Special Khilafat Conference

THE proceedings of the special session of the Khilafat Conference, a telegraphic summary of which was published in these columns yesterday, are bound to cause intense pain and disappointment to all right-thinking Indians. The conference has always been held to represent the more thoughtful and broad-minded section of the Indian Mussalmans; and it was supposed that the supporters of the Khilafat movement, in spite of the keen interest that they took in the affairs of Mussalmans outside India, were not less keen about the achievement of the freedom of their own country. The proceedings of the Delhi conference, however, are marked by so much violence and fanaticism that we have to painfully confess that either our opinion about the Khilafat movement was wrong from the very beginning or the movement has now degenerated into aggressive communalism of the worst type. We prefer to hold the second view, because that leaves room for the hope that it may still be possible to restore the movement to its old position of being a faithful ally of the forces that are working for the speedy attainment of Swaraj by the joint effort of all the communities in India. That the proceedings of the conference were wholly detrimental to national solidarity and likely to further embitter the relations between Hindus and Mussalmans admits of no doubt whatever. Not only the presidential address but the tone and substance of the other speeches made at the conference as well as the tenor of the resolutions adopted by it constitute a most violent, anxious and unwarranted attack on the Hindu community as a whole.