CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS OF 1919: SIKH DEPUTATION TO ENGLAND. In August 1917, the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Samuel Montagu, made the declaration that the aim of British policy was the introduction of responsible government in India. When Montagu visited India that autumn, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, ruler of Patiala, met him on behalf of the Sikhs. A deputation of the Sikh leaders also waited upon the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, on 22 November 1917 and pressed their claim to one-third representation in the Punjab, especially in view of their services in World War I. The Montagu Chelmsford report published in July 1918 proposed to extend to the Sikhs the system adopted in the case of Muslims in provinces where they were in a minority.
