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India Act, Government of (1919)
Under pressure he turned to administrative details while
becoming rigid on strategy. He struggled unsuccessfully
to deal with Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah. Compromise
between the four men was impossible.
Indian provinces enjoyed self-rule after 1937 for two
years, until the onset of the war. Linlithgow tried and
failed to get the princes to accept the federation, but neither the British government nor the princes supported
him. In 1939, when Britain and Germany declared war,
India was automatically included. His failure to consult with Indian leaders, while constitutionally correct,
offended Indian public opinion. The congress ministers,
who were not consulted, resigned, while Muslim leaders
in provinces where they had a majority cooperated with
Britain in war. Thus, chances for Indian unity died.
See also Amritsar massacre.
Further reading: Low, D. A. Britain and Indian Nationalism.
London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997;
Ray, Bharati. Evolution of Federalism in India. Calcutta,
India: Progressive Publishers, 1967; Saharay, H. K. A Legal
Study of the Constitutional Development of India, Up to the
Government of India Act, 1935. Calcutta, India: Nababharat
Publishers, 1970.
John H. Barnhill

India Act, Government of (1919)
World War I was important for India’s nationalist
movement. Indians of all persuasions overwhelmingly
supported Great Britain and the Allied cause during the
war. Nearly 800,000 Indian soldiers plus 500,000 noncombatants served in Europe and the Middle East.
Communal relations between Hindus and Muslims
took several turns between the passage of the India

Councils Act in 1909 and 1919. The reunion of Bengal in 1911 (which canceled its partition into two provinces) pleased the Hindus but antagonized the Muslims.
The All-India Muslim League began to attract younger and bolder leaders, most notably a brilliant lawyer
named Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1946). Similarly
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) and Jawaharlal
Nehru (1889–1967) emerged as leaders of the Indian
National Congress. Many in India’s Muslim minority
became concerned with the ultimate fate of the Muslim
Ottoman Empire, which fought in the opposing Central
Powers camp. World War I also aroused both the congress and the league to demand significant constitutional
reforms from Britain. In 1916 they concluded a Congress-

163

League Scheme of Reforms, known as the Lucknow Pact.
It made wide-ranging demands for greater self-government, equality of Indians with other races throughout the
British Empire and Commonwealth (in response to racial
discrimination in South Africa and Canada), and greater
opportunities for Indians in the armed forces of India.
In response, the new secretary of state for India,
Edwin Montagu, officially announced the British
government’s commitment to “the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the
progressive realization of responsible government in
India” in August 1917. He then toured India, met
with Indian leaders, and together with Viceroy Lord
Chelmsford drafted a Report for Indian Constitutional Reform in 1918, popularly called the MontaguChelmsford Report. A modified version of the report
was embodied in the Government of India Act of
1919. It introduced partial self-government to India’s
nine provinces in a system called dyarchy, whereby
elected representatives controlled the departments of
agriculture, sanitation, education, and so on, while the

British-appointed governor and his advisers retained
control of finance, the police, prisons, and relief. This
was intended as a step toward complete responsible
government. The viceroy, however, retained control
of the central government, and the role of the mostly
elected bicameral legislature remained advisory. The
electorate was expanded, and separate electorates
(Muslims elected their own representatives) were kept
in place, on Muslim insistence.
The Government of India Act was a significant
advance in India’s freedom movement. Others included a separate Indian delegation to the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919, in the same manner as the selfgoverning dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa). India also became a member
of the League of Nations. But these advances did
not satisfy Indian nationalists, who were inflamed by
the continuation of wartime laws that abridged civil
freedoms, and acts of peaceful and violent resistance
continued. Hindu-Muslim accord continued during
the Khalifat movement, when Indians supported
the Ottoman emperor’s religious leadership as caliph
of Islam. The cooperation collapsed when Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk established a republic in Turkey
and abolished the caliphate in 1923 and also due to
increasing competition between the two communal
groups for power in a future independent India.
Further reading: Dodwell, H. H., ed. The Cambridge History
of India. Vol. 6, The Indian Empire, 1858–1918. Cambridge: