Khilafat Movement in India and its reflections on Urdu literature

The Indian subcontinent started to be invaded by the West since XVI. century and the position of Muslims in the subcontinent changed from ruler to ruled under the government of British who came to the region at the first place with commercial purposes and then conquered the whole region in XIX. century and because of the privileges given to the Hindus in government positions, the Muslims even got to the point of losing their identities. In the same period, the Ottoman Empire started losing its lands in the Crimean War and went into a difficult period which continued with the 93 War and Italy-Turkish War. The Muslims in the subcontinent who were dependent on the Ottoman Empire through Caliphate maqam, entered into several political groups and in this direction, they made propagandas with newspapers and poems to save the Caliphate maqam from this dangerous situation. The Indian Khilafat Movement which was created with this approach between 1919-1924 has an importance not only in terms of its political aspect but also its Urdu literary reflections. In our study, we tried to study and find out how Indian Khilafat Movement reflected on Urdu poetry and prose and how it affected the literature.