ABSTRACT
The idea that the two principal communities of British India—the Hindus and the Muslims—would not be able to work together in a democratic, electoral polity was Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan’s. Some political events in the international arena involving the caliphate in Turkey weakened the trend of close relations between the colonial government and the Muslims on the subcontinent. Two brothers, Maulana Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, led a movement in favor of the caliphate, known in India as the Khilafat movement. In 1927, a commission under Sir John Simon was announced; it was an all-white commission with no Indian representatives on it. With the prospect of the appointment of a statutory commission, the diehard separatists among the Muslims appointed a committee and on March 20, 1927, published the “Muslim Proposals". Mahatma Gandhi chose salt as the commodity to protest the laws that affected the lives of millions in India, mostly the poor people.
