If the outrage in the Hindu community was not enough, the British in early 1919 faced another threat. Safeguarding the Muslim minority population had long provided the British with a rationale for their presence in India. In 1916 this had been thrown into question by the Lucknow Agreement between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. By the spring of 1919, as the full severity of the peace terms with the Ottoman Empire became clear, Britain came instead to be seen, in Viceroy Chelmsford’s own words, as the ‘arch enemy of Islam’.
