Many Indians followed him by renouncing their titles and honors. Lawyers gave up their practice. Students left their classes. Thousands of the people from both the cities and villages traveled from place to place spreading the messages of non-cooperation and non-violence.

The Indian masses were being prepared to defy the law. Everything foreign was hated. Foreign clothes were burned and the fire of it lit up the Indian horizon as never before. The message of the hand-spun clothe reverberated through the Indian atmosphere. The hum of the spinning wheel became the mantra of the Indian resistance.

More significant was the new role the womenfolk adopted. They came out from their seclusion and marched along the streets. Thousands of people all over India were put in jail.

Gandhi spoke continuously to the people and wrote continuously in his two weeklies, Nav Jivan and Young India and enlightened the people on peaceful resistance and non-cooperation.