of the Colonial State Parallel to the Congress there emerged revolutionary groups who attempted to overthrow away the British government through violence methods. The revolutionary movements constituted an important landmark in India's freedom struggle. It began in the end of the nineteenth century and gained its momentum from the time of the partition of Bengal. The revolutionaries were the first to demand complete freedom.
Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab were the major centers of revolutionary activity. For a brief while Madras presidency was also an active ground of the revolutionary activity. In order to crush the growing nationalist movement, the government adopted many measures. Lord Curzon created the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) in to secretly collect information on the activities of nationalists.
The Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act ( ) and the Explosives Substances Act ( ), and shortly thereafter the Indian Press Act ( ), and the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act ( ) were passed. The Impact of World War I on Indian Freedom Movement The demands of the Khilafat Movement were presented by Mohammad Ali to the diplomats in Paris in March . They were: . The Sultan of Turkey's position of Caliph should not be disturbed.
. The Muslim sacred places must be handed over to the Sultan and should be controlled by him. . The Sultan must be left with sufficient territory to enable him to defend the Islamic faith and .
The Jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine) must remain under his sovereignty. The demands of the movement had nothing do to with India but the question of Caliph was used as a symbol by the Khilafat leaders to unite the Indian Muslim community who were divided along regional, linguistic, class and sectarian lines. In Gail Minault's words: "A pan-Islamic symbol opened the way to pan-Indian Islamic political mobilization." It was anti-British, which inspired Gandhi to support this cause in a bid to bring the Muslims into the mainstream of Indian nationalism. Gandhi also saw this as an opportunity to strengthen Hindu–Muslim unity.
The Khilafat issue was interpreted differently