When the British enacted the Rowlatt Act, it was a challenge to the Indian freedom movement. It was from this point that Mahatma Gandhi started his civil disobedience movement with truth and non-violence as principles. The Satyagraha movement, as it would be known, created the atmosphere of a great revolution in the country. Pt. Shukla did not abandon his legal practice but would now devote most of his time and resources on the national movement. He gave up all his stylish clothes made using English yarn and got them all consigned to the fire, symbolic of emergence into a new era, and instead now the Shukla household would have only Khadi hand woven, using cotton. In the year 1921 Pt. Shukla became a member of the All India Congress Committee. In July that year a large public meeting was organised by Pt. Shukla at Raipur to protest against the arrest of Pt. Makhan Lal Chaturvedi, the editor of Karmvir at Bilaspur. Sh. Raghvendra Rao also spoke in this meeting. In May that year, to awaken the masses and to propagate the political programme of Gandhiji, Pt. Shukla organised a political conference at Jabalpur, followed by Sagar in November and Hoshangabad in January 1922. It was in this tense atmosphere that the Prince of Wales decided to visit India. There was a total boycott of his visit and the non-cooperation movement was spreading like a wild fire.