The Khilafat movement, which is also known as the Indian Muslim movement, emerged in India in 1919 with the purpose of returning the Ottoman Empire’s caliph back to power after the Treaty of Sècres dismantled the Ottoman Empire. Abudla Hamid II, the sultan and supreme leader of the Muslim world, sent Jamaluddin Afghani to India to acquire the sympathy and support of Indian Muslims. This resulted in Maluna Mehmud Hasan’s call for a war to achieve India’s independence from the British with the Ottoman Empire’s backing. The movement evolved into a non-cooperation movement, in which non-violent civil disobedience was used to increase pressure on Britain. In 1922, this movement declined as Turkey gained a more secular approach to its political affairs. Moreover, the Khilafat Movement replaced the Muslim League, and the overall fight for Indian Muslims' rights was weakened as support was divided between various groups. Notably, the emergence of this movement marked a moment in which Muslim and Hindu leaders unified, particularly after the events of WWI. 

Sen lived most of her life before this movement started, and her narrative sheds light onto what the status quo in India was before 1919 at a microscopic level. Her narrative focuses on events that are largely personal to her, with only brief remarks of her interaction with British agents. She refrains from any political commentary and does not present the reader with an image of what lies beyond her immediate experiences. The text focuses on Hindu culture and tradition, omitting any significant references to Muslim Indians or conflict. This suggests that Sen, as a widow, is too preoccupied with survival to be as involved with politics and theoretical ideas as thinkers like Mill, who could do so because of his identity as a white, British man. Ultimately, while the Khilafat movement does not explicitly surface in the narrative, its absence is nevertheless telling: a widowed, Indian woman like Sen recounts a narrative rooted in quotidian life because her financial difficulties and the social pressures she experiences are too consuming. Perhaps Sen chooses to omit these large-scale movements because she knows that she would not be seen as an authority on these larger-scale issues. Alternatively, Sen may not deem it necessary to explicitly take sides in this political debate between pro-Indian and pro-Muslim groups because Hindus and Muslims were increasingly inrteracting with each other in Begnal after the British partiion of 1905. and she was mostly isolated from Hindu society. 

"Kihlafat Movement: Indian Muslim Movement." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 27 February 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Khilafat-movement.