Indian Councils Act of 1909

By 1909 the government had a genuine problem: Extremist agitation, Swadeshi and revolutionary violence all told it that the 1892 reform had not been enough. Its answer, the Morley-Minto Reforms, gave Indians a bigger voice in the legislature than ever before — and, in the same breath, wrote a communal divide into Indian electoral politics that would outlast British rule itself.

In two minutes

The Indian Councils Act of 1909, known as the Morley-Minto Reforms, enlarged the legislative councils further and allowed more real deliberative power, but its introduction of separate electorates for Muslims is the single most consequential and most criticised feature of the whole Act.

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