PRE CONGRESS ORGANISATIONS

PRE CONGRESS ORGANISATIONS

The foundation of Indian National Congress was not a sudden event. It was the culmination of a process of political awakening that has its beginnings in 1860s & 1870s .The year 1885 marked a turning point in this process for that was the year the political Indians, the modern  intellectuals interested in politics, who no longer saw themselves as spokesmen of narrow group interests, but as representatives of a national interests in Politics,

The political associations in the early half of the nineteenth century were dominated by wealthy and aristocratic elements, local or regional in character, and through long petitions to the British Parliament demanded

1. Administrative reforms,
2. Association of Indians with the administration, and
3. Spread of education.

• The second half of the 19th century witnessed the growth of national political consciousness and foundation and growth of an organised national movement. During this period the modern Indian intelligentsia created political associations to spread political education and to initiate political work in the country. This work was to be based on new political ideas, new intellectual perception of reality, new social, economic and political objectives, new forces of struggle and resistance and new techniques of political organisation. The task as difficult as Indians were unfamiliar with modern political work. Even the notion that people could organise politically in opposition to their rulers was a novel one. Consequently the work of these early associations and of the early political workers proceeded rather slowly and it took more than half a century to bring the common people within the fold of modern politics.
• The political associations of the second half of the nineteenth century came to be increasingly dominated by the educated middle class—the lawyers, journalists, doctors, teachers, etc. and they had a wider perspective and a larger agenda.
• The failure of 1857 revolt made it clear that traditional political resistance to British rule under the leadership of the landed upper classes could no longer succeed and resistance to colonial rule must flow through different channel. On the other hand the character of British rule and policies underwent a major change after 1858. It became more reactionary. Indian intellectuals gradually became more critical of British policies and began to grasp the exploitive charater of British rule.
• Understanding of Indian intelligentsia took long time to develop but process once begun, based on as it was on modern thought, probed deeper into the real nature of imperialism and was ultimately transformed into modern political activity.
• The political conscious Indians realised that existing political associations were too narrowly conceived to be useful in the changed circumstances. For example British Indian Association had increasingly identified itself with the interests of the Zamindars and consequently with the ruling power.
• The openly reactionary and anti-Indian measures introduced under Lytton’s viceroyalty from 1876 to 1880 quickened the pace of Indian nationalistic activity.

Some of the pre Congress organizations were –

 Organisation (Year/Place): Founder

·         Landholder’s Society: (1838/Calcutta): Dwarkanath Tagore

·         British India Society (1839/London): William Adams

·         Bengal British India Society: (1843/Calcutta): George Thomson

·         British India Association: (1851/Calcutta): Devendranath Tagore & Radhakant Deb

·         Madras Native Association: (1852/Madras):

·         Bombay Association: (1852/Bombay): Dadabhai Naoroji & Dinshaw Wacha

·         East India Association: (1866/London): Dadabhai Naoroji

·         London Indian Society: (1865/London): Feroz Shah Mehta, Badruddin Tyyabji, W. C. Banerji and Manmohan Ghosh

·         Indian National Association: (1867/London): Mary Carpentar

·         Poona Sarvajanik Sabha: (1867/Poona): M.G. Ranade, G.V. Joshi and Chiplankar

·         Indian Society: (1872/London): Anand Mohan Bose

·         India League: (1875/ Calcutta): Sisir Kumar Ghosh

·         Indian Association: (1876/Calcutta): Anand Mohan Bose and Surendra Nath Banerji

·         National Conference: (1883): Anand Mohan Bose and Surendra Nath Banerji

·         Madras Mahajan Sabha: (1884/Madras): M. Viraghavacharya, G. Subramaniya Aiyar and P. Anand Charlu

·          Indian National Union :1884 , A.O. Hume

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.

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.

On 28 Dec 1885. the INC was founded at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, with 72 delegates in attendance. Hume assumed office as the general Secretary and Wyomesh Chandra Banerjee was elected as President. Besides Hume, two Britishers were also involved, William Wedderburn and John Jardine.

Important Sessions of INC
Year	Place	President	Importance
1885	Bombay	W.C.Banerjee	– 1st Session of Congress – Lord Dufferin was the Viceroy of British India – W.C.Banerjee was the president of the Indian National Congress again in the 1892 session in Allahabad.
1886	Calcutta	Dadabhai Naoroji	– Dadabhai Naoroji is fondly called as the “Grand Old Man of India” – He got a resolution passed in British Parliament for holding preliminary examinations for the I.C.S. in India and England simultaneously – Thrice he was elected to the post of the President of the Indian National Congress, in 1886, 1893 and in 1906 – The Congress’ demand for swaraj (self-rule) was first expressed publicly by him in his presidential address in 1906.
1887	Madras	Badruddin Tyabji	– 1st Muslim president of INC – In 1902, he became the first Indian to hold the post of Chief Justice in Mumbai – He was also active in women’s emancipation and worked to weaken the zenana system
1888	Allahabad	George Yule	– 1st session to be presided by an Englishman – There were more! Sir William Wedderburn presided over at the 1889 session
1890	Calcutta	Pherozeshah Mehta	– Mehta is remembered mainly as founder of the modern Bombay Municipal Corporation which he fostered and served in a distinguished manner for nearly half a century
1896	Kolkata	Rahimtulla M Sayani	The National Song, Vande Mataram was sung for the first time
1907	Surat	Rashbihari Ghosh	The INC split into two, one consisting of Moderates, led by Gokhale and the other consisting of Extremists, led by Tilak
1911	Kolkata	Pandit Bishan Narayan Das	The National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana was sung for the first time
1916	Lucknow	Ambica Charan Mazumdar	– Joint session with Muslim league in which the historic Lucknow pact was signed – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, then a member of the Congress as well as the League, made both the parties reach an agreement to pressure the British government to adopt a more liberal approach to India and give Indians more authority to run their country, besides safeguarding basic Muslim demands – The Lucknow Pact also established cordial relations between the two prominent groups of the Indian National Congress – the “hot faction” led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and the moderates led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
1917	Kolkata	Annie Besant	– 1st session to be presided by a Lady
1918	Bombay and Delhi	2 presidents!	– 1st President- Syed Hasan Imam – 2nd President- Madan Mohan Malaviya
1924	Belgaum	Mahatma Gandhi
1925	Kanpur	Sarojini Naidu	– 1st session to be presided by an Indian lady
1929	Lahore	Pt Jawaharlal Nehru	– The decision to launch a civil disobedience movement to achieve complete independence (Poorna Swaraj) and to observe 26 Jan as Independence Day was taken – Nehru became the president for the first time
1938	Haripura	Subhash Chandra Bose	– He was the president twice. Again in 1939
1946	Meerut	Acharya JB Kripalani	– Last pre ­independence session of the INC.
1948	Jaipur	Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya	First session after Independence.

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