August Declaration (1917) and Montagu-Chelmsford Report (1918)

In the middle of the First World War, with Indian soldiers dying in Europe and the Home Rule movement gathering pace at home, the British government did something it had never done before: it announced, in Parliament, that Indian self-government was the actual goal of its policy — not a distant hope, but a stated aim, however gradual.

In two minutes

Edwin Montagu's August Declaration of 1917 committed Britain, for the first time in Parliament, to the gradual development of self-governing institutions in India, and the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of 1918 that followed worked out how, laying the ground directly for the Government of India Act, 1919.

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