In mid-November Gandhi and Charlie

Andrews went together to Amritsar.

The need for and popularity of the
independent committee, headed
by Gandhi, was evident. "The entire
area outside the station was packed
with the citizens of Amritsar. Their
cheers and shouts almost
overwhelmed
me. . . . Thousands stood on all
sides."19
It was at this time that Gandhi began
his tactical, principled appeal to
India's Muslim community. He joined
pan-Islamic leaders whenever
possible,
from the Punjab to Delhi, where he
spoke to a large audience of Muslims
assembled to attend the Khilafat
Conference to protest the Allied
dismemberment
of the Ottoman Empire, despite Anglo-
French promises to
the contrary throughout the war. "[B]

1
orn of the same mother, belonging to
the same soil," Hindus and Muslims
must love one another, Gandhi
insisted.
"When it is said that Hindus should join
the Moslems in regard to
the Khilafat question some people
express surprise, but I say that, if
Hindus
and Moslems are brothers, it is their
duty to share one another's sorrow."20
It was one of Gandhi's most brilliant
and controversial strategies,
recognizing
as he rightly did that without Hindu-
Muslim unity there could be no
independence
for India as a whole. But his orthodox
Hindu comrades were
shocked, even outraged, by his
sudden warm embrace of this pan-
Islamic
cause, for Swami Shraddanand and
millions of his Hindu-first followers

2
viewed cow-killing Muslims as
enemies of their faith, seeking only to
"reconvert"
them to Hinduism or forcibly to stop
them from slaughtering
sacred cows. Gandhi insisted,
however, that the best way for India to
achieve freedom was for all Hindus
and Muslims to unite in serving their
motherland. His speech was greeted
with "loud cheers" and "long and
continued applause."
Gandhi's work with the Congress on
the Punjab atrocities inquiry, and
his commitment to the Khilafat cause
of the brothers Shaukat and Mohamed
Ali and the Muslim masses who
followed them, won him greater
[ 103 ]
Gandhi's Passion
national popularity than was enjoyed
by any other nationalist leader. As a
Mahatma, moreover, thanks to his
dedication to service, his propagation

3
of
swadeshi, and the limited though well-
published success of his Champaran,
Ahmedabad, and Kheda Satyagrahas,
Gandhi was uniquely prepared, or so
at least it seemed at the end of 1919,
to lead India to freedom's promised
land of Swaraj.