It was under these circumstances that a special session of All India Congress Committee was held at Calcutta (now Kolkata) in September, 1920 with Lala Lajpat Rai as its president. The Calcutta session supported Gandhiji’s plan for non-Cooperation with Government and left the final decision to the Nagpur session of the Congress to be hald in December 1920. The Nagpur session under the presidentship of Vijayaraghava Chariar endorsed the Non-Cooperation resolution.

The Nagpur session also brought a revolutionary change in the congress organisation and Provincial Congress committees were established on liguinstic basis.

The programme of the Non-coperation movemnt had two main aspects: (i) constructive and (ii) destructive.

Under the first category came:

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(1) the nationalisation of education,

(2) the promotion of indegeneous goods,

(3) the popularisation of charkha and Khadi and

(4) the enrollement of voluntary corps.

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In the later category figured the boycott of:

(1) law courts,

(2) educational institutions,

(3) election to the legislatures,

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(4) offical funcions,

(5) British goods as well as surrender of honours and titles conferred by the British.

The campaign for the non-cooperation and boycott started with great enthusiasm from early 1921. However, some changes in the central emphasis of the movement from one phase to other were noticed during the course of the movement. In the first phase from January to March 1921, the main empahasis was on boycott of schools, colleges, law courts and use of charakha.

There were widespread student unrest and top lawyers, like Desabandhu Chttaranjan Das, Chakravartti Rajgopalachari, Rajendra Prasad and Pandit Motilala Nehru gave upon their legal practice. This phase was followed the collection of one crore rupees for the Tilak Swaraj Fund by August 1921, enrolling one crore Congress members and installing 20 lakh charakhs by 30 June. In the third phase starting from July, the stress was on boycott of foreign clothes, boycott of the forthcoming visit of Prince of Wales in Novemebr 1921, popularisation of Charakh and Khadi and “Jail Bharo” by congress volunteers. In the last phase, beginning from 1921, a shift towards radicalism was visible.

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The congress volunteers rallied the people and the country was on the verge of a revolt. Gandhi decided to launch a no revenue apeech, press and association. But the attack on a local police station by angry people at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district of Uttarpradesh on 5th February 1922 changed the whole situation.

Tewnty-two police men were killed which was followed by more mob violence at Bareilly. Gandhi viewed the tragedy as red signal and suspended non-coperation movement on February 22, 1922. The sudden suspension of non-cooperation movement by Gandhi gave profound shock to his followers.

Gandhi was arrested, tried at Ahemadabad on March 18, 1922, and sentenced to six years imprisonment. The Khilafat issue also lost its relevance when Mustak Kemal Pasha came to power in Turkey and abolished the office of the Khalifa. Naturally it led to an end Khilafat Movement.

It was during non-cooperation movement that national educational institutions, like Jamia Milia Islamia, Kasi Vidyapitha, Gujurat Vidyapitha, Bihar Vidyapith, Bihar Vidyapitha and Satyabadi Vana Vidyalaya came into existence.