Ubaidullah Sindhi - Afghanistan

Afghanistan

With the onset of the World War I, efforts emerged from the Darul Uloom Deoband to forward the cause of Pan-Islam in India with the help of the Central Powers. Led by Mahmud al Hasan, plans were chalked out for an insurrection beginning in the tribal belt of North-west India. Mahmud al Hasan, left India to seek the help of Galib Pasha, the Turkish governor of Hijaz, while at Hasan's directions Ubaidullah proceeded to Kabul to seek the Emir Habibullah's support. The initially plans were to raise an Islamic army (Hizb Allah) headquartered at Medina, with an Indian contingent at Kabul. Maulana Hasan was to be the General-in-chief of this army. Ubaidullah himself was preceded to Kabul by some of his students. While at Kabul, Ubaid Ullah came to the conclusion that focussing on the Indian Freedom Movement would best serve the pan-Islamic cause. Ubaidullah's proposed to the Afghan Emir that he declare war against Britain. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is known to have been involved in the movement prior to his arrest in 1916.

Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi and Mahmud al Hasan (principle of the Darul Uloom Deoband) had proceeded to Kabul in October 1915 with plans to intiate a Muslim insurrection in the tribal belt of India. For this purpose, Ubaid Allah was to propose that the Amir of Afghanistan declares war against 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. At Kabul, Ubaid Allah, along with some students who had preceded him to make way to Turkey to join the Caliph's "Jihad" against Britain, decided that the pan-Islamic cause was to be best served by focusing on the Indian Freedom Movement.

In late 1915, Sindhi was met in Kabul by the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition sent by the Indian Independence Committee in Berlin and the German war ministry. Nominally led by the exiled Indian prince Raja Mahendra Pratap, it had among its members the Islamic scholar Maulavi Barkatullah, the German officers Werner Otto von Hentig and Oskar Niedermayer, as well as a number of other notable individuals. The expedition tried to rally Emir Habibullah to the Central powers and through him begin a campaign into India, which it was hoped would initiate a rebellion in India. On December 1, 1915, the Provisional Government of India was founded at Habibullah's Bagh-e-Babur palace in the presence of the Indian, German and Turkish members of the expedition and friends. It was declared a revolutionary government-in-exile which was to take charge of independent India when British authority had been overthrown. Ahendra Pratap was proclaimed President, Barkatullah the Prime minister, Ubaidullah Sindhi the Minister for India, another Deobandi leader Maulavi Bashir its war Minister, and Champakaran Pillai the Foreign Minister. It obtained support from Galib Pasha and proclaimed Jihad against Britain. Recognition was sought from Tsarist Russia, Republican China and Japan. The Government would later attempt to obtain support from Soviet leadership. After the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, Pratap's government corresponded with the nascent Soviet government. In 1918, Mahendra Pratap met Trotsky in Petrograd before meeting the Kaiser in Berlin, urging both to mobilise against British India.

However, these plans faltered, Habibullah remained steadfastly neutral while he awaited a concrete indication where the war headed, even as his advisory council and family members indicated their support against Britain. The Germans withdrew in 1917, but the Indian government stayed behind at Kabul. In 1919, the government was ultimately dissolved under British diplomatic pressure to Afghanistan. Ubaidullah stayed in Kabul for nearly seven years. He encouraged young King Amanullah Khan, who took power after Habibullah's assassination, in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The conclusion of the war, ultimately, forced him to leave as Amanullah came under pressure from Britain.