Non-Cooperation Movement

The Non-Cooperation Movement developed after the First World War amid anger over the Rowlatt legislation, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and continuing colonial rule. Under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, the Indian National Congress urged people to boycott government schools, law courts, councils, titles and imported goods, turning anti-colonial politics into a mass campaign.

The movement was especially powerful in 1921, when local leaders organised volunteers, hartals and public mobilisation across India. In Bengal, Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Chandra Bose became prominent organisers. Gandhi suspended the national campaign in February 1922 after violence at Chauri Chaura, but non-cooperation transformed the scale and methods of the independence struggle and reshaped relations between colonial authorities and Indian political activists.