The Chauri Chaura incident followed by the Bardoli Resolution brought the non-cooperation movement to a sudden halt. Its participants were left without any clearly defined and intelligible objective and the result was confusion. But once the initial despair was overcome, the non-cooperators began to reconstruct a programme on lines that would appeal to the popular imagination.

In Bengal, the Bardoli Resolution slowed down the pace of preparation for civil disobedience. In some places like Noakhali, Birbhum and parts of Rajshahi the activities of volunteers picketing excise shops did not stop stop immediately, but at Rangpur, in Gaibandha and Kurigram, the volunteers began to follow the Bardoli Resolution programme and engaged themselves in social reconstruction. In most of the districts, constructive social work, such as popularizing the use of charka among the poorer people, continued unhampered. Organizational reconstruction, like enlistment of Congress members by district Congress committees, also continued as usual. Official records show that ‘almost everywhere, the political atmosphere remained calm, marked by a general disappointment among the people’.

Earlier in 1922, Chitta Ranjan Das and his lieutenants were arrested in connection with the boycott of the visit of the Prince of Wales in December 1921 and the BPCC was dominated by Shyam Sundar Chakrabarti and his followers. Later in the Chittagong conference of 1922 C R Das introduced the concept of obstruction and non-cooperation from within the council.