In a letter to the Earl of Crewe, Secretary of State for India, sent from Shimla to London on Aug. 25, 1911, Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India outlined his reasons for why the capital of British India should be moved to Delhi from India.

For one, the Indian Councils Act of 1909, passed by Westminster and more widely known as the Morley-Minto reforms, had allowed Indians for the first time to stand for legislative council positions. Hardinge argued that the rising importance of elected legislative bodies meant that Britain needed to find a more centrally located capital, rather than Calcutta which was located at the eastern extremity of India.

Hardinge also stressed the urgency in moving out of Calcutta, driven by rising hostility to British rule. The British had been facing growing calls for extending some form of self rule to the natives. As the capital of British rule in India, this call was strongest in Calcutta. In 1905 the British had divided Bengal, the enormous and prosperous province in which Calcutta was based, in an effort to weaken opposition to their rule. The move backfired, triggering boycott of British goods, bombings and assassinations.

Sir John Jenkins, a senior member of the government of India, in June 1911 proposed a series of measures to calm nationalist forces. These included a reunification of Bengal, albeit with redrawn boundaries. It also involved a move of the capital away from inflamed Bengal to relatively quiet Delhi. The plan won approval from senior British officials and King George V, who only six months later during his visit to India, the first by a British monarch, announced the reunification of Bengal and the immediate move of the capital to Delhi.