The 'non-cooperation phase was a significant phase of the Indian independence movement from British rule. It was led by Mahatma Gandhi and was supported by the Indian National Congress. Gandhi started the non-cooperation movement for removing British in January 1920 after the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. It aimed to resist British rule in India through nonviolent means. Protestors would refuse to buy British goods, adopt the use of local handicrafts and picket liquor shops. The ideas of Ahinsa and nonviolence, and Gandhi's ability to rally hundreds of thousands of common citizens towards the cause of Indian independence, were first seen on a large scale in this movement through the summer 1920, they feared that the movement might lead to popular violence.

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law, rather than a rejection of the system as a whole. Civil disobedience is sometimes, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance.