The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931

by Adam Tooze

it was former Viceroy and arch-conservative Lord Curzon who proposed a compromise. India should be promised neither self-government nor self-determination, but ‘the fuller realisation of responsible government’. What Curzon wished to imply by stressing responsibility remains mysterious. Perhaps he meant to warn against ‘irresponsible’ Indian opposition.46 He may have wished to restate the familiar British self-justification of protecting India from an upper-caste Hindu tyranny. Whatever Curzon’s intention, the formula allowed Montagu to present the House of Commons on 20 August 1917 with a historic statement. The ultimate objective of the Raj was the ‘increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India under the aegis of the British crown’. In India the moment at which such a tepid pronouncement might have roused real enthusiasm had passed. Nevertheless, the implications were momentous.