History, Propaganda and the Khilafat Movement

In one of his articles, Tomas Pueyo wrote that:

“We think we’re taught History. But we’re really taught Propaganda.”

That’s one of those statements whose truth value everyone agrees with. And yet, everyone disagrees on when it is History and when it is Propaganda. (Hint: When one’s own side writes the books, people call it History; when the other side writes it, it’s Propaganda).

 

Propaganda comes in many forms. Outright lying is one extreme of how history is written. Another way is to withhold inconvenient facts. Or to present one’s assessment of the facts as history. Or to present historical events as a story leading upto something – as if history has a direction or purpose. And then there’s what Calvin said:

 

All of which is why Pueyo says:

“For every truth you hold about the past, somebody else has the opposite take.”

 

When I was at school, they taught about the Khilafat movement during India’s freedom struggle. It never made any sense why some guy in Turkey would care for India’s independence?! But I was too timid to ask. As an adult, I never remember to look it up. And then I stumbled upon it while reading James Barr‘s book, A Line in the Sand.

 

World War I was in progress. The Ottoman empire, based out of modern-day Turkey, ruled the Middle East. When Britain and France tried to pick apart their empire, the Sultan made his countermove:

“The sultan… used his authority as caliph to call upon Muslims across the world to join him in a holy war against the enemies. With a hundred million Muslim subjects spread across their empire, the British were the obvious target of the sultan’s call.”

 

This then, I realized, was what the Khilafat movement in India was. A response to a call for jihad. No wonder India’s history books didn’t explain it clearly when I was a kid. The fact that Muslims responded to a call for jihad from some distant place they had never seen (and a place that wouldn’t have cared for India or her independence) was an inconvenient truth for those in power. Mention the facts, but don’t explain anything clearly and skip the inconvenient details, and you leave kids with the impression that it was yet another way Indians fought for independence – the Gandhian way, the Subash Chandra Bose way, and the Khilafat way.

 

You don’t hide the facts; you don’t lie; you just skip some details and avoid explaining the facts because clarity doesn’t align with your outlook and narrative of History. It’s just Propaganda in a different way.