Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms: separate seats for Sikhs

Who: Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India, and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy, whose 1918 report shaped the Act. For Sikhs, the Chief Khalsa Diwan, with Sundar Singh Majithia as its most prominent figure, and from December 1919 the Central Sikh League.

What: On 20 August 1917 Montagu announced in the House of Commons that British policy was the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions towards responsible government. The report that followed became the Government of India Act 1919. In the provinces it set up dyarchy. Reserved subjects such as finance, law and order and the police stayed with the Governor. Transferred subjects such as education, public health and agriculture went to ministers chosen from the elected members of an enlarged council with an elected majority. The proposals extended communal electorates, beyond the Muslims who already had them, only to Sikhs in Punjab, and the Act created religious electorates, most notably for Sikhs there.

The Sikh gain was smaller than the Sikh demand. The Franchise Committee had no Sikh member, and Majithia was co-opted for Punjab only. The Chief Khalsa Diwan's demands, including one third of Punjab's non-official Indian seats, were largely unfulfilled.

Where: London and Delhi for the reforms, with effect in the provincial councils, including Punjab's.

Why it mattered: Sikhs became one of the few communities in Punjab with seats of their own, after the Lucknow Pact of 1916 had settled Punjab's seat shares without them. The reforms arrived in the year of the Rowlatt Acts and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919, which inflamed nationalist feeling. At its September 1920 session the Congress backed Gandhi's call, and it did not contest the 1921 elections. The Central Sikh League held its first session at Amritsar on 29 December 1919, and the SGPC was formed on 15 November 1920.