Theme 10Part B · Awakening and early nationalism
Rise of organised nationalism
1838 to 1905 · from regional associations to the Congress and the Moderates
Organised nationalism grew in the presidency towns among the new English educated class. This theme follows it from the landlord associations of the 1830s to the Indian National Congress and the economic critique of British rule by its early leaders.
Event 11838 to 1885
From associations to a national body
Before the Congress there were dozens of political associations. The earliest were led by landlords and merchants and spoke for their own interests; the later ones were led by lawyers, teachers and journalists and spoke for "the people of India".
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
The Landholders' Society (1838, Dwarkanath Tagore) and the Bengal British India Society (1843) merge into the British Indian Association (Calcutta, 1851). The Madras Native Association and the Bombay Association follow in 1852. All petition Parliament when the Company's charter comes up for renewal.
Dadabhai Naoroji's East India Association in London (1866); the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870, Ranade); the Indian Association of Calcutta (1876, Surendranath Banerjea and Anandamohan Bose), which holds an All India National Conference in 1883 and 1885; the Madras Mahajan Sabha (1884); the Bombay Presidency Association (1885, Pherozeshah Mehta, K. T. Telang, Badruddin Tyabji).
The Indian National Congress meets each December in a different city so that it belongs to all of India: Calcutta five times, Madras four, Bombay three, and Allahabad, Lahore, Nagpur, Poona, Amraoti, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Benares and Surat.
What pushed them together
The Vernacular Press Act and Arms Act (1878), the ICS age cut to 19 (1876), and the lavish Delhi Durbar (1877) held during a famine.
Ripon's bill (1883) to let Indian judges try Europeans was diluted after a furious European agitation. Indians learned that organised protest works.
English educated professionals, a growing press (The Hindu, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Kesari) and the railways made all India contact possible.
Event 2December 1885
The founding of the Congress
The Indian National Congress met for the first time on 28 December 1885 at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay, with 72 delegates. It had been planned for Poona but was moved because of cholera.
Who led the early sessions
- 1885 Bombay · W. C. Bonnerjee
- 1886 Calcutta · Dadabhai Naoroji
- 1887 Madras · Badruddin Tyabji, first Muslim president
- 1888 Allahabad · George Yule, first English president
- 1890 Calcutta · Pherozeshah Mehta
- 1895 Poona · Surendranath Banerjea
- 1905 Benares · G. K. Gokhale
Why did Hume found it? Three readings
Safety valve
Hume, alarmed by unrest, wanted a harmless outlet for Indian discontent. The idea comes from Wedderburn's biography of Hume and was used by Lajpat Rai (1916) to attack the Moderates.
British design
Lightning conductor
Gokhale's view: Indians used Hume, an Englishman, so that the government would not crush the new body at birth.
Indian design
Long preparation
Historians such as Bipan Chandra: Indians had been building towards a national body for decades; Hume was the catalyst, not the cause.
Indian process
Event 31885 to 1905
The Moderates and the economic critique
The early Congress leaders, the Moderates, believed in British justice and worked through petition, prayer and protest. Their most lasting work was an economic critique of British rule.
What they asked for
- Expansion of the legislative councils, with elected members.
- Simultaneous ICS examinations in India and England; higher age limit.
- Separation of the judiciary from the executive.
- Lower land revenue, lower military spending, repeal of the Arms Act.
- Freedom of speech and the press.
Their one constitutional gain: the Indian Councils Act, 1892, which enlarged the councils and allowed indirect election.
The drain of wealth
- Home chargesinterest on India's debt, India Office costs, war costs abroad
- Salaries and pensionsof British officials and soldiers, sent home
- Profitsof British firms, shipping, banking and insurance
- The drainwealth leaving India with no equal return
Dadabhai Naoroji, Poverty and Un British Rule in India (1901), estimated income at about ₹20 a head a year (1867 to 1868). R. C. Dutt's Economic History of India (1901 to 1903) and M. G. Ranade developed the critique.
What they achieved
Built a national platform; trained a generation in politics; exposed the economic nature of colonialism, which became the core of later nationalism; won the 1892 Act.
Their limits
A small, educated, largely upper caste and urban base; faith in British goodwill; little to say to peasants and workers. By 1905 younger leaders called their method political mendicancy.
Who's who12 people
People
Dwarkanath Tagore
Landholders' Society
Calcutta merchant and zamindar.
Dadabhai Naoroji
Grand Old Man of India
Drain theory; first Indian member of the British Parliament (1892).
Surendranath Banerjea
Indian Association
National Conference (1883); twice Congress president.
M. G. Ranade
Poona Sarvajanik Sabha
Economist and reformer.
Pherozeshah Mehta
Bombay
Lion of Bombay.
Badruddin Tyabji
Bombay
First Muslim Congress president (1887).
A. O. Hume
founder
Retired ICS officer; Congress general secretary.
W. C. Bonnerjee
first president
Calcutta barrister.
G. K. Gokhale
Moderate
Servants of India Society (1905); Gandhi's political guru.
R. C. Dutt
economist
Economic History of India.
Lord Lytton
Viceroy 1876 to 1880
Vernacular Press Act.
Lord Ripon
Viceroy 1880 to 1884
Local self government; Ilbert Bill.
Key terms7
Terms
- Moderates
- Early Congress leaders who used constitutional methods.
- Drain theory
- The argument that British rule took India's wealth without return.
- Home charges
- Payments made by India in Britain for its administration and debt.
- Safety valve theory
- The claim that Hume founded the Congress to release Indian discontent harmlessly.
- Vernacular Press Act
- 1878; curbed Indian language newspapers; repealed by Ripon (1882).
- Ilbert Bill
- 1883; let Indian judges try Europeans; diluted after European protest.
- Indian Councils Act, 1892
- Enlarged councils; indirect election; right to discuss the budget.