The Rowlatt Act of March 1919, which suspended the rights of political prisoners in sedition trials, was seen as a ""political awakening"" by Indians and as a "threat" by the British. Although it was never invoked and declared void just a few years later, the act motivated Gandhi to conceive the idea of satyagraha (truth), which he saw as synonymous with independence. This idea was also authorised the following month by Jawaharlal Nehru, for who the massacre also endorsed “"the conviction that nothing short of independence was acceptable"”.