Silk Letter Movement


The Silk Letter Movement refers to a movement organised by Deobandi leaders between 1913 and 1920, aimed at freeing India from British rule by forming an alliance with Ottoman Turkey, Imperial Germany, and Afghanistan. This plot was uncovered by the Punjab CID with the capture of letters from Ubaidullah Sindhi, one of the Deobandi leaders then in Afghanistan, to Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, another leader then in Persia. The letters were written on silk cloth, hence the name.

Overview

went to Hejaz with Mahmood Hasan in September 1915. He returned to India in April 1916 with Ghalib Nama which he showed to freedom fighters in India and the autonomous areas, and then took to Kabul where he arrived in June 1916.
With the onset of World War I, Ubaidullah Sindhi and Mehmud Hasan had travelled to Kabul in October 1915 with plans to initiate a Muslim insurrection in the tribal belt of India. For this purpose, Ubaid'Allah was to propose that the Amir of Afghanistan declare war on Britain, while Mahmud al Hasan sought German and Turkish help. Hasan proceeded to Hijaz. Ubaid Allah, in the meantime, was able to establish friendly relations with Amir. As the plans unfolded in what came to be called the Silk Letter Movement, Ubaid'Allah was able to establish friendly relations with Amir. At Kabul, Ubaid'Allah, along with some students who had preceded him to Turkey to join the Caliph's "Jihad" against Britain, decided that the pan-Islamic cause would be best served by focussing on the Indian Freedom Movement.
The Berlin-Indian committee also produced an Indo-German-Turkish mission to the Indo-Iranian border, with the purpose of encouraging the local tribes to attack British interests. This group met the Deobandis in Kabul in December 1915. The mission, along with bringing members of the Indian movement right to India's border, also brought messages from the Kaiser, Enver Pasha and Abbas Hilmi, the displaced Khedive of Egypt, expressing support for Pratap's mission and inviting the Amir to move against British India
The mission's immediate aim was to rally the Amir against British India and to obtain from the Afghan Government a right of free passage. But after the leakage of the plan, the top Deobandi leaders were arrested — Mahmud Hasan was arrested in Makkah and together with Husayn Ahmad, was exiled to Malta, later being released on account of advanced T.B.

Legacy

In January 2013, The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee released a commemorative postage stamp on the Silk Letter Movement, to commemorate the sacrifices these groups made for the Indian independence movement.

Scholarly works about Silk Letter Movement