Rowlatt Satyagraha

Impact and suspension

Mahatma Gandhi felt that the revolt was veering off-course, and was disappointed with the rise of violent nature of the movement. Before the non-cooperation movement there had been some instances of violence due to Rowlatt Satyagraha, one of which made the pretext for Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. During the non-cooperation movement, various incidents of violence emerged, including some major ones. In 1921, there had been Prince of Wales riots where Parsis, Jews and Anglo-Indians were attacked by a Hindu-Muslim mob which caused large scale destruction. Moplah Rebellion of 1921 had veered away from non-violent methods. Chauri Chaura incident was the final shock to him. Gandhi thought that Indian masses hadn't still internalised the importance of non-violence in his movements. Mahatma Gandhi did not want the movement to degenerate into a contest of violence, with police and angry mobs attacking each other back and forth, victimizing civilians in between. Gandhi appealed to the Indian public for all resistance to end, went on a fast and on 12 February 1922 called off the non-cooperation movement.