• The leaders of the Khilafat agitation, Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, wished to start a full-fledged Non-Cooperation Movement.
• Gandhiji supported their call. He urged the Congress to campaign against “Punjab wrongs” (Jallianwala massacre), the Khilafat wrong and demand
• Different classes and groups, interpreting Gandhiji’s call in their own manner, protested in their own ways. Thus, people linked their movements to local grievances.

Examples:

• In Kheda, Gujarat, Patidar peasants organised non-violent campaigns against the high land revenue demand of the British.
• In coastal Andhra and interior Tamil Nadu, liquor shops were
• In the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, tribals and poor peasants staged a number of “forest satyagrahas” by sending their cattle into forests without paying grazing fee.
• In many forest villages, peasants declared swaraj and believed that “Gandhi Raj” would be established.
• In Sind (now in Pakistan), Muslim traders and peasants supported the Khilafat call wholeheartedly.
• In Bengal, the Khilafat/Non-Cooperation alliance gave a strong communal unity and strength to the national movement.
• In Punjab, the Akali agitation of the Sikhs removed corrupt mahants—supported by the British—from their gurdwaras.
• In Assam, tea garden labourers shouted “Gandhi Maharaj ki Jaif. They demanded a big increase in their wages. They left the British-owned plantations declaring that they were following Gandhiji’s wish.
• In the Assamese Vaishnava, songs of the period the reference to Krishna, was Substituted by “Gandhi Raja”.

Understanding of Gandhiji by the people

• People thought of Gandhiji as a messiah, as someone who could help them overcome their misery and poverty.
• Gandhiji wished to build class unity, not class conflict, yet peasants could imagine that he would help them in their fight against zamindars.
• Agricultural labourers believed Mahatma Gandhi would provide them land and get taxes reduced.
• Common people credited Gandhiji with their own.