These episodes, quite naturally, marked a turning point in the history of the Indian Struggle for freedom. The much trumpetted British moral prestige received a terrific and fatal blow. General Dyer had knowingly or unknowingly kept the door open for the not far away ending of the British rule in India. 

Gandhi who attended the Lucknow session of the Congress four years ago was “very distant and different and un-political” according to Jawaharlal Nehru. But in 1920, Gandhi was everything in India’s political life and he re-created the Congress and turned it into the proper weapon for the final assault on the British colonial rule over India. 

Like a magician, he transformed even the ordinary men and women of India into warriors of freedom and roused a storm of enthusiasm throughout the country with his call to non-cooperate with the British rule. 

He returned to the Viceroy the honors, medal and decorations he had received from the Government for his war-services and humanitarian work.