The Last Phase of the Movement

Gandhi was now under increasing pressure from the Congress rank and file to start the civil disobedience programme. The Ahmedabad session in 1921 (presided over, incidentally, by

C.R. Das while still in jail; Hakim Ajmal Khan was the acting president) appointed Gandhi the sole authority on the issue. On February 1, 1922 Gandhi threatened to launch civil disobedience from Bardoli (Gujarat) if (i) political prisoners were not released, and (ii) press controls were not removed.

The movement had hardly begun before it was brought to an abrupt end.