Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Movement (1919–1947) — Part 3: 3. The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922)

3. The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922)

3.1 Programme and Methods

Emboldened by the Rowlatt campaign and deeply disturbed by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the British government's failure to adequately punish those responsible, Gandhi called for a campaign of "non-cooperation" with British rule. He linked it to the Khilafat Movement, a pan-Islamic protest led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali demanding that the British protect the Ottoman Caliphate (and thus the institution of the Khalifa, spiritual leader of Sunni Islam) after Turkey's defeat in World War I. The Khilafat Committee had already, at its All India Conference in Delhi in November 1919, called for non-cooperation with the British government. By coupling non-cooperation with Khilafat, Gandhi hoped to forge unprecedented Hindu-Muslim unity against colonial rule.

The programme of the Non-Cooperation Movement included:

• Surrender of titles and honorary positions conferred by the British
• Boycott of government schools, colleges, and law courts
• Boycott of civil services, army, and police
• Boycott of foreign cloth and promotion of khadi
• Popularisation of the charkha (spinning wheel)
• Non-payment of taxes
• Enrolment of volunteer corps

The Indian National Congress formally endorsed the movement at its Calcutta special session (September 1920) and at the Nagpur session (December 1920), which also adopted a new constitution reorganising provincial committees on linguistic lines rather than artificial British-drawn boundaries — a structural change that greatly deepened the Congress's grassroots reach.

The movement unfolded across several phases. From January to March 1921, the main emphasis was on boycott of schools, colleges, and law courts. Top lawyers like C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru gave up their lucrative legal practices. From April 1921, the focus shifted to the Tilak Swaraj Fund (target: one crore rupees), enrolling one crore Congress members, and installing 20 lakh charkhas. From July 1921, the programme added boycott of the forthcoming visit of the Prince of Wales in November and the burning of foreign cloth. From November 1921, a more radical phase — Jail Bharo — set in.

The response was unprecedented in Indian history. According to official figures, there were 396 strikes in 1921 involving 600,000 workers and a loss of seven million workdays. Thousands of students left government schools and colleges and enrolled in national institutions like Kashi Vidyapeeth, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, and Jamia Millia Islamia. Women gave up purdah, donated jewellery to the Tilak Fund, and participated actively in picketing foreign cloth and liquor shops. Peasants in Awadh refused to pay taxes; hill tribes in northern Andhra violated forest laws; peasants in Kumaun refused to carry loads for colonial officials. Industrialists like G.D. Birla supported the movement openly, recognising that in a free India, British commercial advantages would disappear.

Wherever Gandhi travelled, enormous crowds gathered — 10,000 to 20,000 at rural railway stations; adoring peasants who called him "Gandhi baba," "Gandhi Maharaj," or simply "Mahatma." Rumours spread of his miraculous powers. His simple dress — the dhoti and loincloth he adopted from 1921 — and his practice of spinning on the charkha allowed him to bridge the gulf between the educated nationalist and the labouring poor. He had, as his American biographer Louis Fischer wrote, made "non-cooperation the name of an epoch in the life of India."

3.2 Chauri Chaura (1922) and Withdrawal

In February 1922, at the hamlet of Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), Congress volunteers who had been harassed by the police retaliated by attacking and torching a police station. Twenty-two policemen burned to death inside the building.

Gandhi was profoundly shocked. Despite the movement being on the verge of mass civil disobedience that many hoped could bring down the Raj, he called off the entire Non-Cooperation Movement on 12 February 1922, insisting: "No provocation can possibly justify the brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless and who had virtually thrown themselves on the mercy of the mob." The Congress Working Committee, meeting at Bardoli on the same day, condemned the violence and endorsed the suspension of the mass civil disobedience that had been planned for Bardoli. Gandhi began a five-day fast of penance.

Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment by Justice C.N. Broomfield, who acknowledged him as a man of "high ideals and of even saintly life." He was released in February 1924 on health grounds.

The withdrawal drew fierce criticism from many Congress leaders, including Motilal Nehru, who felt Gandhi had abandoned a near-certain victory. But Gandhi remained firm: a movement built on violence would produce a violent society, not a just one.

3.3 Significance

Despite its abrupt end, the Non-Cooperation Movement was a watershed. For the first time since the Revolt of 1857, the British Raj was shaken to its foundations. The movement transformed Indian nationalism from an elite, English-speaking urban phenomenon into a genuine mass movement embracing hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers, artisans, women, and students. It demonstrated that non-violent resistance could be an effective political weapon, and it gave India a new vocabulary of protest: satyagraha, non-cooperation, swaraj. It also gave the Congress a new organisational structure on linguistic lines that would prove durable.

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