Who were the two primary brothers who founded the 'All India Khilafat Committee' in 1919?

Question

Who were the two primary brothers who founded the 'All India Khilafat Committee' in 1919?

1. A. Mohammad Jinnah and Shaukat Ali
2. B. Mohammad Ali and Hasrat Mohani
3. C. Shaukat Ali and Aga Khan
4. D. Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali (Correct answer)

Correct Answer

Option D — Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.

Key Points

• The All India Khilafat Committee was founded in 1919 at Bombay by the brothers Maulana Mohammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, known together as the Ali Brothers.
• Their aim was to protest against the harsh treatment of the Ottoman Sultan — the Caliph, or *Khalifa*, of the Islamic world — under the post-war settlement, and to press for the restoration of his temporal authority.
• The first All India Khilafat Conference was held at Delhi in November 1919, and it was here that a boycott of British goods was first proposed. Mahatma Gandhi was elected president of the Khilafat Committee.

Additional Information

• Other prominent Khilafat leaders: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani and Dr. M.A. Ansari.
• The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements merged, giving the national movement its first genuinely mass, pan-communal character. The Congress endorsed non-cooperation at the Nagpur Session of December 1920.
• Why the movement collapsed: in 1922 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk deposed the Sultan, and in 1924 Turkey abolished the Caliphate altogether, removing the movement's very object. Gandhi's withdrawal of Non-Cooperation after Chauri Chaura (February 1922) had already weakened it.
• Mohammad Ali founded the newspaper *Comrade* and presided over the Congress session of 1923 — one of very few people to lead both the Congress and the Khilafat movement.
• Distinguish the Ali Brothers from Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a separate figure who at this stage opposed Gandhi's methods and had resigned from the Congress in 1920.