The legal fight against the Rowlatt Act seemed futile. Do you know what Gandhiji did? Gandhiji accepted this fact and decided to conduct a hartal or a general strike as a way of demonstrating his objection to the implementation of this act. A day of hartal was declared, where everything came to a standstill. Stores had to be closed. Employees went on strike. These were attempts of civil disobedience on a mass scale. The Indians hoped that these actions would deliver a message of repudiation and resistance to the Britishers. Remarkable support against the unfair law received from all streams of the society was appreciable. But Satyagraha was an unfamiliar weapon to many in India. In many places people turned violent. Gandhi recognized the seriousness of the situation and cancelled the hartal. Then, Gandhiji launched a 72-hour fast as a penance for the violence in the hartal.