Page:Gandhi - Freedom's battle.djvu/92

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India is a continent. Its articulate thousands know what its inarticulate millions are doing or thinking. The Government and the educated Indians may think that the Khilafat movement is merely a passing phase. The millions of Mussalmans think otherwise. The flight of the Mussalmans is growing apace. The newspapers contain paragraphs in out of the way corners informing the readers that a special train containing a barrister with sixty women, forty children including twenty sucklings, all told 765, have left for Afghanistan. They were cheered en route. They were presented with cash, edibles and other things, and were joined by more Muhajarins on the way. No fanatical preaching by Shaukatali can make people break up and leave their homes for an unknown land. There must be an abiding faith in them. That it is better for them to leave a State which has no regard for their religious sentiment and face a beggar's life than to remain in it even though it may be in a princely manner. Nothing but pride of power can blind the Government of India to the scene that is being enacted before it.

But there is yet another side to the movement. Here are the facts as stated in the following Government Communique dated 10th July 1920:

An unfortunate affair in connection with the