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| 1918–19 |
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| Influenza epidemic caused 5 million deaths. | 1 |
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| 1919, March 18 |
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| The ROWLATT ACTS, two antisedition measures that enabled the government to intern agitators without trial and entitled judges to try cases without juries, became law despite the united dissent of the Indian members of the imperial legislative council. Angered at this, Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), saintly leader of the Indians in South Africa (1893–1913), having loyally supported the war effort, now proclaimed a day of fasting and work stoppage (hartal) throughout India, but ignorance of his pacifist program led to rioting. At Amritsar in the Punjab, five Englishmen were killed and an Englishwoman beaten (April 10). | 2 |
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| April 13 |
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| THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE. Gen. Reginald Dyer, aiming to terrorize the populace, ordered his Gurkha troops to fire on an unarmed assembly caught inside a walled garden until their ammunition was exhausted; 379 persons were killed and 1,200 left wounded. Gandhi (April 18) suspended his civil disobedience (satvagraha) campaign, calling it a “Himalayan miscalculation.” Mounting agitation throughout India followed, aggravated by belated and mild official censure of Dyer's action. | 3 |
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| May 3–Aug. 8 |
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| The third Anglo-Afghan War (See 1919, May–Aug), begun by the new emir Amanullah, who appealed to India's Muslims to rise against the British. | 4 |
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| Dec. 23 |
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| The GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT introduced the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. The Indian Parliament (opened at Delhi in Feb. 1921) was to consist of the viceroy, council of state (60 members, of whom 26 were to be officials), and legislative assembly (140 members, of whom 100 were to be elected). The provincial governments were to have Indian as well as British ministers. Under the “dyarchy” principle, important matters were “reserved” for the governor and the appointed British members of his executive council; the less important (sanitation, education, agriculture, etc.) were to be “transferred” to the Indian members. Provincial legislative councils were to be 70 percent elective, with an extended franchise limited by property qualifications. The Indian National Congress rejected the new system but members of the National Liberal Federation cooperated with the government and in many places worked the new system with considerable success. | 5 |
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