Foundation Of The Indian National Congress : The Reality

 In the last chapter we began the story of the foundation of

the Indian National Congress. We could not, however, make

much headway because the cobwebs had to be cleared, the myth

of the safety-valve had to be laid to rest, the mystery of the

‘missing volumes’ had to be solved, and Hume’s mahatmas had to

be sent back to their resting place in Tibet. In this chapter we

resume the more serious part of the story of the emergence of the

Indian National Congress as the apex nationalist organization

that was to guide the destiny of the Indian national movement till

the attainment of independence.

The foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 was

not a sudden event, or a historical accident. It was the

culmination of a process of political awakening that had its

beginnings in the 1860s and 1870s and took a major leap

forward in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The year 1885 marked

a turning point in this process, for that was the year the political

Indians, the modem intellectuals interested in politics, who no

longer saw themselves as spokesmen of narrow group interests,

but as representatives of national interest vis-a-vis foreign rule,

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.

British officialdom, too, was not slow in reading the new

messages that were being conveyed through the nationalist

political activity leading to the founding of the Congress, and

watched them with suspicion, and a sense of foreboding. As this

political activity gathered force, the prospect of disloyalty,

sedition and Irish-type agitations began to haunt the by the government The official suspicion was not merely the over-anxious

response of an administration that had not yet recovered from

the mutiny complex, but was in fact, well-founded. On the

surface, the nationalist Indian demands of those years — no

reduction of import duties on textile import no expansion in

Afghanistan or Burma, the right to bear arms, freedom of the

Press, reduction of military expenditure, higher expenditure on

famine relief, Indianization of the civil services, the right of

Indians to join the semi-military volunteer corps, the right of

Indian judges to try Europeans in criminal cases, the appeal to

British voters to vote for a party which would listen to Indians —

look rather mild, especially when considered separately. But

these were demands which a colonial regime could not easily

concede, for that would undermine its hegemony over the colonial

people. It is true that any criticism or demand no matter how

innocuous its appearance but which cannot be accommodated by

a system is in the long-run subversive of the system.

The new political thrust in the years between 1875 and

1885 was the creation of the younger, more radical nationalist

intellectuals most of whom entered politics during this period.

They established new associations, having found that the older

associations were too narrowly conceived in terms of their

programmes and political activity as well as social bases. For

example, the British Indian Association of Bengal had

increasingly identified itself with the interests of the zamindars

and, thus, gradually lost its anti-British edge. The Bombay

Association and Madras Native Association had become

reactionary and moribund. And so the younger nationalists of

Bengal, led by Surendranath Banerjea and Anand Mohan Bose,

founded the Indian Association in 1876. Younger men of Madras

— M. Viraraghavachariar, G. Subramaniya Iyer, P. Ananda

Charlu and others — formed the Madras Mahajan Sabha in

1884. In Bombay, the more militant intellectuals like K.T. Telang

and Pherozeshah Mehta broke away from older leaders like

Dadabhai Framji and Dinshaw Petit on political grounds and

formed the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885. Among the

older associations only the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha carried on as

before. But, then, it was already in the hands of nationalist

intellectuals. A sign of new political life in the country was the coming

into existence during these years of nearly all the major

nationalist newspapers which were to dominate the Indian scene

till 1918 — The Hindu, Tribune, Bengalee, Mahraua and Kesari.

The one exception was the Amrita Bazar Patrika which was

already edited by new and younger men. It became an English

language newspaper only in 1878.

By 1885, the formation of an all-India political organization

had become an objective necessity, and the necessity was being

recognized by nationalists all over the country. Many recent

scholars have furnished detailed information on the many 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 a continuous campaign on the question. The

Indian Association had already in December 1883 organized an

All-India National Conference and given a call for another one in

December 1885. Surendranath Banerjea, who was involved in the

All-India National Conference, could not for that reason attend

the founding session of the National Congress in 1885).

Meanwhile, the Indians had gained experience, as well as

confidence, from the large number of agitations they had

organized in the preceding ten years. Since 1875, there had been

a continuous campaign around cotton import duties which

Indians wanted to stay in the interests of the Indian textile

industry. A massive campaign had been organized during 1877-

88 around the demand for the lndianization of Government

services. The Indians had opposed the Afghan adventure of Lord

Lytton and then compelled the British Government to contribute

towards the cost of the Second Afghan War. The Indian Press had

waged a major campaign against the efforts of the Government to

control it through the Vernacular Press Act. The Indians had also

opposed the effort to disarm them through the Arms Act. In

1881-82 they had organized a protest against the Plantation

Labour and the Inland Emigration Act which condemned

plantation labourers to serfdom. A major agitation was organized

during 1883 in favour of the Ilbert Bill which would enable Indian

magistrates to try 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 massive all-India effort was made to raise a National Fund

which would be used to promote political agitation in India as

well as England. In 1885, Indians fought for the right to join the

volunteer corps restricted to Europeans, and then organized an

appeal to British voters to vote for those candidates who were

friendly towards India. Several Indians were sent to Britain to put

the Indian case before British voters through public speeches,

and other means.

*

It thus, becomes clear that the foundation of the Congress

was the natural culmination of the political work of the previous

years: By 1885, a stage had been reached in the political

development of India when certain basic tasks or objectives had

to be laid down and struggled for. Moreover these objectives were

correlated and could only be fulfilled by the coming together of

political workers 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 process of

achieving them. The success or failure and the future character

of the Congress would be determined not by who founded it but

by the extent to which these objectives were achieved in the

initial years.

*

India had just entered the process of becoming a nation or a

people. The first major objective of the founders of the Indian

national movement was to promote this process, to weld Indians

into a nation, to create an Indian people. It was common for

colonial administrators and ideologues to assert that Indians

could not be united or freed because they were not a nation or a

people but a geographical expression, a mere congeries of

hundreds of diverse races and creeds. The Indians did not deny

this but asserted that they were now becoming a nation. India

was as Tilak, Surendranath Banerjea and many others were fond

of 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 subjectively aware of the objective process and that for

this it was necessarily to promote the feeling of national unity

and nationalism among them.

Above all, India being a nation-in-the-making its nationhood

could not be taken for granted. It had to be constantly developed

and consolidated. The promotion of national unity was a major

objective of the Congress and later its major achievement For

example, P. Ananda Charlu in his presidential address to the

Congress in 1891 described it ‘as a mighty nationalizer’ and said

that this was its most ‘glorious’ role.’ Among the three basic aims

and objectives of the Congress laid down by its first President,

W.C. Bannerji, was that of ‘the fuller development and

Foundation of the Indian National Congress: The Reality

consolidation of those sentiments of national unity.’ The Russian

traveller, I.P. Minayeff wrote in his diary that, when travelling

with Bonnerji, he asked, ‘what practical results did the Congress

leaders expect from the Congress,’ Bonnerji replied: ‘Growth of

national feeling and unity of Indians.’ Similai.ly commenting on

the first Congress session, the Indu Prakash of Bombay wrote: ‘It

was the beginning of a new life . . . it will greatly help in creating

a national feeling and binding together distant people by common

sympathy and common ends.’

The making of India into a nation was to be a prolonged

historical process. Moreover, the Congress leaders realized that

the diversity of India was such that special efforts unknown to

other parts of the world would have to be made and national

unity carefully nurtured. In an effort to reach all regions, it was

decided to rotate the Congress session among different parts of

the country. The President was to belong to a region other than

where the Congress session was being held.

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 overwhelming

majority of Hindu or Muslim delegates objected. In 1889, a

minority clause was adopted in the resolution demanding reform

of legislative councils. According to the clause, wherever Parsis,

Christians, Muslims or Hindus were a minority their number

elected to the Councils would not be less than their proportion in  the Population. The reason given by the mover of the resolution

was that India was not yet a homogenous country and political

methods here had, therefore, to differ from those in Europe.

The early national leaders were also determined to build a

secular nation, the Congress itself being intensely secular.

*

The second major objective of the early Congress was to

create a common political platform or programme around which

political workers in different 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 up those grievances and fighting for those rights which

Indians had in common in relation to the rulers.

For the same reason the 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

‘A National Congress must confine itself to questions in which the

entire nation has a direct participation.’ Congress was, therefore,

not the right place to discuss social reforms. ‘We are met

together,’ he said, ‘as a political body to represent to our rulers

our political aspirations.’

Modern politics — the politics of popular participation,

agitation mobilization — was new to India. The notion that

politics was not the preserve of the few but the domain of

everyone was not yet familiar to the people. No modern political

movement was possible till people realized this. And, then, on the

basis of this realization, an informed and determined political

opinion had to be created. The arousal, training, organization and

consolidation of public opinion was seen as a major task by the

Congress leaders. All initial activity of the early nationalism was

geared towards this end.

The first step was seen to be the politicization and

unification of the opinion of the educated, and then of other

sections. The primary objective was to go beyond the redressal of

immediate grievances and organize sustained political activity

along the lines of the Anti-Corn Law League (formed in Britain by Cobden and Bright in 1838 to secure reform of Corn Laws). The

leaders as well as the people also had to gain confidence in their

own capacity to organize political opposition to the most powerful

state of the day.

All this was no easy task. A prolonged period of

politicization would be needed. Many later writers and critics

have concentrated on the methods of political struggle of the

early nationalist leaders, on their petitions, prayers and

memorials. It is, of course, true that they did not organize mass

movements and mass struggles. But the critics have missed out

the most important part of their activity — that all of it led to

politics, to the politicization of the people. Justice Ranade, who

was known as a political sage, had, in his usual perceptive

manner, seen this as early as 1891 When the young and

impatient twenty-six-year-old Gokhale expressed disappointment

when the Government sent a two line reply to a carefully and

laboriously prepared memorial by the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha,

Ranade reassured him: ‘You don’t realize our place in the history

of our country. These memorials are nominally addressed to

Government, in reality they are addressed to the people, so that

they may learn how to think in these matters. This work must be

done for many years, without expecting any other result, because

politics of this kind is altogether new in this land.”

*

As part of the basic objective of giving birth to a national

movement, it was necessary to create a common all-India

national-political leadership, that is, to construct what Antonio

Gramsci, the famous Italian Marxist, calls the headquarters of a

movement. Nations and people become capable of meaningful

and effective political action only when they are organized. They

become a people or ‘historical subjects’ only when they are

organized as such. The first step in a national movement is taken

when the ‘carriers’ of national feeling or national identity begin to

organize the people. But to be able to do so successfully, these

‘carriers’ or leaders must themselves be unified; they must share

a collective identification, that is, they must come to know each

other and share and evolve a common outlook, perspective, sense

of purpose, as also common feelings. According to the circular  which, in March 1885, informed political workers of the coming

Congress session, the Congress was intended ‘to enable all the

most earnest labourers in the cause of national progress to

become personally known to each other.’9 W.C. Bonnerji, as the

first Congress President, reiterated that one of the Congress

objectives was the ‘eradication, by direct friendly personal

intercourse, 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 Empire.”

In other words, the founders of the Congress understood

that the first requirement of a national movement was a national

leadership. The social- ideological complexion that this leadership

would acquire was a question that was different from the main

objective of the creation of a national movement. This complexion

would depend on a host of factors: the role of different social

classes, ideological influences, outcomes of ideological struggles,

and so on.

The early nationalist leaders 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 the people, or, as Dadabhai Naoroji put it, on ‘the

new lesson that Kings are made for the people, not peoples for

their Kings.’

From the beginning, the Congress was organized in the form

of a Parliament. In fact, the word Congress was borrowed from

North American history to connote an assembly of the’ people.

The proceedings of the Congress sessions were conducted

democratically, issues being decided through debate and

discussion and occasionally through voting. It was, in fact, the

Congress, and not the bureaucratic and authoritarian colonial

state, as some writers wrongly argue, which indigenized,

popularized and rooted parliamentary democracy in India.

Similarly, the early national leaders made maintenance of

civil liberties and their extension an integral part of the national

movement. They fought against every infringement of the freedom

of the Press and speech and opposed every attempt to curtail

them. They struggled for separation of the judicial and executive

powers and fought against racial discrimination It was necessary to evolve an understanding of colonialism

and then a nationalist ideology based on this understanding. In

this respect, the early nationalist leaders were simultaneously

learners and teachers. No ready￾made anti-colonial

understanding or ideology was available to them in the 1870s

and 1880s. They had to develop their own anti-colonial ideology

on the basis of a concrete study of the reality and of their own

practice.

There could have been no national struggle without an

ideological struggle clarifying the concept of we as a nation

against colonialism as an enemy They had to find answers to

many questions. For example, is Britain ruling India for India’s

benefit? Are the interests of the rulers and the ruled in harmony,

or does a basic contradiction exist between the two? Is the

contradiction of the Indian people with British bureaucrats in

India, or with the British Government, or with the system of

colonialism as such? Are the Indian people capable of fighting the

mighty British empire? And how is the fight to be waged?

In finding answers to these and other questions many

mistakes were made. For example, the early nationalists failed to

understand, at least till the beginning of the 20th century, the

character of the colonial state. But, then, some mistakes are an

inevitable part of any serious effort to grapple with reality. In a

way, despite mistakes and setbacks, it was perhaps no

misfortune that no ready-made, cut and dried, symmetrical

formulae were available to them. Such formulae are often lifeless

and, therefore, poor guides to action.

True, the early national leaders did not organize mass

movements against the British. But they did carry out an

ideological struggle against them. It should not be forgotten that

nationalist or anti-imperialist struggle is a struggle about

colonialism before it becomes a struggle against colonialism. And

the founding fathers of the Congress carried out this ‘struggle

about colonialism’ in a brilliant fashion.

From the beginning, the Congress was conceived not as a

party but as a movement. Except for agreement on the very broad

objectives discussed earlier, it did not require any particular

political or ideological commitment from its activists. It also did

not try to limit its following to any social class or group. As a

movement, it incorporated different political trends, ideologies

and social classes and groups so long as the commitment to

democratic and secular nationalism was there. From the outset,

the Congress included in the ranks of its leadership persons with

diverse political thinking, widely disparate levels of political

militancy and varying economic approaches.

To sum up: The basic objectives of the early nationalist

leaders were to lay the foundations of a secular and democratic

national movement, to politicize and politically educate the

people, to form the headquarters of the movement, that is, to

form an all-India leadership group, and to develop and propagate

an anti-colonial nationalist ideology.

History will judge the extent of the success or failure of the

early national movement not by an abstract, ahistorical 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

humble beginnings in the 1880s 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 the Congress work from 1885 to 1905, Dadabhai

Naoroji wrote to D.E. Wacha in January 1905: ‘The very

discontent and impatience it (the Congress) has evoked against

itself as slow and non-progressive among the rising generation

are among its best results or fruit. It is its own evolution and

progress….(the task is) to evolve the required revolution

— whether it would be peaceful or violent. The character of the

revolution will depend upon the wisdom or unwisdom of the 

British Government and action of the British people.’

And this is how G.K. Gokhale evaluated this period in 1907:

‘Let us not forget that we are at a stage of the country’s progress

when our achievements are bound to be small, and our

disappointments frequent and trying. That is the place which it  use Hume as a lightning conductor. And as later developments

show, it was the Congress leaders whose hopes were fulfilledhas pleased Providence to assign to us in this struggle, and our

responsibility is ended when we have done the work which

belongs to that place. It will, no doubt, be given to our

countrymen of future generations to serve India by their

successes; we, of the present generation, must be content to

serve her mainly by our failures. For, hard though it be, out of

those failures the strength will come which in the end will

accomplish great tasks.”

*

As for the question of the role of A.O. Hume, if the founders

of the Congress were such capable and patriotic men of high

character, why did they need 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 man of high ideals

with whom it was no dishonor 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

early 1 880s and the tradition of open opposition to the rulers

was not yet firmly entrenched.

Courageous and committed persons like Dadabhai Naoroji,

Justice Ranade, Pherozeshah Mehta, G. Subramaniya Iyer and

Surendranath Banerjea (one year later) cooperated with Hume

because they did not want to arouse official hostility at such an

early stage of their work. They assumed that the rulers would be

less suspicious and less likely to attack a potentially subversive

organization if its chief organizer was a retired British civil

servant. Gokhale, with his characteristic modesty and political

wisdom, gazed this explicitly in 1913: ‘No Indian could have

started the Indian National Congress. .. if an Indian had. . . come

forward to start such a movement embracing all India, the

officials in India would not have allowed the movement to come

into existence. 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 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