Popular Response

People responded with anger. Though unprepared, the response was massive. In the first four months alone, about 80,000 satyagrahis, mostly urban and rural poor, were jailed. Other forms of protest included picketing of shops selling liquor and foreign cloth, illegal gatherings, non-violent demonstrations, celebrations of national days, symbolic hoistings of national flag, non-payment of chowkidara tax, salt satyagraha, forest law violations and installation of a secret radio transmitter near Bombay. This phase of the civil disobedience movement coincided with upsurges in two princely states—Kashmir and Alwar. But this phase of the movement could not be sustained for long because

(i) Gandhi and other leaders had no time to build up the tempo; and

(ii) the masses were not prepared.

Finally in April 1934, Gandhi decided to withdraw the civil disobedience movement. Though people had been cowed down by superior force, they had not lost political faith in the Congress—they had won freedom in their hearts.