User:Anupmehra/INC

Indian National Congress was founded on 28 December 1885 in Bombay by 100 individuals of which 72 were Indian delegates and were considered the founding members of the organization. From its foundation to Indian independence in 1947 from British raj, the organization served as a national platform for freedom fighters from different regions to protest their voice against exploitative nature of the foreign rule. After independence, Mahatma Gandhi who joined the organization at later phase in 1921, proposed to dissolve the Indian National Congress as its purpose was served, and to form a new organization to govern the nation. ....to be expanded after completion of body of article.

Early period to 1885

The Indian National Congress, was initially proposed to be the Indian National Union and was founded under the leadership of a retired British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume to provide educated class of the Indian society a platform to lodge their grievances with the Government, and for the Government to answer the complaints for smooth functioning of the administrative machinery. After the revolt of 1857, the administration of India was transferred from the British East India Company to the British Crown through the Government of India Act, 1858. The act also provided for the reforms of the Indian educational and political system. Lord Ripon was the Viceroy of the British Indian Empire from 1880 to 1884. He was known to be pro-Indian in his methodologies, and on good terms with A. O. Hume. After the retirement of Lord Ripon, Hume came to Bombay to bid farewell to Ripon and stayed there for next three months. During this time he met with the prominent leaders of the Bombay presidency and in March 1885, it was agreed that a conference of the Indian National Union would be convened around the Christmas week, same year. Since the Indian National Union had to be Government affiliated, a requested for the creation of the Indian National Union based on the opposition party model in Britain was made by Hume, and was granted permission by the then Viceroy Lord Dufferin. On 1 March 1883, Hume wrote an open letter to the students of Calcutta University, for at least fifty of them to come forward and serve the cause of motherland. He said,

If only fifty men, good and true, can be found to join as founders, the thing can be established and the further development will be comparatively easy. ... If they cannot renounce personal ease and pleasure, then at present at any rate all hopes of progress are at an end; and India truly neither desires nor deserves any better Government than she enjoys.

— A. O. Hume, 1 March 1883

Prior to the foundation of the Indian National Congress, there were various other organizations operational in the country out of which British Indian Association in Bengal and Poona Sarvajanik Sabha in Poona, Maharastra were the prominent ones. Initially Poona was chosen to host the founding session of the Indian National Congress, because the region was located in the central province, and was accessible to leaders from different parts of the country. Also the leaders of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha had agreed to make arrangements for the meeting. But the location was shifted to Bombay in the last moment due to outbreak of cholera in the region.

On 28 December 1885, 100 individual gathered at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, of which 72 were non-officials and thus were called founding members, in the inaugural session of the Indian National Congress. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, a leader from the Bengal presidency and one of the first four Indian barristers, was chosen the first president of the conference. It set a precedent that the president of the conference should be one belonging to different region from the one in which conference is being hosted. Hume was assigned the role of General Secretary which he served till 1906. Other prominent non-Indians present at the inaugural session were, William Wedderburn and Justice (later, Sir) John Jardine|John Jardine.

The Indian National Union was organized in the form of indigenous parliament. Later, the word "Union" was replaced by the "Congress" which was borrowed from North America, and denoted an assembly of people.

Era of moderates (1885 to 1905)

First session of Indian National Congress, Bombay, 28–31, December, 1885.

The Indian National Congress was initially a majority of moderate leaders who believed in the benevolence of British citizens and parliament. It was assumed that if they submit plea to the British parliament and make appeals to the British citizens, they would be treated on equal footing. They believed that the British rule in India was un-British in character. For this purpose, an English Committee was formed in 1989 and its sub-organ India was started in 1890. It was to reside in England to appeal to British citizens and government for betterment of the Indian people. Dadabhai Naoroji was chosen to lead the India organ and he spent most of his life in England to serve the cause. In XXXX, he was elected to the British House of Commons.

Among the 72 founding members of the Congress, majority of them belonged to Brahmin caste and more than half, 39, of them were lawyers. In succeeding Congress sessions, it was pointed out by the historian Anil Seal in his book The Emergence of Indian Nationalism in 1968, that majority of members of Congress were from presidency towns, i.e. Bengal, Calcutta and Madras, and lawyers always constituted at least one-third of the total members of the Congress.

The first president of the Congress, W. C. Bonnerjee in his inaugural speech stated the five objectives of the Congress as, friendship among countrymen, eradication of all prejudices related to race, creed or provinces, consolidation of sentiments of unity, listening to the educated class on prevalent and imminent problems, and to plan the course of action in public interest. He clarified the purpose of Congress as the medium of communication between the Indian people and the ruling authorities. He also said that the Congress accepted the leadership of Hume because majority of British in India did not trust the educated Indian class. The goal of Congress in this session was stated to secure a policy that would not just benefit the British government but also the Indian population as a whole.

The historian Briton Martin in his book New India: 1885, published in 1970, opined that the first Congress was a distinctly professional affair, which would have been the envy of any comparable political meeting held in England or the United States at that time.

The first session of Congress passed nine resolutions:

• They demanded the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into Indian affairs in which Indians should be adequately represented.
• Abolition of the Indian Council of the Secretary of the State and that the Secretary of the State should be directly held responsible to the British parliament. It was based on assumption that British people would want the same standard for Indians what they wanted for themselves from the British parliament.
• The Central and Provincial Legislative Councils should allow inclusion of elected representatives and the creation of Councils in the North West Frontier, Oudh, and Punjab provinces, and a Standing Committee in the House of Commons to consider formal protests.
• The simultaneous examination of Indian Civil Service should be held in Britain and India and the maximum age of candidates should be raised from 19.
• Fifth and Sixth resolutions were for the British Indian Government to consider their expenditure on army expeditions.
• It condemned the annexation of Burma in 1885.
• They agreed that resolutions passed by the Congress should be sent country-wide to different associations to ratify the same.
• Lastly, they decided over next meet of the Congress, to happen exactly a year later, on 28 December 1886 in Calcutta.

The first Congress session lasted for three days, from 28 December to 31 December, 1885. Early members of the Congress for their firm belief in the constitutional machinery and efficacy of the British Government were termed as Moderates. Between holding of two consecutive sessions, members of the organization primarily used print media for their agitation. On wards first session, it became a tradition to discuss Government policies and activities and pass resolutions about the same in every succeeding sessions. During the first twenty years of Congress from 1885 to 1905, despite British did not pay serious attention to their demands, they kept repeating their demands in every session. In 1892, the British government passed the Indian Council Act to reform the legislative councils, though not to satisfaction of the Congress demands. The Congress wanted to have control over tax-money and raised the slogan what was raised by North Americans during their War of Independence, No taxation without representation. One popular case made by the nationalists during this phase was the Drain of Wealth. The central figures in proposing the economic critique of British government were, Dadabhai Naoroji, M. G. Ranade and R. C. Dutt.

This phase also witnessed the birth and rise of the organized extremist nationalist movement due to the failure of moderates' to meet the demands. The extremist nationalism had been present in the Indian political system since as early as 1857 when popular rebellion, often termed as the First War of Independence occurred. Extremists were opposite to moderates in their perception of the British Government. They did not believe in the benevolent character of the British rule and were supportive of the view that British rule could only be overthrown by the use of militancy and violence. There were group of extremists province-wise: of the Maharastra group, Bal Gangadhar Tilak; the Bengal group, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh; the Punjab group, Lala Lajpat Rai, were prominent ones. While both moderates and extremists agreed that the British administration should adopt measures for the betterment of the India, they differed on the method to make British do so. From 1893 to 1900, Lala Lajpat Rai did not attend any meeting of the Congress due to its soft and lenient approach towards the British. The ideological background of extremists were influenced by Bankim Chandra, Swami Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda. Bipin Chandra Pal, who in 1897 said, I am loyal to the British Government, because with me loyalty to the British Government is identical with loyalty to my own people and my country; because I believe that God has placed this Government over us, for our salvation, with passing time, in 1902 wrote, The Congress here and its British Committee in London, are both begging institutions.

//*should be cut a little short

Era of extremists (1905 - 1916)

The failure of moderates to secure any of the demands fueled the rise of extremists who did not believe in plea and appeals to the government. Gopal Krishna Gokhale who headed the 1905 Congress annual meet in Benaras set the goal of Congress to secure Self-government (Swaraj) and this demand was repeated by the Dadabhai Naoroji in his presidential speech in next annual meet at Calcutta. Later Bal Gangadhar Tilak echoed the same sentiment, but the method to attain it proposed by him was substantially different from the moderate leaders of Congress. He urged the countrymen to adopt self-denial and self-abstinence in order to not assist the British to rule over them. In 19XX, Tilak asserted that, Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it.

Swadeshi movemment

Main article: Swadeshi movement

In 1905, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of British India announced the Partition of Bengal which he explained as the administrative need of the time. However, the official assessment of the decision was, Bengal united is a power, Bengal divided will pull in several different ways. The decision of partition created furor over the country because nationalists believed that it was a tactic to divide the nation on religious line and thus weaken the national movement. There were protests in the Bengal and rest of the country. Congress launched the Swadeshi movement to boycott the British products and institutions to express their disagreement with the decision. There were disagreement among the two rival wings of the Congress as to which method should Congress adopt to lead the movement. While the extremists wanted the Swadeshi movement to extend from Bengal to the rest of the country in form of a national movement, the moderates were in favour to confine the movement to regional space. According to historian Sumit Sarkar, the movement in its mature phase was over-taken by extremist leaders and the cause which initially triggered the movement was lost to the unrelated issues such as, self-rule.

//*needs some quote from Vande Matram magazine edited by Aurobindo Ghosh, some details on Foundation of Muslim league

Split of Congress

In 1906, the extremists suggested the name of Tilak to head the presidential chair of annual meet at Calcutta, but were opposed by moderate leaders. Failing to get Tilak elected the president of Congress, extremists one-sided without consulting the Reception Committee of Congress, proclaimed Dadabhai Naoroji as the president. The moderates assented to the alternative nomination. The meeting marked bitter verbal exchanges between these two groups of the Congress, in which Gokhale, Pherozshah Metha and Madan Mohan Malaviya of moderate wing were treated badly. Four resolutions on the Swadeshi movement, Boycott strategy, National education and the Self-government were passed with heavy amendments. The extremist emerged as the strong, coherent and powerful force to national scene from this meeting.

In 1907 session, the debate over who should head the meeting surfaced again. The extremists wanted Tilak to head the presidential chair, but the moderates opposed to the nomination, and the ultimate result was further worsening of the relationship between these two wings. Ras Bihari Bose, nominated by Gokhale won the presidential majority vote, but the differences of ideology and temperament and the clash of personalities and the bitter feelings among rival groups led to the split of Congress in this session of the Congress at Surat, Gujarat. Lord Minto, then Viceroy wrote after this session to the Secretary of the State, Lord Morley, that the Congress collapse is a great triumph for us.

Taking the advantage of the split of Congress, British adopted harsh measures to suppress the movement against the partition of Bengal and the Government as whole. Tilak was charged with sedition and jailed for eight years the same year.

//*Views of eminent historians, Bepin Chandra, Romila Thapar, Irfaan Habib, Sumit Sarkar etc. + contemporary press reaction

World War I : the battle of the soul

On 4 August 1914, India as a part of the British Empire joined in the World War. However the decision to participate in the war was taken unilaterally by the then Viceroy Lord Hardinge without consulting the Indian political body. A total of 1,440,437 new recruitment were made for the purpose of war, in addition to 239,561 army personnel already present in the British Indian Army in 1914. India also contributed in the war in monetary terms. The one-sided decision was protested by the Indian National Congress, but there were mixed response among members of the organisation. On 12 August 1914, Dadabhai Naoroji, described himself as a more of a critic than a simple praiser of the British Rule in India. The moderate leader Bhupendranath Basu and Surendranath Banerjee supported the India's participation in the war. For moderates, the only method to attain self-government was to please the British rule. Subbier Subramania Iyer addressed a rally in Madras to encourage citizens to enlist themselves as volunteer; he said, to serve as a volunteer in British army is an "honor superior to that of a seat in the Executive Council and even in the Council of the Secretary of State." The extremists believed in the idea of revolution to attain self-government. In 1916, Tilak launched Home Rule League, a movement for the attainment of self-government. About XXXXXX Indian people died in the war, and XXXXX injured according to official records. After the war, British brought Government of India Act, 1919 which failed to satisfy even moderates and caused further disappointment in the leadership.

//*Quote from British leadership in India and England (find BBC article published in 2014/2015), Home Rule League of Annie Besant - needs precise details.

Rejuvenation of Congress (1916-1920)

Tilak was released from the FINDJAILNAME jail in 1914. Annie Besant who become first women president of Congress in 19XX worked as a mediator between the extremist group led by Tilak and the moderates led by Pheroz Mehta, and finally in 1916, these two wings merged together to form a united Congress. By this time, both group realised that the British government was playing the game of divide and rule and whatsoever their differences might be, they are stronger only together. Mahatma Gandhi who had led successful movements against the foreign rule in South Africa also returned India in 1915 and was received by the Congress leaders at Bombay port. He, however declined the Gokhale's offer to immediately join the Congress and chose to roam across country to evaluate the real situation. Gokhale welcomed the decision and acted as godfather of Gandhi to understand the prevailing situation under British rule in the country.

//*Congress regional committees and their social work, Strategic shift in national goal earlier defined

Era of Gandhi (1920 - 1935)

//*quote Subash Chandra Bose in which he honored Gandhi with Mahatma title //*rise to national scene and a mass leader (probably first leader attached to villages of India) //*British reaction to Gandhi's popularity (namely Viceroy, Secretary of State, and House of Lords/Commons) //*International Media

Satyagrah

Main article: Satyagrah

Satyagrah literally means the insistence on truth, was the method adopted by Gandhi during his stay in South Africa to protest against the unjust foreign rule.

Controversy

Foundation of the Indian National Congress by a British on approval of Viceroy was questioned by the non-attending educated class of the Indian society and the subsequent Indian historians. For a long time, it was believed that the Congress was founded by Hume under official direction and direct advise of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin to provide a safer outlet for the rising discontent, particularly among educated and younger Indian generation, which if left unattended would have created far bigger problems for the British rule. It was popularly known as the safety valve theory.

While Lala Lajpat Rai agreed that Hume was, a lover of liberty and wanted political liberty for India under the aegis of the British crown, he insisted that he was after all, an English patriot. He wrote in a daily newspaper,Young India in 1916, that:

It [congress] was a product of Lord Dufferin's brain. The Congress was started more with the object of saving the British Empire danger than with that of winning political liberty in India. The interests of the British Empire were primary and those of India only secondary.

— Lala Lajpat Rai, Young India, 1916.

About a quarter century later, historian Rajani Palme Dutt wrote in India Today that the Congress was created through, a plan secretly pre-arranged with the viceroy so that it could be used as an intended weapon for safeguarding British rule against the rising forces of popular unrest and anti-British feeling. It [congress] was an attempt to defeat, or rather forestall, an impending revolution. In 1938, C. F. Andrews and Girija Mukerji in their work, The Rise and Growth of the Congress in India, accepted the safety valve theory and defended it saying that it helped to avoid useless bloodshed. In 1939, M. S. Gowalker, RSS chief also attacked Congress for it being founded as a safety valve for seething nationalisation.

Another aspect of the criticism of the congress was the need for it to be founded by a British, while it could be anyone from the founding members of the organization. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, in 1913, answered that;

No Indian could have started the Indian National Congress ... If the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman and a distinguished ex-official, such was the distrust of political agitation in those days that the authorities would have at once found some way or the other of suppressing the movement.

— Gopal Krishna Gokhale, 1913

The two-fold character of congress that it was a result of Government's initiative and that it organized mass-movements against the Government was debated until the private correspondence between Viceroy Dufferin and Hume and other officials were made public after the Indian independence. In one such correspondence in May 1885, Dufferin had written to Lord Reay to be cautious of the Hume's association and in return Reay in writing recognised the Congress as the National Party of India and warned against the Indian members of the Indian National Congress. Later after the foundation of Congress in 1888, Dufferin made a sharp criticism of the Congress saying, ..we cannot allow the Congress to continue to exist.

//*need more work here