238 Modern Islam in India
readiness to sacrifice life itself for Indian independence.
But at the ensuing Delhi Congress, he appeared as the bul-
wark of the moderate group. The struggle was one between
those in favour of continuing the policy of uncompromising
resistance to the British, and those in favour of adapting
policy to the new circumstances and entering the Councils;
and Muhammad 'all won the day for the latter group,
partly by announcing that he had received a telegram from
Gandhi (who was in jail) in their favour. This telegram
was the fictitious product of his lively imagination. At
the next Congress (at Cocanada a few months later, at the
close of 1923), of which he was the president, he was
noticeably less anti-British, talking of 'Swaraj within the
Empire' and so on. That winter, the *all brothers and
Gandhi came in conflict for the first time, on a communal
issue over a riot in Kohat.
Meanwhile all the Muslim political leaders were be-
coming less representative, because the political enthu-
siasm and interest of middle-class Muslims was waning.
Communalism came to the fore, but the leaders had no
solution for it. Among the religious and political leaders,
a split developed, with two parties emerging and going
divergent ways : a nationalist group, that stayed with the
Congress; and a Khilafatist group, that mostly slept. The
formet included many of the best leaders of the now de-
funct nationalist-Khilafat movement : Dr. Ansari, Abu-1
Kal5m SzSd, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Khallq al Zaman, Tasad-
duq Ahmad Khan Shirwani, etc. The Jam'iyat ai 'ulama'
sided with this nationalist trend. We shall have more to
say of all these in a later connection. The persistently
Khilafat group, in which only the 'all brothers were out-
standing, now had little function to perform : it was kept
going more by momentum than by continued public enthu-
siasm. Most of the energy engendered by the previous
struggle had subsided ; of what remained, a good deal was
turning to Congress nationalism, and only a little to pursu-
ing Khilafat questions.
The All-India Khilafat Conference had met along with