Mohammad Ali Jauhar
Muhammad Ali Jauhar (10 December 1878 – 4 January 1931), also known as Maulana Mohammad Ali
Jauhar (Urdu: ) َموالنا ُمح ّمد علی َجوہر, was an Indian Muslim activist, journalist and a poet, and was among
the leading figures of the Khilafat Movement.[7]
Mohammad Ali Jauhar was a product of the Aligarh Movement.[8] He was elected to become the
President of Indian National Congress party in 1923 and it lasted only for a few months. He was also one
of the founders and presidents of the All-India Muslim League.
Mohammad Ali was born in 1878 in Najibabad (Uttar Pradesh, India).[1] His father, Abdul Ali Khan, died
when he was five years old.[3] His brothers were Shaukat, who became a leader of the Khilafat
Movement, and Zulfiqar. His mother Abadi Begum (1852–1924), affectionately known as Bi Amma,
inspired her sons to take up the mantle of the struggle for freedom from Colonial rule. To this end, was
adamant that her sons were properly educated.[3]
Despite the early death of his father, Jauhar attended Aligarh Muslim University and, in 1898, Lincoln
College, Oxford, studying modern history.[9]
Upon his return to India, he served as education director for the Rampur state, and later joined the
Baroda civil service. He became a writer and an orator of the first magnitude and a farsighted political
leader, writing articles in major British and Indian newspapers like The Times, London, The Manchester
Guardian and The Observer.[9] He launched the English weekly The Comrade in 1911 in Calcutta. It
quickly gained circulation and influence. He moved to Delhi in 1912 and there he launched an Urdu-
language daily newspaper Hamdard in 1913.[2] He married Amjadi Bano Begum (c. 1886–1947) in 1902.
Amjadi Begum was actively involved in the national and Khilafat movement.[10][11]
Jouhar worked hard to expand the Aligarh Muslim University, then known as the Muhammadan Anglo-
Oriental College, and was one of the co-founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920, which was later
moved to Delhi.
Jouhar had attended the founding meeting of the All India Muslim League in Dacca in 1906, and served
as its president in 1918. He remained active in the League till 1928. Mohammad Ali Jouhar "had the
unique distinction of having directed the affairs of the three most important political
parties/movements in the country—The Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the
Khilafat movement."[1]
He represented the Muslim delegation that travelled to England in 1919 to convince the British
government to influence the Turkish nationalist Mustafa Kemal not to depose the Sultan of Turkey, who
was the Caliph of Islam and the presumed leader of all Islamic nations of that time.[13] British
government's rejection of their demands resulted in the formation of the Khilafat committee which
directed Muslims all over India to protest and boycott the British government.[14]
Now accorded the respectful title of Maulana, Ali formed, in 1921, a broad coalition with nationalist
leaders like Shaukat Ali, Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, Syed Ata Ullah Shah
Bukhari as well as Mahatma Gandhi, who then enlisted the support of the Indian National Congress and
many thousands of Hindus, who joined the Muslims in a demonstration of unity against the British
government. Jouhar also wholeheartedly supported Gandhi's call for a national civil resistance
movement, and inspired many hundreds of protests and strikes all over India. He was arrested by British
authorities and imprisoned for two years for what was termed as a seditious speech at the meeting of
the Khilafat Conference.
