Non-Cooperation Movement in India
- Date
- 1920–1922
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- South Asia (British India)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Launched by Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress on 4 September 1920, the Non-Cooperation Movement was the first mass nationwide campaign of nonviolent resistance against British rule in India.
It responded to the Rowlatt Act, the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar) massacre, and grievances tied to the Khilafat cause. Gandhi urged Indians to boycott British schools, courts, titles, foreign cloth and elections, and to embrace homespun khadi and self-reliance. Millions participated, transforming Indian nationalism from an elite project into a movement with a genuine mass base. After a crowd killed police at Chauri Chaura in Uttar Pradesh on 4 February 1922, Gandhi, alarmed by the turn to violence, suspended the campaign on 12 February 1922. Although it did not achieve self-rule, the movement established satyagraha (nonviolent civil resistance) as the central method of the independence struggle and made Gandhi its pre-eminent leader.
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Empires active in 1920–1922
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement12 March – 6 April 1930
- Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League of Nations28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920)
- Russian Revolutions of 1917March & November 1917 (February & October Revolutions, O.S.)
- Sykes-Picot Agreement partitions the Ottoman Middle East16 May 1916
- The Xinhai Revolution and the fall of the Qing1911–1912 (Wuchang Uprising 10 October 1911; abdication 12 February 1912)
- Hitler's appointment and Nazi consolidation of power30 January 1933 – August 1934
Further reading
The wider story
India: A History
The classic accessible narrative of the subcontinent across five millennia.
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