Draft:Haji Jan Muhammad Chotani


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Haji Jan Muhammad Chotani (1873 - 1932) was an Indian Muslim activist, wealthy Merchant and a member of the Khilafat Movement.

Chotani was a founding member of the Bombay Khilafat Committee, which was established in March 1919 to liberate Turkey. The Bombay Khilafat Committee was renamed the Central Khilafat Committee (CKC) of India after the Lucknow Congress, 1919, and was entrusted national leadership of the Khilafat agitations with Chotani as its president.

Khilafat Movement
Khilfat Committee was already established in Mumbai. It was after a meeting of All India Muslim Conference, in the Lucknow session, on 21st September, 1919 the need for a central committee was realised. Then Khilafat Committee was renamed as Central Khilafat Committee - Bombay. Later, it's branches was opened all over India, in the presidency of Chotani.

On 19th January 1920, Chotani led a delegation who met British viceroy.

In the khilafat meetings of November 1919's, along with Gandhi, he resisted towards boycott of British goods, citing it as impractical. It was later over-ruled on the insistence of Abdul Gaffar.

Chotani was also actively involved in the Non-Cooperation movement and promoted Hindu-Muslim solidarity. During the campaign, he worked with Gandhi and promoted agitations based on non-violence. He was also a part of a committee along with Gandhi, Shaukat Ali and others formed for drawing the details of the Non-Cooperation movement. Chotani also resigned from his honorary magistracy in protest against British actions. Later when he was offered the rank of a Baron by the crown in exchange for giving up politics, which he firmly refused. Throughout the struggle, he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment multiple times.

1921 Round Table Conference in London
Chotani visited Round Table conference in February, 1921.

Family & Business Background
The chotani family, belonging to the memon community, made their way to Bombay in the 1840s, when Bombay's status as a city of new commercial and administrative functions had been estalished. The first generation in Bombay successfully launched a timber business, and the second and third generations enlarged it by arranging contracts with the authorities for railway and port construction. In the third generation, especially, when Mia Muhammad Chotani (b.1873) and his younger brother Mia Ahmed Chotani succeeded the business, the company established many new branches in various cities including Lahore, Madras, Karachi, Calicut, Belgaum, Ernakulam, San Francisco and London.

The second generation who founded an agency in Rangoon and ventured into the teak business, they were able to take advantage of the expanding teak trade, caused by the gradual opening of the Burmese forests after the 1830s.

Seth Hashim Chotani, the ealder brother of Haji Jan Muhammad Chotani, contributed three lakh rupees for the construction of Minara masjid in the year 1888.

Death
He died in Medina in June 1932 during his Hajj journey. He is buried in Al-Baqi Cemetery (ٱلْبَقِيْع).

Books
- Taqreer

- NASIRUL ISLAM HAJI MIYAN MOHAMMAD CHHOTANI