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Several political leaders such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Congress extremist, called for home rule. Their efforts led to petitions and major public meetings, but they never resulted in disorder or obstruction of government services. Partly due to that, the British did not take them very seriously. The Non-Cooperation Movement aimed to ensure that the colonial economic and power structure would be seriously challenged, and British authorities would be forced to take notice of the people's demands. Many revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad supported this movement but were very dissatisfied by the way Gandhi dismissed their efforts.
Gandhi considered The Khilafat movement as an opportunity to prove that the Musalman was the brother of Hindu. He was chosen to preside at a Khilafat conference in October, 1919 at Delhi. On 19th January, 1920, he joined a deputation of Muslim leaders which laid the demands of the Khilafat movement before the Viceroy.
In its special session at Calcutta (September 1920), Congress agreed to the non-cooperation campaign and termed it as Swadeshi Movement. They surrendered titles and honours, refused to attend Government functions, withdrew their children from Government schools, disavowed the authority of British courts, refused to serve in the military, withdrew candidates from elections to councils, and boycotted foreign goods. Congress also urged people to spin yarn and weave at home.25 Gandhi himself started wearing a single piece of cloth after learning of the plight of women who had only one article of clothing and hence could not bathe in the village ponds or rivers. Gandhi promised that non-cooperation would bring about self-government in one year.26 Gandhi persuaded the Congress not to participate in the
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