S. N. S.

COLLEGE, JEHANABAD
(A Constituent unit of Magadh University, Bodh Gaya)

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

KEY-NOTES

FOUNDATION OF
INDIAN
NATIONAL
CONGRESS

FOR

B.A. PART – III

BY

KRITI SINGH ANAND,

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 Foundation of Indian National
Congress

1. OBJECTIVES :-

After going through this unit the student will be able to :-

a) Understand the circumstances that led to the foundation of the Indian National Congress.

b) Explain the contribution of A. O. Hume towards the foundation of the Indian National Congress.

c) Comprehend the aims and objectives of the Indian National Congress.

d) Understand the British attitude towards the Indian National Congress.

e) Explain the first session of the Indian National Congress and

2. INTRODUCTION :-

The foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 was not a sudden event, or an historical accident.
It was the culmination of a process of political awakening that had its beginning within the 1860s and
1870s and took a serious breakthrough within the late 1870s and early 1880s. The year 1885 marked a
turning point during this process. The modern intellectuals interested in politics, who no longer saw
themselves as spokesmen of narrow group interests, but as representatives of national interest as a
̳national party,saw their efforts bear fruit. The all-India nationalist body that they brought into being was
to be the platform , the organizer, the headquarters, the symbol of the new national spirit and politics.

3. CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO THE FOUNDATION OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL

The Indian demands of these years were, no expansion in Afghanistan or Burma, the liberty of the Press,
reduction of military expenditure, higher expenditure on famine relief, indianization of the civil services,
the proper of Indians to hitch the semi-military volunteer corps, the proper of Indian judges to undertake
Europeans in criminal cases, the appeal to British voters to vote for a party which would listen to Indians

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look rather mild, especially when considered separately. But these were demands which a colonial regime
couldn't easily concede, for that might undermine its hegemony over the colonial people.

The political thrust in the years between 1875 and 1885 was to create the young, and radical nationalists,
most of whom entered politics. They established new associations. The older associations were too
narrow. The Bombay Association and Madras Native Association had become reactionary then the young
nationalists of Bengal, led by Surendranath Banerjee and Anand Mohan Bose, founded the Indian
Association in 1876. M Veeraraghavachariar, G. Subramaniya Iyer, P. Ananda Charlu et al. formed the
Madras Mahajan Sabha in 1884. The intellectuals like K.T. Telang and Pherozeshan Mehta broke away
from leaders like Dadabhai and Dinshaw formed the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885. Among the
old associations only the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha carried on as before.

In 1885, the formation of an all-India political organization had become an objective necessity, and which
was felt by nationalists all over the country. Many scholars have furnished detailed information on the
moves that were made in that direction from 1877. These moves acquired a greater sense of urgency
especially from 1883 and there was intense political activity. The Indian Mirror of Calcutta was carrying
on an endless campaign on the question. The Indian Association had already in December 1883 organized
an All-India National Conference and given another one in December 1885 Since 1875, there had been a
continuous campaign around cotton import duties which Indians wanted to remain within the interests of
the Indian textile industry. A massive campaign had been organized during 1877-88 around the demand
for the Indianizaion of Government services . The Indians had opposed the Afghan adventure of Lord
Lytton and then compelled the British Government to contribute towards the Vernacular Press Act. In
1881-82 they had organized a protest against the Plantation Labour and therefore the Inland Emigration
Act which condemned plantation labourers to serfdom. A major agitation was organized during 1883 in
favour of the Ilbert Bill which might enable Indian magistrates to undertake Europeans. This bill was
successfully thwarted by the Europeans . The Indians had been quick to draw the political lesson . Their
efforts had failed because they had not been coordinated on an all-India basis. On the other hand, the
Europeans had acted in a concerted manner. Again in July 1883 a huge all-India effort was made to boost
a National Fund which might be wont to promote political agitation in India also as England. In 1885,
Indians fought for the proper to hitch the volunteer corps restricted to Europeans, then organized an
appeal to British voters to vote for those candidates who were friendly towards India. Several Indians
were sent to Britain to place the Indian case before British voters through public speeches, and other
means.

4. THE ROLE OF ALLAN OCTAVIAN HUME :--

It is said that the idea of all Indian Congress was conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after
the Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884. The Indian union started by Hume after
his retirement from the Civil Service is also supposed to have been instrumental in convening the
Congress. Whatever the origin, and whoever the originator of the idea, we come to this conclusion, that

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the need of such an organization was being felt, that Allan Octavian Hume took the initiative. Hume was
the son of the British Radical leader Joseph Hume. He inherited his father‘s political views and in his
early days took interest in European revolutionary associations. He joined the East India Company‘s civil
service in 1849, and served in the Northwestern Provinces. He got himself involved in such projects as the
spread of education, fighting social evils and encouraging agricultural progress. In order to educate the
people of Etawah in political and social affairs, Hume even started a newspaper in 1861.Hume‘s
pro-Indians attitude and his efforts towards promoting the welfare of the Indians did not find favour with
his fellow British officers. Hume became a Secretary to the Government of India in 1870 . For his views,
Viceroy Northbrook threatened Hume with dismissal from service. He also failed to get on with Lord
Lytton and suffered demotion in 1879, and finally retired from service in 1882. Hume settled down in
Shimla and began to take interest in Indian politics. He was more in sympathy with the Bombay and
Poona groups than with Calcutta leaders like Surendranath Banerjee and Narendranath Sen. Hume also
came in contact with Viceroy Lord Ripon, becoming interested in the latter‘s scheme of local self-
government.

4.1. Appeal to the Graduates of Calcutta University :- After retiring from the service, Hume addressed
an open letter to the graduates of the Calcutta University on 1 March 1883, appealing them to take the
initiative in establishing an association which would promote the mental, moral, social and political
regeneration of the people of India. Hume further stated, ―If only fifty men, good and true, can be found
to join as founders, the thing can be established and the future development will be comparatively easy‖.
This appeal of Hume was not made in vain . The men required as founders to initiate the movement were
forthcoming from all parts of India.

4.2. Hume‘s Meeting with Indian Leaders ​:- Hume had prolonged talks with eminent Indian nationalist
leaders in Calcutta, Bombay, Poona and Madras. However, it was on the Bombay leaders like William
Wedderburn, Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade, Pherozeshah Mehta and D.E. Wacha that Hume relied
most for launching his new political movement in India. Hume and his friends from Bombay and Poona
drew up a plan for an Indian National Union. The Union was to take the form of an annual conference to
be attended by leaders of various provincial associations. The conference was to be associated with the
government and used as a sounding board for enlightened Indian public opinion. Officials would be
encouraged to participate and the governor of the province would be requested to preside over the
conference.

4.3​. ​Hume‘s Meeting with Lord Dufferin :- After holding consultations with the Indian leaders in the
country, Hume met Lord Dufferin at Shimla in May 1885. He briefed the Viceroy about his proposed
conference of representatives from all parts of India to be held in Poona in December 1885. Lord Dufferin
showed considerable interest in Hume‘s plan of an Indian National Union . In a letter to Lord Reay, the
Governor of Bombay, on 17 May 1884, Dufferin advised him not to serve as Chairman of the conference
which would be held at Poona in the coming winter. In March 1885, a circular was issued by Hume
stating that the conference would be attended by delegates chosen from among leading politicians, from
Bengal, Bombay and Madras Presidencies. The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, agreed to form a reception

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committee for hosting the first conference of the Indian National Union . After his preliminary work in
preparation of convening the conference of India leaders, Hume went to England and remained there from
August to November 1885. He consulted eminent politicians including Lord Ripon. Under their advice he
organized what later became the nucleus of the Indian Parliamentary Committee in England. He also set
up an Indian Telegraph Union for publication Indian news in the leading newspapers of England. Having
made all arrangements in England, Hume returned to India before the congress began to be operative.

As for the question of the role A.O. Hume, if the founders of the Congress were such capable and
patriotic men of high character, why did they have Hume to act as the chief organizer of the Congress ?. It
is undoubtedly true that Hume impressed and quite rightly all his liberal and democratic contemporaries ,
including Lajpat Rai, as a person of high ideals with whom it was no dishonour to cooperate. But the real
answer lies in the conditions of the time. Considering the size of the Indian subcontinent, there were very
few political persons in the 1880s and the tradition of open opposition to the rulers was not yet firmly
entrenched.

Courageous and committed persons like Dadabhai Naorji, Justice Ranade,Pherozeshah Mehta, G.
Subramaniya Iyer and Surendranath Banerjea cooperated with Hume because they didn't want to arouse
official hostility at such an early stage of their work. They assumed that the rulers would be less
suspicious and fewer likely to attack a potentially subversive organization if its chief organizer was a
retired British official Gokhale, with his characteristic modesty and political wisdom, stated this
explicitly. No Indian could have started the Indian National Congress .. if an Indian had .. come to the
fore to start out such a movement embracing all India, the officials in India would not have allowed the
movement to return into existence. If the founding father of the Congress had not been an excellent
Englishman and distinguished ex-official, such was the distrust of political agitation in those days that the
authorities would have at one found some way or the other to suppress the movement. In other words, if
Hume and other English liberals hoped to use the Congress as a safety-valve, the Congress leaders hoped
to use Hume as a lightning rod . And as later developments show, it had been the Congress leaders whose
hopes were fulfilled.

5. THE FIRST SESSION OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS :-

Although there were several other conferences held in different parts of India during the latter half of
December 1885, the most important conference, which met during this fortnight, was the First Indian
National Congress from 28 to 30 December 1885. The venue of the Congress was shifted from Poona to
Bombay on account of an outbreak of cholera epidemic in Poona. The first session of the Indian National
Congress was held in the hall of the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay. It was a colourful
gathering. The total number of delegates who attended the session was about seventy-two, but they fairly
represented the different regions of India. Among the gathering eminent leaders were Dadabhai Naoroji,
K.T. Telang, Pherozeshah Mehta, D.E. Wacha. B.M. Malabari , and N.C Chandavarkar from Bombay;
M.G. Ranade and G.G. Agarkar from Poona; Dewan Raghunath Rao, P. Rangiah Naidu, P. Ananda

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Charlu and S. Subramania Iyer from Madras; W.C. Bonnerjee and Narendra Nath Sen from Calcutta; Lala
Baijnath from Agra; and Allan Octavian Hume from Shimla.

6. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE CONGRESS :-

It, thus, becomes clear that the foundation of the Indian National Congress was the natural culmination of
the political work of the previous years. In 1885, a stage had been reached in the political development of
India when certain basic objectives were laid down. These objectives were correlated and could only be
fulfilled by coming together in a single organization formed on an all-India basis. The men who met in
Bombay on 28 December 1885 were inspired by these objectives and hoped to initiate the method of
achieving them. These objectives can be studied as under :-

6.1​. The first major objective of the founders of the Indian national movement was to promote the
process, to weld Indians into a nation, to create an Indian people. It was common for colonial
administrators and ideologues to say that Indians couldn't be untied or freed because they weren't a nation
or nation but a geographical expression. The Indians did not deny this but asserted that they were not
becoming a nation. India was as Tilak, Surendranath Banerjea and lots of others were keen on saying - a
nation-in-the-making. The Congress leaders recognized that objective historical forces were bringing the
Indian people together. But they also realized that the people had to become aware of the objective
process and that for this it was necessary to promote the feeling of national unity and nationalism among
them. Thus, Among the basic aims and objectives of the Congress laid down by its first President W.C.
Bonnerji, was that of the fuller development and consolidation of national unity among the people of
India.

6.2. To reach out to the followers of all religions and to remove the fears of the minorities, a rule was
made at the 1888 session that no resolution was to be passed to which an awesome majority of Hindu or
Muslim delegates objected . In 1889, a minority clause was adopted within the resolution demanding
reform of legislative councils. According to the clause, wherever Parsis, Chgristians, Muslims or Hindus
were a minority their number elected to the Councils would not be less than their proportion in the
population. The early national leaders were also determined to create a secular nation, the Congress itself
being intensely secular.

6.3. subsequent major objective of the first Congress was to make a standard platform around which
political workers in several parts of the country could gather and conduct their political activities,
educating and mobilizing people on an all-India basis. This was to be accomplished by taking over those
grievances and fighting for those rights which Indians had in common in reference to the rulers.

For the same reason Congress was not to take up questions of social reform. At its second session, the
president of the Congress, Dadabhai Naoroji, laid down this rule and said that the National Congress must
confine itself to questions in which the entire nation has a direct participation.

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6.4. The politics of popular participation, agitation, mobilisation - was new to India. The notion that
politics was not yet familiar to the people. No modern movement was possible till people realized this. On
the idea of this realization, an informed and determined political opinion had to be created. The arousal,
training, organization and consolidation of popular opinion was seen as a serious task by the Congress
leaders. All initial activity of the early nationalist was geared towards this end.

6.5 As part of the basic objective of giving birth to a national movement , it was necessary to create a
common all-India national-political leader-ship, that is, to construct . Nations and other people become
capable of meaningful and effective political action only if they're organized.

6.6. W.C. Bannerji, as the first Congress President, reiterated that one of the Congress objectives was the
eradication ,of all possible race, creed, or provincial prejudices amongst all lovers of our country,‘ and the
promotion of personal intimacy and friendship amongst all the more earnest workers in our country‘s
cause in all parts of the country. The early nationalist ledgers saw the internalization and indigenization of
political democracy as one of their main objectives. They based their politics on the doctrine of the
sovereignty of people, as Dadabhai Naoroji put it that kings are made for the people, not peoples for their
kings.

6.7. the essential objectives of the first nationalist leaders were to get the foundations of a secular and
democratic national movement , to politicize and politically educate the people, to form the headquarters
of the movement that's , to make an all-India leadership group, and to develop and propagate an
anti-colonial nationalist ideology. History would judge the extent of the success or failure of the early
national movement not by an abstract, a historical standard but by the extent to which it was able to attain
the basic objectives it had laid down for itself. By this standard, its achievements were quite substantial
and that is why it grew from a humble beginning in the 1980s into the most spectacular of popular mass
movements in the 20th century historians are not likely to disagree with the assessment of its work in the
early phase by two of its major leaders. Referring to the preparatory nature of Congress work from 1885
to 1905, Dadabhai Naoroji wrot to D. E. Wacha in January, 1905, that the very discontent and impatience,
the Congress has evoked against itself as slow and non progressive among the rising generation are
among its best results. It is our own evolution and progress to evolve the required revolution. The
character of the revolution would depend upon the wisdom of the British Government.

7. RESOLUTIONS :-

The first session of the Congress discussed and passed nine resolutions.

1)Appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of Indian administration.

2) Abolition of the Indian Council of the Secretary of State for India.

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 3) Expansion and reform of the Imperial and local Legislative Councils, established under the Indian
Councils Act, 1861.
4) Creation of Legislative Councils for the Northwest Province and Oudh and the Punjab, and the
creation of a standing Committee in the House of Commons to consider formal protests.

5) Introduction of simultaneous Public Service Examinations in England and India and raising of the age
of candidates.

6) Reduction of military expenditure.

7) Protest against the annexation of Upper Burma and the proposed incorporation of it with India.

8) That all the resolutions were to be sent to political associations all over the country for discussion and
formulation of views.

9) The next session of the Congress was to be held at Calcutta on 28 December 1886.Though the Indian
leaders had met for the first time on a political platform their knowledge of public problems of the day
appeared to be wide enough in various dimensions. They manifested remarkable knowledge of the
administration in their speeches. Dadabhai Naoroji observed that England was the parents of free and
representative government, we as her subjects are entitled to inherit the great blessings of freedom and
representation. ‘Subramaniya Iyer thought that be a merciful dispensation of providence, India has been
brought under the domination of the Great British power and that the rule of Great Britain has been better
in its results and direction than any former rule’ Thus, the first session of the Indian National Congress
dissolved amid cheers for the British Crown. Though the Muslims did not join the Congress in large
number, the Congress did nit make any discrimination against the followers of any religion or sect. The
second annual session of the Congress was presided over by a Parsi, third by a Muslim, and fourth by a
Christian .The leaders of the Indian National Congress cherished a firm faith in the British sense of justice
and demanded political reforms in its first session in 1885.

8. BRITISH ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CONGRESS:-

The British Government was hostile to the development of nationalist forces. Lord Dufferin had looked
with apprehension on the founding of the Indian National Congress. He had tried to divert the movement
by suggesting to Hume that the Congress should devote itself to social rather than political affairs.
However, the Congress leaders had refused to make the change. The Indian National Congress began to
publish popular pamphlets in Indian languages and hold mass meetings to spread nationalist messages
among the people. The British could not tolerate this role of the Congress. The economic agitation
initiated by the nationalists exposed the real exploitative nature of the British imperialism. Under these
circumstances the British officials changed their attitude towards the Indian National Congress and began
publicly to criticize and condemn the Congress. The nationalists were branded as ̳disloyal babus‘, and
violent villains‘. The Congress was painted as a factory of sedition‘ and the Congressmen as disappointed

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candidates for office. In 1887, Lord Dufferin attacked the Congress in a public speech and ridiculed it as
representing only a‘ microscopic minority of the people‘. Lord Salisbury, who had been the Secretary of
State for India from 1874 and the Prime Minister of England from 1886 to 1892, expressed his opposition
to the Congress in a memorandum in 1888 regarding the granting of legislative powers to elected
councilors.

9. REACTION OF LORD DUFFERIN TOWARDS THE CONGRESS

Neither Dufferin and his fellow-liberal Governors of Bombay and Madras nor his conservative officials
like Alfred and J.B. Lyall, D.M. Wallace, A. Colvin and S.c. Bayley was sympathetic to the Congress. It
was not only in 1888 that Dufferin attacked the Congress in a vicious manner by writing that he would not
allow the Congress to continue to exist. In may 1885 itself, he had written to Reay asking him to be
careful about Hume‘s Congress, telling him that it would be unwise to identify with either the reformers
or the reactionaries. Reay successively , during a letter in June 1885, referred with apprehension to the
new political activists as' the National Party of India‘ and warned against Indian delegates, like Irish
delegates, making their appearance on British political scene. Earlier, in May, Reay had cautioned
Dufferin that Hume was the head-centre of an organization that wanted to bring native opinion into focus.

In fact, from the end of May 1885, Dufferin had grown cool to Hume and began to keep him at an arm‘s
length From 1886 onwards he also began to attack the ̳Bengali Baboos and Leaders from Maharastra for
being ̳inspired by questionable motives‘ and for wanting to start Irish-type revolutionary agitations in
India. And, during May-June 1886, he was describing Hume as ̳cleverish, a little cracked, excessively
vain, and absolutely indifferent to truth,‘ his main fault being that he was ̳one of the chief stimulants of
the Indian National movement. The government followed various methods and policies to curb the
influence of the Indian National Congress . One of them was favouring the anti- Congress elements and
putting pressure on the rich to withdraw their patronage from the Congress . To counteract the growing
influence of the Indian National Congress the British authorities adopted the policy of ̳divide and rule‘.
British authorities encouraged Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Raja Siva Prasad and other pro-British Individuals
to start an anti-Congress movement . A powerful attack was launched on the nationalists in Western India
with the arrest of Tilak and other leaders. In 1898 laws were enacted to suppress freedom of press and
speech and increase the powers of the police and magistrates. The government decided to promote private
colleges run by religious trusts. Modern secular education, which led to the spread of rational democratic
and nationalist ideas, was sought to be replaced by a system based on religious and moral teaching . Even
though based on Indian religions and glorification of Indian culture, this new system was reactionary as it
did not cultivate a forward looking and modern spirit among the young. The above observations
undoubtedly explode the myth that the Indian National Congress was started by A.O. Hume et al. under
the official direction , guidance and advice of no less an individual than Lord Dufferin, the viceroy, to
supply a secure , mild, peaceful, and constitutional outlet or ̳safety valve‘ for the rising discontent among
the masses, which was inevitably leading towards a popular and violent revolution . Right from its
inception the Indian National Congress was looked upon by the British authorities as a great menace to
security of their Indian Empire.

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10. SUMMERY :-

The leaders who were responsible for the foundation of the Indian National congress had come together in
London in the late 1860s and early 1870s for Their higher studies. They were from Calcutta like
Pherozeshah Mehta, Badruddin Tyabji, W.C.Banerjee, Manmohan and Lalmmohan Ghosh, Surendranath
Banerjee, Anand Mohan Bose and R.C. Dutt. They all were under the influence of Dadabhai Naoroji ,
who was settled in England as a businessman. There were some other leaders, like K.T. Talang , G,
Subraraniya Iyer, Vijayaraghavachari and Ananda Charlu from Madras. They all were young nationalist
intellectuals and started several associations, like the British Indian Association, the Bombay Association,
The Madras Native Association, the Mahajan Sabha, the Bombay Presidency Association and Poona
Sarvajanik Sabha. These Associations prepared the most fertile ground for the foundation of the Indian
National Congress. In addition to this, the British policy of exploitation, the reign of Lord Lytton and
Lord Ripon were instrumental for the foundation of the Indian National Congress.

There is a controversy regarding the role of A.O. Hume, a retired English officer in the establishment of
the Indian National Congress. A.O. Hume joined the East India Company‘s Civil Service in 1849 and
served in various provinces. He had pro-Indian attitude. In order to educate Indians, he had started a
newspaper in 1861. Hume appealed to the Calcutta University graduates to take initiative in establishing
an association for regeneration of the people in India. He met some Indian leaders and consulted with
them regarding the national level organisation. A.O. Hume also met Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy at Simla
and discussed with him about the organisation. These efforts of Hume triggered a controversy that he was
a stooge of Lord Dufferin. According to Bipin Chandra there is a myth that the Indian National Congress
was started by A.O. Hume under the official direction of Lord Dufferin, to supply a secure , mild,
peaceful and constitutional outlet or relief valve for the rising discontent among the masses, which was
inevitably leading towards a popular and violent revolution. The core of the myth was that the violent
revolution was on the cards that time and was avoided only by the foundation of the Indian National
Congress.

Therefore, the leaders from various parts of the country came together and established the Indian National
Congress. Its first historic session was held in the hall of the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay
on 28th December , 1885. W.C Bannerjee, a Calcutta barrister presided over the session. The Congress
had several aims and objectives as promotion of personal intimacy and friendship among the people of
India., eradication of all possible race, creed or provincial prejudices among the people of the country,
preparing all people for the national movement and devise methods and techniques for furthering the
activities of the Congress. The Congress also passed nine resolutions for its activities. Naturally, the
British Government adopted the hostile attitude towards the Congress . The British officials charged the
Congress as a factory of sedition and the Congress leaders as disappointed candidates for office and
discontented lawyers who represented no one but themselves. Viceroy Lord Dufferin and Lord Salisbury,
the Secretary of state for India openly criticised the Congress and adopted Various measures to counteract
the influence of the National Congress.

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Department of History, S. N. Sinha College, Jehanabad, Bihar

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