Why did Mahatma Gandhi support the Khilafat movement?

Mahatma Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement primarily as a strategic effort to foster Hindu-Muslim unity within the broader struggle for Indian independence. By embracing the movement as a "premier plank" of his national program, Gandhi sought to bridge the divide between India's religious communities and mobilize the Muslim population to join his noncooperation movement against the British raj.31

The Khilafat movement emerged in 1919 to protest the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, which threatened the status of the caliph as the symbolic leader of the global Muslim community. Gandhi recognized that aligning his nationalist goals with this significant Muslim cause could create a powerful, united front against British rule. While this alliance successfully brought the two movements together in a contemporaneous program of nonviolent resistance, the unity ultimately proved fragile, and the Khilafat movement collapsed following the abolition of the caliphate in 1924.231