Division Among the Indians

A huge part of the Indian population loyally obeyed the Crown through the Great 1914-18 War. About a million Indian soldiers fought for the Empire in Europe, Middle East and Asia. At first, Gandhi used his influence to support the crown in hopes that Britain would grant the people self-government for loyally defending the Crown, but in March of 1919 the Rowlatt Act was passed which prohibited the struggle for Independence.
This came as a blow to the Indian leaders who thought otherwise. This lead the Mahatma to use the Truth Weapon directly against the British. He called a strike or hartal for all of India on the 6th 1919 of April. The strike was to last for one day and on that day the people were to fast. This fast was to symbolize the humiliation the Indians underwent by being ruled by a foreign power. This strike would make over 300 million people standstill. This was a great idea in theory, but it was hard to put into practice. There were outbreaks of violence in large cities like Delhi and Bombay and many lives were lost. Both the peaceful and violent crowds were chased by police using their lathis(brass-tipped sticks) The Mahatma realized that the plan was not working and that violence had taken over the Satyagrahis.
The second act towards India’s struggle for independence took place in April 1919 in Amritsar. A hartal was conducted peacefully, but the British feared that a revolt was being planned. So on April 12th General Dyer prohibited meetings and processions. The very next day Dyer learned of a meeting in a place called Jallianwalla Bagh. This area was for the most part surrounded by buildings and did not have proper exits and entrances. General Dyer with a few Gurkha and Baluchi soldiers entered the square and without any warning opened fire on the non-violent crowd. The firing lasted for about ten minutes and killed 379, and wounded 1,137 civilians, including men women and children.
After this massacre the Mahatma wanted complete self-government. He said, "When a government takes up arms against its unarmed subjects then it has forfeited its right to govern. It has admitted that it cannot rule in peace and justice." General Dyer was however not satisfied with the massacre of the unarmed men, and he continued to publicly flog men and used other methods of brutal repression. The Mahatma believed that the damage had been done and that there could never be total reconciliation. He began to fight back by telling the Indians to boycott British goods and to not attend British schools. The British responded by handing over the provincial rule to the Indian Ministries. After a year it was clear that the Indians were not progressing towards their ultimate goal of self-government, so Gandhi called on the non-violent struggle again. In spite of the Mahatma’s instructions, violence broke out and so he had to call off the campaign. This incident played itself over and over again until the Mahatma realized that there was a deep disunity between the Hindus and the Muslims. He knew that the future of India lay in solving the deeps cracks that had formed between the two religions and he now began devoting his time to solve the Hindi-Muslim conflicts.