aligarh movement. He was elected to become the president of the Indian National Congress party in 1923 and it lasted only for a few months owing to the differences with the organization, especially Gandhi, on the haphazard ending of Non-cooperation movement. In the following years, he ended up being antithetical to it and accused Gandhi and Motilal Nehru of succumbing to the appeasement of Hindus as they regarded Muslims “the minorities” in India and refused to accommodate Muslim demands in the political representation. Being one of the founders, esteemed member and 10th president of the All-India Muslim League, he represented the party in the first round-table conference held in London.

Indian Muslim freedom activist, one of the founders of All-India Muslim League, a pre-eminent member of Indian National Congress, journalist and a poet, a leading figure of the Khilafat Movement and one of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia.

Early life and career

Muhammad Ali was born in 1878 at Rampur in North-Western Provinces, British India. He was born to a wealthy family with roots in the city of Najibabad. His father, ''Abdul Ali Khan'', died when he was five years old. His brothers were Shaukat Ali, who became a leader of the Khilafat Movement, and Zulfiqar Ali. His mother Abadi Begum (1852 – 1924), affectionately known as 'Bi Amman', inspired her sons to take up the mantle of the struggle for freedom from the British colonial rule. To this end, she was adamant that her sons were properly educated. Due to the efforts, determination and sacrifice of their mother, he and his brothers were able to get a good quality education.

Despite the early death of his father, Jawhar attended Aligarh Muslim University and the Allahabad University, eventually moving to England in 1898, attending Lincoln College, Oxford to study modern history.

Upon his return to India, he served as education director for the Rampur state, and later joined the Baroda civil service. He became a writer and an orator of the first magnitude and a farsighted political leader, writing articles in major British and Indian newspapers like ''The Times'', London, '' The Manchester Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. He launched the English weekly '' The Comrade'' in 1911 in Calcutta. It quickly gained circulation and influence internationally. He moved to Delhi in 1912 and there he launched an Urdu-language daily newspaper ''Hamdard'' in 1913. He married Amjadi Bano Begum (c. 1886–1947) in 1902. Amjadi Begum was actively involved in the national and Khilafat movement.

Jawhar worked hard to expand the Aligarh Muslim University, then known as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, and was one of the co-founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920, which was later moved to Delhi.

Khilafat movement in India

Jawhar had attended the founding meeting of the All India Muslim League in Dacca in 1906, and served as its president in 1918. He remained active in the League till 1928. Jawhar "had the unique distinction of having directed the affairs of the three most important political parties/movements in the country — The Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the Khilafat movement."

He represented the Muslim League delegation that travelled to England in 1919 to convince the British government to influence the Turkish nationalist Mustafa Kemal not to depose the Sultan of Turkey, who was the Caliph of Islam and the presumed leader of all the Islamic nations of that time. British government's rejection of their demands resulted in the formation of the Khilafat committee which directed Muslims all over India to protest and boycott the British government.

In 1921, Jawhar formed a broad coalition with the nationalist leaders like Shaukat Ali, Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari as well as Mahatma Gandhi, who then enlisted the support of the Indian National Congress and many thousands of Hindus, who joined the Muslims in a demonstration of unity against the British government. Jawhar also wholeheartedly supported Gandhi's call for a national civil resistance movement and inspired many hundreds of protests and strikes all over India. He was arrested by British authorities and imprisoned for two years for what was termed as a seditious speech at the meeting of the Khilafat Conference.

Alienation from Congress

Jauhar was disillusioned by the end of Khilafat movement and Gandhi's suspension of non-cooperation movement in 1922, owing to the Chauri Chaura incident. This incident, on 4 February 1922, when a large group of protesters, participating in Gandhi's non-cooperation movement clashed with police, who opened fire and killed three protesters. In retaliation, the demonstrators attacked and set fire to a police station, killing 22 policemen. The Indian National Congress suspended the non-cooperation movement on the national level as a direct result of this incident.

He restarted his daily ''Hamdard'' and left the Congress Party. He opposed the Nehru Report, which was a document proposing constitutional reforms and a dominion status of an independent nation within the British Empire, written by a committee of Hindu and Muslim members of the Congress Party headed by President Motilal Nehru. It was a major protest against the Simon Commission which had arrived in India to propose reforms but having no local Indian member nor making any effort to listen to the Indians' voices and aspirations. Mohammad Ali was put in jail. So All Parties Conference on Nehru report was represented by Shaukat Ali, Begum Mohammad Ali and 30 other members of the Central Khilafat Committee which included Abdul Majid Daryabadi, Azad Subhani, Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi, Abul Muhasin Muhammad Sajjad and others. Mohammad Ali opposed the part of the Nehru Report's 'acception' of separate electorates for Muslims, and supported the ''Fourteen Points'' of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League. He became a critic of Gandhi, breaking with fellow Muslim leaders like Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, who continued to support Gandhi and the Indian National Congress.

Imprisonment in Karachi

In 1921, the British government established a court in Khaliqdina Hall in Karachi and punished him with two-and-a-half years' imprisonment in Karachi central jail. Besides this jail sentence, he had served many and frequent jail sentences due to his anti-government activities. However, he kept fighting for the Muslim League.

1930 Round Table Conference in London

Ultimately Mohammad Ali's frequent jail sentences, his diabetes and lack of proper nutrition while jailed, made him very sick. Despite his failing health, he wanted to attend the first Round Table Conference held in London in 1930. Ali attended the 'Conference' in London (the chairman being Sir Agha Khan of the Muslim delegation) to show that only the Muslim League spoke for India's Muslims. Reportedly his words to the British government were that he would not return to India alive unless the country was set free, "I would prefer to die in a foreign country so long as it is a free country, and if you do not give us freedom in India, you will have to give me a grave here."

Death and legacy

He died of a stroke in London on 4 January 1931 and was buried in Jerusalem by the choice of his relatives, friends and admirers. The inscription on his grave in the Khātūniyya Madrasa, [structure number 88 on PDF's p. 40 (= p. 79). Text als
available here
. ] which is near the Dome of the Rock, says: "Here lies al-Sayyid Muhammad Ali al-Hindi."

Commemorative postage stamp

Pakistan Post, Pakistan Postal Services issued a commemorative postage stamp for Muhammad Ali Jawhar in its 'Pioneers of Freedom' series on his birth anniversary in 1978. A number of educational intuitions like Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur, India, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jawhar Academy of International Studies in Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, India, Maulana Mohammad Ali College in Bangladesh and places including Johar Town

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