FAHAD MASOOD FAROOQUI

8266968533

MODERN
HISTORY III

Early Indian Nationalism

Factors leading to the birth of Indian Nationalism

Politics of Association before Congress

The Foundation of the Indian National Congress; The Safety-valve thesis relating to the
birth of the Congress; Programme and objectives of Early Congress;

The social composition of early Congress leadership

The Moderates and Extremists

The Partition of Bengal (1905),The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal; the economic and
political aspects of Swadeshi Movement

The Split in the Surat Congress, 1907

The beginning of revolutionary extremism in India

Home Rule Movement

Lucknow Pact 1916

Rise of Gandhi, Character of Gandhian nationalism and Gandhi Era

Constitutional Developments in the Colonial India between 1858 and 1935

Other strands in the National Movement

Politics of Separatism

The Muslim League; the Hindu Mahasabha; Communalism and the politics of partition:
Part I

The Muslim League; the Hindu Mahasabha; Communalism and the politics of partition:
Part II

The Muslim League; the Hindu Mahasabha; Communalism and the politics of partition:
Part III

Transfer of power; Independence

 
 Factors leading to the birth of Indian
Nationalism
 As the British extended their empire over India, there was a feeling of resentment amongst the
people which was very sullen.
 It was based on their perception that the new rulers were responsible for their economic
hardship.
 They also felt that they were being looked down upon in their own country and their way
of life was being threatening the opportunities available to them for advancement was
insufficient.
 The lower strata of social and economic hierarchy expressed their resentment by sporadic
uprisings.
 These were often directed against the immediate exploiters, i.e., the zamindars, the
sabukars and the tax collectors but broadly speaking, these were against the British system.
 The intensity of discontent against foreign rule became visible through these uprisings. In
fact, the great revolt of 1857 itself in a way sprang up as an outburst of accumulated
discontent of masses in different part of the country.

Background and Causes of the Birth of Indian Nationalism and Foundation of the INC:

(1) Failure of the Revolt (1857) and the emergence of Middle Class:

 The failure of this revolt revealed the inadequacy of the traditional method of protest. It also
showed the old aristocratic classes could not be the saviours of Indian society and therefore the
English educated Indian middle class seem to be the hope of the future.
 This class was conscious of the benefits of the British connection.Initially, these groups adopted a
very positive approach towards the colonial rule.
 They early realized that since India had come under the rule of the most advanced country
in the world, she would be highly benefited with such connection.
 India would be turned into a major industrial power with its immense natural and human
resources.
 It was also familiar with European liberal ideas of the period and at the same time it had
the sense of pride in the country glorious past and gradually developed the connection that
foreign domination was inherently opposed to the fulfilment if legitimate hopes and
aspirations of the Indian people.
 Hence, the foundations of the Indian national movement were laid by the emerging group of the
modern intelligentsia.
 “Neo-social classes” which included the middle class like the Indian traders and business
communities, land lords, money lenders, educated Indians recruited in lower posts etc.
 Each group though had different interest yet they realized that their interests could not be
protected under the British rule.
 These groups had taken a leading role in developing a sense of patriotism among the people.
 The consciousness of this neo-social class found expression in the formation of a number
of associations prior to the founding of All India National Congress.
 Ultimately the Indian National Congress emerged as a platform for the organisation of
national movement.
 In the beginning, the middle class agitation was confined to ventilating of some specific political
and economic grievances and demand because the educated Indians believed for some time that
their grievances would be redressed by the benevolent rulers, if they could drew their attention to
them. However, this stage was to be left behind after some time.

(2) Political and Administrative Unity:

  One of the significant results of the British conquest of India was the establishment of a
centralized state.
 It brought about a political and administrative unification of the country.
 The pre- British India was divided into numerous feudal states frequently struggling
among themselves to extend their boundaries.
 The British authority established a centralized state structure in India with a uniform reign
of law. They enacted and codified laws which were applicable to every citizen of the state.
 These laws were enforced by a hierarchically graded system of tribunals.
 The public services brought about the administrative unification of the country.
 The establishment of uniform currency system, common administration, common laws
and judicial structure contributed to India’s unification which ultimately helped the rise of
national consciousness.

(3) English language and Western Education:

 Introduction of western education was another important factor which paved the way for the
growth of nationalism.
 Three main agencies were responsible for the spread of modem education in India. They were the
foreign Christian missionaries, the British Government and the progressive Indians.
 The British Government was the principal agent of disseminating modern liberal and technical
education in India.
 It established a network of schools and colleges in India which turned out a number of
educated Indians well versed in modern knowledge.
 The introduction of modern education in India was primarily motivated by the political,
administrative and economic needs of Britain in India.
 The British government assigned various key posts of the administrative machinery to the
English and filled the subordinate posts with educated Indians.
 The old system of education was only perpetuating superstition and orthodoxy. English education
was treated as the treasures of scientific and democratic thought of the west.
 English educated Indians like Raja Ram Mohan, Vivekananda, Gokhale, Dadabhai
Naroji, Feroz Shah Mehta, Surendra Nath Banerjee etc. who led the social, religious and
political movements in India were all English educated.
 English language became the medium of communication among the educated Indians by which
they could develop close contacts with one another.
 They also came in contact with western ideas, culture and institutions through the
medium of English language. selfstudyhistory.com
 It helped to build up a democratic and rationalist outlook. Ideas of nationalism,
democracy, liberty, equality, socialism etc. could be infiltrated to India.
 The philosophical ideas of Milton, J.S. Mill, Thomas Paine, John Locke, Rousseau,
Mazzini, Garibaldi etc. helped the growth of national consciousness.
 Exchange of views on different subjects of social, political and economic interest could be
possible on a national scale.
 These educated Indians were instrumental in the political awakening and organisation of
political movements in India.

(4) Development of Transport and Means of Communication:

 Modern means of transport helps in the consolidation of people into modern nations.
 In India too, the establishment of railways, construction of roads, canals and organisation
of postal, telegraph and wireless services all over India contributed in forging the people into
a nation. Of course, all these facilities were developed in the interest of the British industries
and for political, administrative and military reasons.
 However, these modern means of communications helped the growth of political and cultural life
on a national scale.
  It promoted the organisation and functioning of a number of political organisations like
Indian National Congress, All India Kishan Sabha, Youth League, All India Trade Union
Congress etc.
 Railways made it possible for the people of different towns, villages, districts and
provinces to meet, to exchange views and to decide upon programmes for the nationalist
movements.
 Without the modern means of transport, no national conferences could have been held.

(5) Emergence of Modern Press:

 As a powerful social institution, the press facilitates the exchange of thought on a mass scale
within a short time. The introduction of the printing press in India was an event of revolutionary
significance.
 Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the founder of nationalist press in India.
 His ‘Sambad Kaumudi’ in Bengali published in 1821 and ‘Mirat-UL-Akbar’ in Persian
published in 1822, were the first publications with a distinct nationalist and democratic
progressive orientation.
 British policies were blamed for deteriorating the economic conditions of the people.
 The need to use Swadeshi goods was also emphasized. These ideas found expression in
some drama performances also and one of the well known plays which became popular
around 1860 was titled Nildarpan, which was written Dina Bandhu Mitra in Bengali which
highlighted the plight of the indigo peasants. (The atrocities committed by Indigo planters).
 Another example is given by Bankim Chatterjee, who wrote historical novels highlighting the
tyranny of colonial rule.
 His novel Anandmath released in 1882, contain his immortal song Bande
Mataram (composed in 1875).
 Similar patriotic feeling can also be seen in liberation in other languages.
 Harish Chandra, who is regarded as the father of modern Hindi in his plays, poems and
journalistic writings put forward a plea for rising swadeshi things.
 Similar trends were also seen in Marathi literature where there was tremendous increase
in the journalistic publication from 3 (1818-1827) to 3,284 (1885-1896).
 The news papers and journals played a creditable role in building up public opinion in favour of
Indian national interest and against the inequalities of the colonial administration.
 Some of the well-known English language papers were Amrit Bazaar Patrika, Hindu
Patriot and Som Prakash were published from Calcutta, Indu Prakash and Native
Opinion from Bombay and The Hindu from Madras.
 Some important newspapers published in Hindi were Hinduatan, Bharat Mitra, Jagat Mitra and
lot of other publication in other languages like Urdu.
 Among others, The Bengali, The Bombay Chronicle, The Tribune, The Indian Mirror, The
Pioneer, The Madras Mail, The Maratha, The Keshari etc. had played important role in
exposing the failure of the British Government in providing welfare measures to the people.
 Among the news agencies, The Free Press News Service played the most important role in
distributing news from the nationalist standpoint.
 The national movement was possible due to the facility of political education and propaganda
provided by the press.
 With its help, the Indian nationalist groups were able to popularize among the people the
ideas of representative government.
 The press also brought the news of the international world which made the people
conscious of their own position in India.
 The Nationalists in India were very much eager to protect the independence of the press.
 Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the first fighter who filed a petition in the Supreme Court of
Calcutta along with some enlightened nationalist Indians such as Dwarkanath Tagore,
Harchandra Ghose, Chandra Kumar Tagore, Prasanna Kumar Tagore etc. for this purpose.
 The struggle for the freedom of the press has been an integral part of the national
movement in India.
(6) Economic Exploitation:

 The worst feature of the British rule in India was the economic exploitation of all classes.
Britishers came to India as traders and their primary motive was how to gain financial benefit.
 The industrial revolution in Britain necessitated the import of raw materials from different
foreign countries and to search extensive market for its goods out side. India provided both to
them.
 The British government maintained its civil service and military force at the cost of India.
 Attempt was made to destroy the indigenous Indian industries to expand the public
demand for British industrial goods.
 While heavy import duties were put on Indian goods to restrict their entry into British
market, there was free trade policy for the transactions of the raw materials or British goods in
India.
 Leaders like Dadabhai Naroji, Mahadev Gobinda Ranade, G.K. Gokhale etc. analyzed the
economic impact of colonial rule in India.
 Economic exploitation to such a high extent had great repercussion on the growth of
Indian nationalism and the people agitated against the foreign government.

(7) Revival of Glorious Indian Heritage:

 When Indians were developing a sense of inferiority complex being exploited under the colonial
rule, the glorious heritage of India was revived by some western scholars like Max Muller,
William Jones, Charles Wilkins etc.
 They translated some Sanskrit texts into English and attempted to prove the supremacy of
ancient Indian culture, its heritage and philosophy.
 Some Indian scholars like R.G. Bhandarkar, H.P. Shastri etc. also helped in reviving the
past glory of India.
 All these helped in regenerating a sense of self confidence and patriotism among the
people.

(8) Impact of International Events:

 Several movements and events in foreign countries also helped in awakening national
consciousness.
 The Declaration of Independence by U.S.A. in 1776, the French Revolution of 1789, the
unification of Italy and Germany in 1870, defeat of Russia by Japan in 1904 etc. inspired the
Indians.
 They became confident that it would be possible to fight against the mighty British
authority for their right of self-determination.
 World events thus, motivated Indians and promoted the rise of nationalism.

(9) Social and Religious Reform Movements:

 The various social and religious reform movements which took place in India during the British
rule were nothing but expression of the rising national consciousness of the people.
 The new educated class who imbibed the liberal western culture, recognized the need of
reforming social institutions and religious outlooks as these were regarded as obstacles to
national advance.
 A number of organisations like Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj, Rama Krishna Mission,
Theosophical society etc. helped in bringing movements of reformation and renaissance in
India.
 These movements aimed to eliminate privilege from the social and religious fields, to democratize
social and religious institutions of the country and to promote individual liberty and social
equality.
  They sought to establish equal rights of all individuals irrespective of their caste or sex.
 In this way, the national democratic awakening found expression in all fields of national
life. In politics, it gave birth to the movement of administrative reform, self-government,
Home Rule and finally independence.

(10) Repressive policies and Racial Arrogance of the British:

 The racial arrogance and the rude behaviour of the Britishers towards the Indians had played a
significant role in making them conscious of their condition.
 The British Government did not allow the educated Indians to avail any opportunity to
serve in higher administrative posts.
 The age limit for Indian Civil Service examination was reduced from twenty one to
nineteen years and the examination was held in Britain.
 This change actually intended to debar the Indians from entering the civil services.
 Enactment of a number of laws further created widespread discontent among the Indians.
 This amendment exposed the policy of racial discrimination of the British Government.
 Lord Curzon not only adopted certain unpleasant measures to hurt the self-respect of the Indians,
he even ordered for the partition of Bengal to suppress the rising Indian nationalism.
 The partition order created widespread resentment among the people. The use of
‘Swadeshi’ goods and boycott of foreign goods were adopted as effective techniques for
expressing the resentment of the people.
 The resentment of the Indians against the repressive policies and racial arrogance of the
British authorities helped in strengthening Indian nationalism.

(11) The Ilbert Bill controversy:

 During the period of Lord Ripon as Viceroy, the Ilbert Bill was passed. It empowered the Indian
judges to try the Europeans.
 It created hue and cry among the Europeans and their pressure led to reform the bill
inserting a clause that an Indian would try a European in the presence of an European witness.
 This clearly exposed the malafide intention of the British authority and clearly projected
their racial antagonism.

(12) The atrocities of Lord Lytton:

 The administration of Lord Lytton discharged venom in the minds of Indian people. In 1877, he
celebrated a ceremony at Delhi Durbar when Queen Victoria assumed the title Kaiser-e Hind (the
Empress of India) when the country was famine-stricken.
 Abolition of import tax on foreign cotton cloth harmed the Indian textile industry. He imposed
heavy tax on the people of India and spent a large chunk of money in the Afghan war.
 During his time, the Arms Act(1878)was passed which prohibited the Indians from
keeping arms without licence.
 His Vernacular Press Act(1878) infuriated Indians.The Vernacular Press Act curbed
the liberty of the Indian press.
 In 1879m to discharge Indian middle classes from entering into the civil servicesm he reduced
upper age limit from 21 to 19 and also introduced statutary civil services (reserving 1/6 of total
number of posts for Indian Princely Families and landed aristocracy)

(13) Liberal and Progressive Policies of Lord Ripon:

 His progressive policies gave hope to Indians and they started expecting more.
 In 1881, the first Indian Factory Act was passed regulating working hours for women and
children.
  In 1882, The statutory Civil services were abolished and Indian Famine Code was introduced.
(First Famine Commission was appointed under Sir Richard Stratchy in 1878).
 In 1882, Vernacular Press Act was abolished.
 In 1882, he provided for compulsory grants to the autonomous bodies and so he is called  father of
modern self governance.
 In 1883, he tried to give equality before law by introducing Ilbert Bill.

(14) Formation of Associations (Explained in previous chapter)

 Signs of political awakening and feeling of oneness was growing day by day and the beginning of
organized political activities in India can be dated back to the days of Land Holder’s
Society in 1837.
 It was an association of land holders of Bengal, Orissa and Bihar. Its principle objective
was to guard class interest.
 In 1843, another society was formed known as ‘Bengal British India Society’. Its objective was
wider, i.e., to protect general public interest.
 Other association such as ‘The Land Holders Society’, represented the aristocracy of
wealth and the Bengal British India Society, represented the aristocracy of intelligence.
 In 1852, other associations such as ‘Bombay Association’ and ‘Madras Association’ were
formed.
 All these associations had one thing in common. They were dominated by wealthy landed
aristocracy or gentry. The three presidency associations sent political suggesting changes in EIC
Charter.
 These suggestions give a fair amount of idea of the attitude of the politically conscious
classes in India at that time.
 The petitioners wanted that Indians should be appointed to the legislative bodies.
 The second one was that Company’s monopoly of salt and indigo should be abolished and
the state should give aid to indigenous industries.
 It was also stated that the local government should have greater power and that Indians
have bigger share in the administration of their own country. Improvement of the condition of
the peasants was also suggested.
 During the 1860s and 70s ideas of nationalism and patriotism were very much in the air and a
number of political associations got established in different parts of the country to propagate the
cause of reform in various sphere of administration and to promote political consciousness amount
various section of the Indian people.
 The most important was ‘Poona Sarwajanic Sabha’ established by M.G.Ranade, G.V.
Joshi and S.H. Chiphankar and his associates in 1870.
 This sabha brought out a journal from 1878 which did a lot for arousing political
consciousness and political propaganda in England.
 Some Indian students like Feroz Shah Metha, Dadabhai Naroji, Bhadruddin founded
the ‘East India Association’ in December, 1866.
 The second half century saw the emergence of national body and the need of national platform
began to be keenly felt all over the country.
 In 1876, the Indian Association was formed Calcutta. Its aim included developing a
strong public opinion  to promote Hindu-Muslim friendship, establishing contacts with masses
and generating wider awareness amongst the Indian people.
 These were certainly ingredients for a broad based nationalist movement and these were
based on a conception of united India.
 Many political societies were founded in other places such as ‘Madras Mahajan Sabha’,
‘The Bombay Presidency Association’, ‘The Allahabad People Association’, ‘The Indian
Association of Lahore’. Many of these bodies had branches in the Mufasid towns and it was after
1885 that these became the regional arms of the Congress.

Different views on “Indian Nationalism” which is said to be developed during the British
rule
  Indian nationalism that confronted British imperialism in the nineteenth century was said to be a
product of colonial modernity.
 As the self-professed mission of the colonizers was to elevate the colonized from their present
state of decadence to a desired state of progress towards modernity, it became imperative for the
latter to contest that stamp of backwardness and assert that they too were capable of uniting and
ruling themselves within the structural framework of a modern state.
 So the challenge of nationalism in colonial India was twofold:
 to forge a national unity and
 to claim its right to self-determination.
 How did the Indians actually imagine their nation can be explained by different views:

First View

 Partha Chatterjee argued that nationalism in India, which was assigned a privileged position by its
Western educated political leadership, was a “different”, but a “derivative discourse” from
the West.
 Ashis Nandy also thinks that Indian nationalism as a response to Western imperialism was shaped
by what it was responding to.

Second View

 According to C.A. Bayly, Indian nationalism built on pre-existing sense of territoriality,

a traditional patriotism.

Third View

 The early nationalist school focused primarily on the supremacy of a nationalist ideology and a

national consciousness to which all other forms of consciousness were assumed to have been
subordinated.
 This awareness of nation was based on a commonly shared antipathy towards colonial rule, a
feeling of patriotism and an ideology rooted in a sense of pride in India’s ancient traditions.
 This school ignored the inner conflicts within Indian society-which among other things, led to its
division into two nation-states-and assumed the existence of nation as a homogeneous entity with
a single set of interests.

Fourth View: The “neo traditionalist” school

 Politicization of Indian society developed along the lines of traditional social formations, such as
linguistic regions, castes or religious communities, rather than the modern categories of class or
nation.
 The most important catalysts of change in this context were the institutional innovations of the
colonial state, notably the introduction of Western education and political representation. These
new opportunities intersected with the traditional Indian social divisions and created a new status
group-the Western-educated elite, which drew its members from the existing privileged
indigenous collective, such as the bhadralok in Bengal, the Chitpavan Brahmans in Bombay or the
Tamil Brahmans of Madras.
 The backward regions or the underprivileged groups that remained outside this limited political
nation until Mahatma Gandhi initiated the new era of mass nationalism.

Fifth View: The ‘Cambridge School’

 If the ‘neo traditionalist’ historians studied Indian politics within the framework of the province, a
few others have tracked these divisions further down to the level of localities.
  The ‘Cambridge School’ have questioned the ontology of a unified nationalist movement, and
have traced instead only a series of localised movements in colonial India.
 The National Movement was led by self-serving leaders entirely to pursue their narrow individual
or clannish interests. They bargained with the British for power and patronage. India was not a
nation, but an aggregate of disparate interest groups.

 Critic of this School


 It completely derecognized the role of nationalistic ideology and seek to explain the
nationalistic politics in terms of a competition-collaboration syndrome.
 It reduced nationalist movement to the state of “Animal Politics”.

Sixth View: The orthodox Marxist school

 It sought to analyze the class character of the nationalist movement and tried to explain it in terms
of the economic developments of the colonial period, primarily the rise of industrial capitalism
and the development of a market society in India.
 It identified the bourgeois leadership, which directed this movement to suit their own class
interests and neglected the interests of the masses and even to some extent betrayed them.
 This narrow class approach and economic determinism of the early Marxists like R.P. Dutt were
qualified in later Marxist writings of S.N. Mukherjee, Sumit Sarkar and Bipin Chandra.

Seventh View: Later Marxist Writings

 S.N. Mukherjee
 He pointed out the complexities of nationalism, its multiple layers and meanings, the
importance of caste along with class and the simultaneous use of a traditional as well as a
modern language of politics.
 Sumit Sarkar
 He recognizes the legitimacy of nationalism, but does not ignore the “internal tensions”
within it. There were two levels of anti-imperialist struggles in India, he contends, the one
elite and the other populist. One need not ignore either of the two, but look at the “complex
interaction of these two levels”
 Bipin Chandra
 He gave Marxist interpretation a distinctly nationalist orientation. He argues that Indian
nationalist movement was a popular movement of various classes, not exclusively controlled
by the bourgeoisie.
 In colonial India they demonstrate two types of contradictions.


 The primary contradiction was between the interests of the Indian people and those of
British rule;
 Several secondary contradictions within the Indian society, between classes, castes and
religious communities.

 As the anti-colonial struggle made progress, the secondary contradictions were compromised in
the interest of the primary contradiction and in this way the hegemony of a nationalist ideology
was established.
 The nationalist movement was not the movement of a single class or caste or a religious
community. There were various groups with conflicting interests and hence the need for constant
compromises to avoid class, caste or communal conflicts and to bring all those disparate groups
under one umbrella type leadership.
  As a result, the Indian nationalist movement became a peoples’ movement, though all the
secondary conflicts were not satisfactorily resolved.

Eighth View: Subaltern views (Ranajit Guha)

 Ranajit Guha says:

 The historiography of Indian nationalism has for a long time been dominated by
elitism and it neglects the contribution made by the people on their own, that is,
independently of the elite to the making and development of this nationalism.
 This school thinks that organized national movement which ultimately led to the formation of the
Indian nation-state was hollow nationalism of the elites, while real nationalism was that of the
masses, whom it calls the ‘subaltern’.
 Although the subalterns from time to time participated in political movements initiated by the
bourgeoisie, the Latter failed to speak for the nation.
 The bourgeois leadership failed to establish its hegemony through either persuasion or coercion, as
it was continually contested by the peasantry and the working class, who had different idioms of
mobilisation and action, which the nationalist movement failed to appropriate.
 The new nation-state established the dominance of this bourgeoisie and its ideology, but it was a
“dominance without hegemony”.
 Shift in Subaltern in recent years

 Sumit Sarkar about the “decline of the subaltern in Subaltern Studies”: This is because gradually
its focus has expanded from an exclusive preoccupation with forms and instances of subaltern
protest to an incorporation of the politics of the colonial intelligentsia as well.
 Dipesh Chakrabarty justifies shift in focus because “lite and dominant groups can also have a
subaltern past”.
 According to Partha Chaterjee, the two domains of elite and subaltern politics should be studied
not in their separateness but in their “mutually conditioned historicity”.

Conclusion

 Indian nationalism, in other words, is an intensely contested discursive terrain from where it is
difficult to arrive at a dialectical middle ground or evolve an eclectic view that would be
acceptable to all.
 If British rule sought to colonize Indian minds, the Indians also selectively appropriated,
internalized and manipulated that colonial knowledge to mount their own resistance to colonial
hegemony.
 India was a plural society and therefore Indian nationalism was bound to have many voices, as
different classes, groups, communities and regions interpreted their ‘nation’ in various, sometimes
even contradictory, ways.

Q. Discuss the subaltern perspective of Indian nationalism and later shift in this
perspective.

Ans:

 Subaltern school of thought highlights the contribution made by people on their own in making
and development of Indian Nationalism. Elitist historians ignored the contribution made by the
people on their own like in Anti-Rowlett Act Satyagraha 1919, Quit India Movement, 1942 etc.
 This school thinks that organized national movement which ultimately led to the formation of the
Indian nation-state was hollow nationalism of the elites, while real nationalism was that of the
masses, whom it calls the ‘subaltern’.
 It says that the programme, ideology and leadership of peasants and Tribal uprising were provided
by rebel themselves.
  Subaltern historian Ranajit Guha says: The historiography of Indian nationalism has for a long
time been dominated by elitism and it neglects the contribution made by the people on their own,
that is, independently of the elite to the making and development of this nationalism.
 Guha also tried to differentiate between the politics of elite and the politics of people. According
to him, mobilization in the domain of elite politics was achieved vertically whereas in domain of
subaltern politics this achieved horizontally.
 Elite politics was more cautious and controlled and had legalistic and constitutional orientation.
 They depended on British Parliamentary Institutions. Subaltern politics were based on
mass mobilization, relatively violent and depended on organisation of kinship, territoriality or
class associations.
 They were more spontaneous and their politics derived from the condition of exploitation
to which they were subjugated in varying degrees.
 Subaltern knew that why they are part of any movement and what and why they are doing.
 It means their decision to participate was a conscious decision even though the movement
was spontaneous and violent.
 They rose due to failure of the Indian bourgeoisie to speak for the Nation.
 Although the subalterns from time to time participated in political movements initiated by the
bourgeoisie, the latter failed to speak for the nation.
 The bourgeois leadership failed to establish its hegemony through either persuasion or coercion, as
it was continually contested by the peasantry and the working class, who had different idioms of
mobilisation and action, which the nationalist movement failed to appropriate.
 The new nation-state established the dominance of this bourgeoisie and its ideology, but it was a
“dominance without hegemony”.
 Shift in Subaltern perspective
 Subaltern historiographical strand has undergone considerable shifts in recent years, with
the focus moving from class to community, from material analysis to the privileging of
culture, mind and identity.
 Sumit Sarkar about the “decline of the subaltern in Subaltern Studies”: This is because
gradually its focus has expanded from an exclusive preoccupation with forms and instances of
subaltern protest to an incorporation of the politics of the colonial intelligentsia as well.
 Dipesh Chakrabarty justifies shift in focus because “lite and dominant groups can also
have a subaltern past”.
 According to Partha Chaterjee, the two domains of elite and subaltern politics should be
studied not in their separateness but in their “mutually conditioned historicity”.

Q. The second half of the nineteenth century, particularly the period after the suppression
of the revolt of 1857, is considered to be the high noon of British imperialism in India. A
self-confident paternalism tended to turn into a despotism, which was not prepared to
accept any self-governing right for the Indians. But still many constitutional reforms were
brought. How do you explain constitutional reforms brought by the imperial British? Give
different views.

Ans:

 Imperial idea of British had a philosophical as well as functional basis.

 Philosophically, there was what Eric Stokes has called a “Liberal division on India”. The division
arose on the question of democracy and self-government to the dependent empire.
 While on the Irish Home Rule question the educated mind in England had gone against the earlier
Gladstonian liberalism, utilitarianism in the late nineteenth century developed certain divergent
strands.

First Stand (Extreme Liberal Position)

  There was on the one hand, an extreme liberal position taken by John Bright and the Manchester
School, which became outrightly critical of British rule in India.

Second Stand (Middle course)

 Taking the middle course were the other liberal utilitarians like John Stuart Mill, who believed
that democracy and self-government were essential checks on despotic power, but the doctrine
was only suitable for civilized people. India, therefore, had to be governed despotically.
 But they also inherited the optimism of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that human nature
could be changed through proper education. So, they conceived the imperial goal as an educative
mission.
 Indians could be entrusted with self-government when they were properly educated for
the purpose of self-rule in accordance with the principles of rationalism and natural justice.
 J. S. Mill had his disciples in India like Macaulay and Lord Ripon, who still believed that
the Indians could be given self-governing rights at an appropriate date, when they would be
properly educated for this.

Third Stand (More authoritarian)

 There was a third and more authoritarian strand. Both Bentham and James Mill thought that
democracy was a checking device against the abuse of power and ultimately a means of
registering the will of the majority.
 But neither had any belief in individual liberty; happiness and not liberty was the end of
good government.
 From this, an extreme authoritarian position was derived by Fitzjames Stephen, who succeeded
the liberal Macaulay as the law member in the viceroy’s council in India. He combined
Benthamism with Hobbesian despotism: law and good government, he thought, were the
instruments of improvement, and both were meaningless unless backed by power.
 From this philosophy followed his position on Britain’s role in India being the great
mission of establishing peace and order conducive to the progress of civilization, Pax-
Britannica.
 The task of the British was to introduce essential principles of European civilization. He rejected
the notion that the British had a moral duty to introduce representative institutions in India.
 It could be conceded if only there was a strong demand from among a sizeable section of
the Indians. Stephen, with his immense influence on the Indian civil servants, became the
philosopher of authoritarian British imperialism in India in the late nineteenth century.
 Yet the Government of India had to introduce, though gradually, the principle of representative
self-government in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries:
 The Indian Councils Act of 1861 established limited self-government in Bengal, Madras
and Bombay.
 The Act of 1892 increased the number of nominated members in provincial legislative
councils. Then there were the Local Self-Government Act of 1882, the llbert Bill of 1883, the
Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 ·and the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919.
 There were many views which tries to explain these reforms:
 The Cambridge School
 The old ‘Cambridge School’ would refer to its theory of “weak imperialism” and
argue that the reforms were because of the functional needs of imperialism. The empire
being essentially “weak”, politically there was a need for Indian collaborators.
 Therefore, there was a gradual lndianisation of the civil service and entry of
Indians at lower levels of local self-governing institutions.
 B.R. Tomlinson
 He has argued about a fiscal crisis of the British Indian empire which left its
imperial obligations unfulfilled. So, devolution of power was to buy Indian support, as the
elected Indian representatives would be better able to raise more revenue and would be
more judicious in spending it.
  Indeed, opposition to the idea of Indian self-government melted down because of
war pressures and financial weaknesses; but it is difficult to explain the reforms solely in
terms of fiscal exigencies.
 A more important reason behind this gradual devolution was the growing
strength of Indian nationalism which the Cambridge cluster of historians chose to
underestimate.
 Growing strength of Indian Nationalism
 Intensity of the Swadeshi movement and the spread of extremism had forced
upon the administration some new thoughts on constitutional reforms, while
revolutionary terrorism reinforced this process.
 Fresh thinking had started since 1906, as Secretary of State Lord Morley, a
liberal scholar, urged Viceroy Lord Minto to balance the unpopular Bengal partition with
reforms.
 Although partition was declared to be a settled fact, there was also a realization
that India could no longer be ruled with a “cast iron bureaucracy”.
 Indians should be given some share of power; they had to be admitted into the
legislature, and if necessary, even into the executive council.

Q. “It was in this almost unrecognizable form that the Ilbert Bill was finally enacted….it
was primarily a failure of the Viceroy.” Comment.

Ans:

 In 1873, the British government by an Act had proclaimed that in criminal matters no Indian judge
could try a European accused.
 This discrimination between the Indians and the Europeans appeared to be inhuman and unjust to
the liberal Viceroy Lord Ripon.
 Under his instruction Sir Ilbert, the Law Member of the Council, introduced a Bill who
sought to abolish the discrimination between the Indians and the Europeans.
 On 2nd February 1883 a bill was introduced into the council of the viceroy of India to
enable Indian district magistrates and sessions judges to try European settlers in country
districts where before they had been amenable only to the jurisdiction of fellow
Europeans.
 This came as a huge resentment among the British regimes as they knew the judges from India
would be inclined towards the Indians and the European convicts who were being prosecuted
under the crime committed against an Indian would be punished according to law. There was also
racism involved as many Europeans thought themselves as superior white race compared with
Indians.
 The main resenters were the Indigo Farm owners in West Bengal region who were exploiting
farmers and were forcing them to cultivate Indigo even though they did not want to do so.
 At the same time, rumors began circulating that an English female was raped by an Indian in
Calcutta.
 In reference to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, when it was alleged that English women and
girls were raped by Indian Sepoy, many British colonialists expressed great concern over the
humiliation English females would have to face appearing before Indian judges in the case of
rape.
 The British press in India even spread wild rumors about how Indian judges would abuse their
power to fill their harems with white English females.
 The propaganda that Indian judges cannot be trusted in dealing with cases involving
English females helped raise considerable support against the bill.
 Viceroy was not strong enough to stand against the discontentment and at first, as a result of
popular disapproval of the Ilbert Bill by a majority of English women, Viceroy Ripon (who had
introduced the Bill) passed an amendment, whereby a jury of 50% Europeans was required if an
Indian judge was to face a European on the dock.
 Finally, a solution was adopted by way of compromise: jurisdiction to try Europeans would be
conferred on European and Indian District Magistrates and Sessions Judges alike.
 However, a defendant would in all cases have the right to claim trial by a jury of which at
least half the members must be European.
 The bill was then passed on 25 January 1884 as the Criminal Procedure Code
Amendment Act 1884, coming into force on 1 May of that year.
 The bill which was passed at first got so many amendments and it became almost unrecognizable
to the the parent bill.
 If Lord Ilbert found it so inhuman at first that Indians didn’t have right to be judges in
European’s case, he was not able to withstand wrath and succumbed to it to bring out almost
the different inhuman bill.
 This gave two messages to Indians: Racial discrimination did by the Britishers and importance of
unity, the unity by which Europeans pressurized the Viceroy to amend the bill gave them the
results.
 Finally, Lord Ripon resigned, the power of Britishers in India proved to be stronger than the
Viceroy.
 Politics of Association before Congress
 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
 Administrative reforms,
 Association of Indians with the administration, and
 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.

Political Associations in Bengal:

  Raja Ram Mohan Roy was one of the first Indian leaders to start an agitation for political reforms.
He fought for the freedom of press, trial by jury, separation of executive and judiciary,
appointment of indian to higher offices, protection of ryots from Zamindari oppression and
development of Indian trade and industry. He took keen interest in International affairs and
supported cause of liberty, democracy and nationalism.The Bangabhasha Prakasika
Sabha was formed in 1836 by associates of Raja Rammohan Roy.

British Indian Association: (Landholders’ Society+ British India Society)

 The Zamindari Association, more popularly known as the ‘Bengal Landholders’ Society’, was
founded in 1836  by Dwarkanath Tagore, Prasanna Kumar Tagore, Radhakanta Deb to
safeguard the interests of the landlords.
 Although limited in its objectives, the Landholders’ Society marked the beginning of an
organised political activity and use of methods of constitutional agitation tor the redressal of
grievances. selfstudyhistory.com
 The British India Society was set up in 1843 in England primarily as a result of the efforts
of William Adam, who had come to India and befriended Ram Mohan Roy.
 On his return to England he took up India’s cause. Its objective was “the collection and
dissemination of information relating to the actual condition of the people of British India and
to employ such other means of peaceful and lawful character as may appear calculated to
secure the welfare, extend the just rights and advance the interests of all classes of our fellow
subjects”.
 In 1851, both the Landholders’ Society and the Bengal British India Society merged into
the British Indian Association. It sent a petition to the British Parliament demanding inclusion of
some of its suggestions in the renewed Charter of the Company, such as:
 Establishment of a separate legislature of a popular character
 Separation of executive from judicial functions
 Reduction in salaries of higher officers
 Abolition of salt duty, abkari and stamp duties.
 These were partially accepted when the Charter Act of 1853 provided for the addition of six
members to the governor- general’s council for legislative purposes.
 During the early years the activities of the association consisted mainly of submissions of petitions
to the Government and to the British Parliament on grievances.
 There was an inherent trust in the good intentions of the rulers. The association sought to
take up issues on behalf of all sections of society but occasionally it made conscious efforts to
protect the right of the landed aristocracy.
 Constructive policy they had none and seldom, if ever, they laid down any programme of
systematic action for the political advancement of the country. It had failed to cover the country
with a network of branches.
 In 1857 the Association supported the East India Company in the Sepoy Mutiny, calling for stern
punishment for the rebels.

East India Association:

 The East India Association was organised by Dadabhai Naoroji (Grand Old Man of India)

in 1867 in London to discuss the Indian question and influence public men in England to
promote Indian welfare. Later, branches of the association were started in prominent Indian cities.
 It was one of the predecessor organizations of the Indian National Congress in 1867. The idea
was to present the correct information about India to the British Public and voice Indian
Grievances.
 The Association was instrumental in counter-acting the propaganda by the Ethnological Society of
London which, in its session in 1866, had tried to prove the inferiority of the Asians to the
Europeans.
 This Association soon won the support of eminent Englishmen and was able to exercise
considerable influence in the British Parliament.
  In 1869, this organization opened branches in Bombay, Kolkata and Madras. It became defunct in
1880s.

Indian League and Indian Association of Calcutta (Indian National Association):

 The Indian League was started in 1875 by Sisir Kumar Ghosh with the object of “stimulating

the sense of nationalism amongst the people” and of encouraging political education.
 [Sisir Kumar Ghosh (1840–1911) was a noted Indian journalist, founder of the Amrita
Bazar Patrika, a noted Bengali language newspaper in 1868. He lived most of the time in
Santiniketan, West Bengal, where he was a Professor of English.]
 The Indian Association of Calcutta (Indian National Association) superseded the Indian
League and was founded in 1876 by younger nationalists of Bengal led by Surendranath
Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose, who were getting discontented with the conservative and
pro-landlord policies of the British Indian Association.
 Ananda Mohan Bose, was a member of Brahmo Dharma.The young members of
Brahmo Samaj differed with Keshab Chandra Sen regarding matters like child
marriage, running of the organisation and various other matters.
 As a result, on May 15, 1878 he, along with Shibnath Shastri, Sib Chandra Deb,
Umesh Chandra Dutta and others founded the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. He was
elected its first president.
 The Indian Association of Calcutta was the most important of pre- Congress associations
and aimed to:
 Reform in Civil Services Examinations. The Association sent Surendranath
Banerjee as a special delegate to other part of the country for support of this agitation and he
became first Indian to gain all India popularity.
 Create a strong public opinion on political questions
 Unify Indian people on a common political programme
 Promoting by every legitimate means the political, intellectual and material advancement
of the people
 Branches of the association were opened in other towns and cities of Bengal and even outside
Bengal. The membership fee was kept low in order to attract the poorer sections to the association.
 The Indian National Association was the first avowed nationalist organization founded in
British India .The Association attracted educated Indians and civic leaders from all parts of the
country. It later merged with the Indian National Congress.

Political Associations in Bombay:

 In 1852 the Bombay Native Association was founded by Jagannath Shankar Seth as the first

political party.
 The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha was founded in 1870 by Mahadeo Govind Ranade, GV
Joshi and others, with the object of serving as a bridge between the government and the people.
The Sabha carried active political education fo the next 30 years.
 The Bombay Presidency Association was started by Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozshah Mehta
and K.T. Telang in 1885.

Political Associations in Madras:

 In 1852, Madras Native association was formed as the first poltical party in Madras
Presidency,
 The Madras Mahajan Sabha was founded in 1884 by M. Viraraghavachari, B. Subramaniya
Aiyer and P. Ananda- charlu.
 The East Indian Association was organised by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866-67 in London. Later he
organised branches of the Association in prominent Indian cities.
Q. To what extent was the emergence of the Congress in 1885 the culmination of a
process of political awakening that had its beginning in the 1870s?

Ans:

 Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885 by seventy-two political workers. It was
the first organized expression of Indian nationalism on an all-India scale. A.O. Hume, a retired
English ICS officer, played an important role in its formation.
 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 several events and 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 Indians had gained experience, as well as confidence, from the large number of agitations
they had organized on national issues:
 Protests against missionary interventions and against the Lex Loci Act of 1850 were
voiced from different parts of India simultaneously.
 In 1867 there was a nationwide agitation against the proposed income tax and in support
of a demand for balanced budget.
 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.
 Then in 1877-80 a massive campaign was organised around the demand for lndianisation
of the civil services and against Lord Lytton’s expensive Afghan adventures, the cost of
which had to be met from Indian revenues.
 The Indian press and associations also organised an orchestrated campaign against the
notorious Vernacular Press Act of 1878.
 The Indians had also opposed the effort to disarm them through the Arms Act.
 In 1881-82 they organised a protest against Plantation Labour and Inland Emigration Act,
which condemned the plantation labourers to serfdom.
 A major nation-wide agitation was launched again in 1883 in favour of the Ilbert Bill,
which would enable Indian magistrates to try Europeans.
 This Bill was successfully thwarted by the Europeans and had shaken the
educated Indians’ faith in the righteousness of British rule.
 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.

 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. This convinced the
regional leaders about the need for an all-India organisation.
 While informal contacts between leaders from various cities were not lacking in any
period, attempts to establish a formal forum were also made a number of times.
 The earliest of such endeavours to forge all-India links was in 1851 when the British
India Association of Calcutta tried to open branches in other two presidencies with a
view to send a joint petition to British parliament on the eve of the renewal of the Company’s
Charter.
 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.
 On the occasion of the Delhi Durbar in 1877, the Indian journalists who were invited to
this extravaganza took the opportunity to form a Native Press Association.
 They elected S.N. Banerjea, the leader of the Indian Association and the editor of
Bengalee, as its first secretary and resolved to meet once or twice every year to discuss
issues related to press and the country.
 In Madras in 1884, through the private initiative of a member of the Theosophical
Society, delegates from different parts of India met on the sideline of the society’s annual
convention, to discuss the necessity of a national organisation.
 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.
 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. This 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 in Calcutta and given a call for another one in December 1885.

 So, the foundation of the Congress was the natural culmination of the political work of the
previous years and the emergence of a national body was clearly on the cards, although mutual
jealousies that thwarted such attempts in 1851 had not been completely removed either.
 There was still the need for a mediator who could bring all these regional leaders together
under one organisational umbrella.
 Hume was ideally suited for this role, as his supra-regional identity made him acceptable
to all the regional leaders. He was also acceptable for his known liberal political opinions.
 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.
 The Indian National Congress, which was thus born in December 1885, tried from the
very beginning to eliminate such regional differences.
 The first Congress declared that one of its major objectives would be the “development
and consolidation of those sentiments of national unity”.
 The decision to hold the Congress session every year in different parts of the country and
to choose the president from a region other than the one where the session was being held,
was meant to break the regional barriers and misunderstandings.
 The Foundation of the Indian National
Congress; The Safety-valve thesis relating to
the birth of the Congress; Programme and
objectives of Early Congress
The Origin of the Indian National Congress:

 Many Indians were planning to establish an all India organization of nationalist political workers.
But the credit for organizing the first meeting of the Indian National Congress goes to  A.O.
Hume, who was a retired English Civil Servant. and who had chosen to stay back in India after
the retirement.
 It was Hume who toured across the sub-continent talked to prominent political leaders in
Bombay, Madras and Calcutta and persuaded them to meet at a national conference that was
initially supposed to meet at Poona.
 He was on a very good term with Lord Ripon, who was the viceroy of India at that time.
 He was of the view that the emergence of educated class should be accepted as a political reality
and that timely steps should be taken to provide the right channel to the expression of the
grievances of this class.
 He believed that efforts must be made to satisfy the ambitions of this class.
 Lord Rippon also shared with his views. A.O. Hume strenuously consolidated the network of
contacts, which he established.
 In Mumbai, he met and discussed with the leaders, who were influential in the
presidency, the program of political action to be adopted by the educated Indians.
 On 1 March 1883, A.O. Hume addressed students of Calcutta University urging them to form an
association for the mental, moral, social, and political regeneration of the people of India.
 One of the main aims of Hume is facilitating the establishment of the National Congress to offer
an outlet “a safety valve” to the rising popular dissatisfaction against the British rule.
 As Hume put it: “A safety valve for the escape of great and growing forces generated by
our own action was urgently needed and no more efficacious safety valve than our Congress
Movement could possibly be devised.”
 The “safety valve” theory is, however, a small part of the truth or even false (discussed in layer
part).
 More than anything else, the National Congress represented the urge of the politically
conscious Indians to set up a national organization to work for their political and economic
 advancement. National movement was growing in the country as a result of the working of
powerful forces.
 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 organizerof the
Congress?
 The Indian leaders, who cooperated with Hume in starting this National Congress, were
patriotic men of high character, who willingly accepted Hume’s help as they did not want to
arouse official hostility towards their efforts at such an early stage of political activity.
 Considering the size of the Indian subcontinent, there were very few political persons in
the early 1880s and the tradition of open opposition to the rulers was not yet firmly
entrenched.
 The efforts of A.O. Hume yielded results and he organized the first session of the Indian
National Congress at Bombay in the hall of Gokuldas Taj pal Sanskrit
College On 20th December (Monday), 1885.
 It was presided over by Womesh Chandra Banerjee of Bengal and attended by 72
delegates. W.C. Banerjee was one of the first ever Indian barristers and one of the foremost
legal luminaries of the day, his election established a healthy precedent that the president
should be chosen from a province other than the one in which the Congress was being held.
 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.
 With the foundation of the National Congress in 1885, the struggle for India’s freedom from
foreign rule was launched in a small but organized manner.
 The national movement was to grow and the country and its people were to know no rest
till freedom was won.
Nature and Character of the early INC (Phase of moderate leaders – 1885-1905):

 The early Congress was not a ‘full-fledged political party’. It had neither paying members nor
a central office, nor a permanent fund, nor permanent officials. All it had was a general
secretary.
 The leaders spared no efforts to assure the Raj that the Congress “wasn’t a nursery for
sedition and rebellion.” They, as Jawaharlal Nehru admitted, remained preoccupied with
concerns of landlords, capitalists and educated unemployed.
 Yet, the proceedings of its early sessions indicate a general will of the Congress to present
an all-India front to the colonial regime.
 The number of delegates, representing the country’s four corners, rose from 72 in 1885 at
Bombay, to 436 in 1886 at Calcutta, 607 in 1887 at Madras, 1,248 in 1888 at Allahabad and to
1,889 in Bombay.
 Along with Allan Octavian Hume and William Wedderburn, who were directly associated
with the convening of the 1885 session, other ‘distinguished Europeans’ joined that, and other
sessions too.
 Growth in popularity Popular enthusiasm for the Congress was felt from the second
session at Calcutta. The Town Hall — the session’s venue — was “stifled in a crowd of …
2,000 to 3,000 lookers-on” on the very first day. The size of such accompanying crowd rose
to 6,000 at the 1889 Congress.
 From the beginning the INC tried to eliminate regional differences. The first congress declared
that one of its major objectives would be the “development and consolidation of those
sentiments of national unity”.
 The decision to hold congress every year in different parts of the country and to choose
the president from a region other than the one where the session was being held  was
meant to break regional barriers and misunderstandings.
 The first INC in 1885 was attended by 72 non-official Indian representatives, and they included
the people apparently from various walks of life, or belonging to ‘most classes’, as claimed by the
official report of the Congress.
 There were lawyers, merchants and bankers, landowners, medical men, journalists,
educationists, religious teachers and reformers.
 Indian National Congress in its early career was never a radical organization, as the culture of the
opposition to the government had not yet taken roots.
 So they were cautious reformers seeking to alleviate certain unpleasant aspects of what
Surendranath Banerjee described as the “un-British rule” in India and their method was
sending prayers, petitions and memoranda. selfstudyhistory.com
 W.C. Banerjee, the president of the first Congress, made it clear at the very outset that it was not
“a nest of conspirators and disloyalties”, they were thoroughly loyal and consistent well-wishers
of the British Government.
 This explains why the founder of the Indian National Congress had to involve A.O Hume
in their project.
 Gokhale wrote in 1913 that any attempt by the Indians to form an all India organization would
immediately attract the unfriendly attention of the authorities.
 He further wrote that, “If the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman,
the authorities would have at once found some way or the other to suppress the movement”.
 Thus, “if Hume and other English liberals hoped to use Congress as a safety-
valve, the Congress leaders hoped to use Hume as a lightning conductor”.
 In this way, the Congress movement started in India as a limited elitist politics for limited reforms.
 But nevertheless, it represented a new and modern trend in Indian political tradition.
 Despite its limitations, it sought to forge an overarching national unity and raised a very
important political demand: the basis of the government should be widened and the people
should have their proper and legitimate share in it.
 It was from her that the mainstream of Indian nationalist politics began to flow.
  The Indian National Congress was completely under the control of moderate leaders during 1885-
1905.
 In the initial years, the Congress leaders did not want the Congress to function as political
party.
 They simply sought autonomy in internal affairs under the British suzerainty. They
expressed their immense faith in the sincerity of the British government.
 They wanted that the Congress should work within the constitutional limits.
 The Congress proceedings were organized in the most orderly and efficient manner.
 A strict parliamentary procedure was observed in moving, discussing, and passing the
resolutions.
 During the early years, the moderates pleaded for introduction of policies, which would transform
India economically, socially, and politically.
 The moderates appealed for self-rule for India. They favoured gradual reforms and their
demands also remained moderate.
 The means chosen by them to achieve the ends were very well within the constitutional limits.
 In the initial phase, the educated middle class dominated the National Congress. Early
Congressmen had an absolute faith in the effectiveness of peaceful and constitutional
agitation.
 The holding of the annual session of the Congress was a significant method of its propaganda.
 The Congress leaders had trust in the essential sense of justice and kindness of the British
nation.
 But, they were all under illusion that the British rule in India would be beneficial. So,
their aim was to educate Indian public and make it conscious of its rights.
 The National Congress took pride in the British connection and regarded the British government
not as an antagonist, but as an ally.
 The Moderate Congress leaders were aware of the fact that India was a nation in the
making.
 They had consistently worked for the development and consolidation of the idea of
national unity irrespective of region, religion, or caste.
 They made a modest beginning in this direction by promoting close contacts and friendly relations
among the people from different parts of the country.
 The economic and political demands of the moderates were structured with a view to
unify the Indian people on the basis of a common political program.
 From the beginning, the Congress was conceived not as a party but as a movement. Except for
agreement on the very broad objectives, 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.

Objectives of the early Indian National Congress 1885:

 To promote the feeling of national unity; to weld India into a nation; to help create an Indian
people; development and consolidation of feeling of national unity irrespective of race, caste,
religion and provinces, to meet the imperialist charge that Indians were not a people or nation but
a mere grouping of hundreds of diverse races, languages, castes and religions.
 To create a national political platform or programme on which all Indians could agree and which
could serve as the basis for all-India political activity
 Politicization of the people and the creation of public interest in political questions and the
training and organization of public opinion in the country.
 The creation of an all-India political leadership.
 Such a leadership on a country-wide level did not exist in the 1880s.
 Allied to this was the need to train a common band of political workers or cadre to carry
on political work.
  Recording of the opinions of educated classes on pressing problems. Laying down lines for future
course of action in public interest.
 In 1888, it was decided that no resolution would be passed if it was objected to by an
overwhelming majority of Hindu or Muslim.
 A majority clause figured in a resolution adopted in 1889 demanding reform in the legislative
councils.
 All objectives of moderates (as described in other chapter of Moderates).
 Social Reforms were not part of the agenda. Congress was to be a political body to represent
political aspirations of the Indian people as a whole and not a platform to discuss social
reform.This was mainly due to aim to creation of political unity in India.
 Early Congress mainly believed in bourgeoise path of socio-economic political development.
 The delegates did not merely demand Indianisation of civil services or greater Indian
representation in the Government Councils, but
 opposed increasing military expenditure of the Raj,
 spoke of the country “sinking deeper and deeper into this abyss of destitution,”
 criticised the annexation of Upper Burma,
 proposed separation of executive and judiciary and re-imposition of import duty on finer
classes of cotton goods,
 urged encouragement of indigenous manufactures,
 demanded promotion of general and technical education and reduction of government
control over education — issues which were of common concern for the nation.

The Safety-valve thesis relating to the birth of the Congress:

 Hume’s involvement in the formation of INC gave rise to a lot of controversy regarding the
origins of Congress.
 The safety-valve theory or the conspiracy theory, which was deduced from this simple
fact, was for a long time subscribed to by all shades of historians, in the right, left and center.
 It was even accepted by some of the stalwarts of nationalist movement. In recent
researches, however, it has been thoroughly discredited.
 The theory (safety-valve) originated from William Wedderburn’s biography of Hume published
in 1913.
 Wedderburn, another civil servant, wrote that in 1878, Hume had come across seven
volumes of secret reports at Simla which showed that there had been seething discontent
among the lower classes and a conspiracy to overthrow British rule by force.
 He became disturbed, met Lord Dufferin and together they decided to establish an
organization with educated Indians.
 This would serve as a safety valve by opening up a line of communication between the
rulers and the ruled and would thus prevent a mass revolution. The congress was in this way
the creation of British rule.
 This safety-valve theory was believed by the earlier nationalist historians; the imperialist
historians used it to discredit Congress and the Marxist historians developed a conspiracy theory
from this.
 In his Young India published in 1916, the Extremist leader Lala Lajpat Rai used the safety-valve
theory to attack the Moderates in the Congress.
 Having discussed the theory at length and suggested that the Congress ‘was a product of
Lord Dufferin’s brain,’ he argued that ‘the Congress was started more with the object of
saving the British Empire from danger than with that of winning political liberty for India.
 More than a quarter century later, R. Palme Dutt’s authoritative work India Today made the
myth of the safety-valve a staple of left-wing opinion. R.P Dutt, for example, wrote that Congress
was born through a conspiracy to forestall a popular uprising in India and the Indian bourgeoisie
leaders were a party to it.
 In 1939, M.S. Golwalkar, the RSS chief, had also found the safety-valve theory handy in
attacking the Congress for its secularism and, therefore, anti-nationalism.
  In his pamphlet “We” Golwalkar complained that Hindu national consciousness had been
destroyed by those claiming to be ‘nationalists’ .
 The liberal C.F. Andrews and Girija Mukherji fully accepted the safety-valve theory in their
work, “The Rise and Growth of the Congress in India” published in 1938. They were happy with
it because it had helped avoid ‘useless bloodshed.’

In the 1950s, these safety-valve or conspiracies theories were proved to be wrong

because:

 First of all, those seven volumes of secret reports have not been traced in any of the archives either
in India or London.
 Historians argue that given the structure of British information system in the 1870s, it was highly
unlikely that so many volumes of secret reports have existed.
 Hume was Secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce.
 How could the Secretary of these departments get access to Home Department files or
CID reports?
 Also he was then in Simla while Home Department files were kept in Delhi; they were
not sent to Simla.
 If Congress was founded out of the fear of an outbreak, why did Hume and British officialdom
wait for seven long years? (Report in 1878 and congress in 1885)
 Wedderburn writes that a warning of the threatened danger came to Hume ‘from a religious Guru
of Tibet.’
 According to Wedderburn’s biography of Hume, in 1878, the evidence of the seven
volumes was shown to Hume by the Gurus who had sent reports by thousands of Chelas.
 Though Hume was in fact student of Eastern Religions and impressed by Gurus, but why
should Hume believe that these reports ‘must necessarily be true?’
 Further proof offered for the safety-valve theory was based on W.C. Bannerjee’s statement in
1898 in Indian Politics that the Congress, ‘as it was originally started and as it has since
been carried on, is in reality the work of Dufferin.’
 He stated that Hume had, in 1884, thought of bringing together leading political Indians
once a year “to discuss social matters” and did not “desire that politics should form part of
their discussion.”
 But Dufferin asked Hume to do the opposite and start a body to discuss politics so that the
Government could keep itself informed of Indian opinion.”
 Clearly, either W.C. Bannerjee’s memory was failing or he was trying to protect the
National Congress from the wrath of the late 19th century imperialist reaction, for
contemporary evidence clearly indicated the opposite.
 All the discussions Hume had with Indian leaders regarding the holding of an annual
conference referred to a political gathering.
 Neither Dufferin and his fellow-liberal Governors of Bombay and Madras nor his conservative
officials were sympathetic to the Congress.
 It was not only in 1888 that Dufferin attacked the Congress in a vicious manner by
writing that he would consider ‘in what way the happy despatch may be best applied to the
Congress,’ for ‘we cannot allow the Congress to continue to exist.”
 Dufferin openly castigate Congress for its dubious motives. He criticized it for representing
a “microscopic minority” and this statement if anything else, explodes the safety valves or
conspiracy theory.
 In fact, from the end of May 1885, Dufferin had grown cool to Hume and began to keep
him at an arm’s length.
 Historians now more or less agree that the story of seven volumes of secret report was a fiction
created by a friendly biographer Wedderburn to portray Hume as British patriot who wanted to
save the British Empire from an impending crisis.
 The fact that Hume played a crucial role in the foundation of the Congress, however, remains,
although this role might have been grossly exaggerated in the safety valve or conspiracy theories.
  But even if Hume had not taken any initiative, in India in the 1870s and 1880s, the
formation of national organization was clearly in the air.
 In reality, Hume was a political liberal, who had clear idea about growing discontent among
Indians. So he visualised an all India organisation which would represent Indian interest and act as
an opposition.
 During May June 1886, Duffrin described Hume as “Cleverish, a little cracked, excessively vain
and indifferent to truth” , his main fault being that he was one of the chief stimulus of Home Rule
Movement.
 To conclude, it is high time that the safety-valve theory of the genesis of the Congress was
confined to the care of the mahatmas from whom perhaps it originated.

British Attitude Towards Early Congress:

 Initially the official attitude towards Congress was of neutrality and indifference if not
favourable.In this spirit, Dufferin gave a garden party to delegates attendinng second Congress
session in Calcutta(1886). Governor of Madras gave facilities to the organisers in 3rd session of
Madras in 1887.
 The 1888 Allahabad Session of INC was presided by George Yule, who became first
Englishman to do so.
 But soon it became apparent(by 1887) that INC would not be confined to limited role, British
became hostile. British could not tolerate the political awareness spreading among common
people.
 Third session of Madras in 1887 was presided by Badaruddin Tyabji. The word Self
Governance was mentioned.
 In 1887, Dufferin attacked the Congress in a public speech and ridiculed it as
representing only a microscopic minority of the people and Congress demands as a big jump
into the unknown.
 Earlier in 1886 he wrote about the role of national press: There can be no doubt there is
generated in the mind of those who read those papers a sincere conviction that we are all of us
enemies of mankind in general and India in particular.
 In 1890, Government employees were forbidden from participating or attending Congress
meetings.
 George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India accused Congress for possessing seditious and
doubled sided character.
 In 1900, he complained to Dadabhai Naroji that: You announce yourself as a sincere
supporter of the British rule, but you denounce the conditions and consequences which are
inseparable from the maintenance of that rule.
 Earlier in 1897, he wrote to Viceroy Elgin: The solidarity, which is growing of native
opinion and races and religions in antagonism to our rule frightens me as regards of the future.
 Despite its moderate methods and its emphasis on loyalty to British crown, the INC failed to
secure any substantial concession from the government.
 Realising that the growing unity of the Indian people posed a major threat to their rule, the British
authorities also pushed further the policy of divide and rule.
 They encouraged Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan (Aligarh Movement), Raja Shiva Prasad of
Benaras, and other pro- British individuals to start anti- Congress movement.
 The British attitude became even more hostile to the Congress under Lord Curzon.
 He said that the Congress was tottering to its fall and one of my greatest ambitions
while in India was to assist it to a peaceful demise.
 The government under Curzon wanted to weaken the nationalist elements in general and
Congress in particular by driving the wedge amongst the leader in the name of religion and
communalise the Indian politics by partitioning Bengal in 1905, on communal grounds.
 While just after Revolt of 1857, British had repressed the Muslim upper classes and favoured in
Hindu middle and upper classes, after 1870 they made an attempt to turn upper and middle class
Muslim against the national movement.
  They exploited the controversy around Hindi and Urdu to promote communal feelings.
Cow protection movement by orthodox Hindus was also used.
 Kimberley, the Secretary of State for India wrote to Landsdowne, the Viceroy in 1893
that movement makes all combinations of Hindu and Muslims impossible and so cuts at the
root of the Congress agitation for formation of united Indian people.
 An effort was made to turn traditional feudal class against the new intelligentsia, province against
province, caste against caste etc.
 To create split in the nationalist rank, British adopted more friendly approach towards either the
conservatives or moderate sections.
 The moderate sections were appeased by making many concessions like passing Indian
Council Act of 1892, increasing maximum age of recruitment in Civil Services etc.
 By Education Act of 1903, strict control on university education was applied as British thought
that spread of education is causing nationalism.
 The leaders belonging to the older associations like British Indian Association were sought to be
appeased and turned against the radical Congress leaders.
 After Swadeshi Movement of Bengal, British adopted a new policy of “Repression-Conciliation-
Suppression” under which they repressed the militant leadership first, then tried to win over the
moderates and finally tried to suppress militant leadership completely and then they ignored
moderates.
 Moderates and extremists both fell into this trap.
 Earlier British had felt that moderate led Congress will be easily finished because it was
weak and without popular base. But after Bengal Movement policy was changed.

Q. “Congress movement started in India as a limited elitist politics for limited reforms.”
Comment.

Ans:

The Indian National Congress, which was found in 1885, was completely under the control of
moderate leaders during 1885-1905 which aimed at gradual and limited reform:

 In its political behaviour the Indian National Congress in its early career was never a radical
organisation, as the culture of open opposition to the government had not yet taken roots.
 Congress was more like an annual conference which adopted resolution for three days’ events and
then disappeared.
 The Congress leaders did not want the Congress to function as a proper political party.
 They simply sought autonomy in internal affairs under the British suzerainty. They
expressed their immense faith in the sincerity of the British government.
 They wanted that the Congress should work within the constitutional limits. The Congress
proceedings were organized in the most orderly and efficient manner.
 A strict parliamentary procedure was observed in moving, discussing, and passing the
resolutions.
 The Congress leaders had trust in the essential sense of justice and kindness of the British Nation
but, they were all under illusion that the British rule in India would be beneficial.
 So, their aim was to educate Indian public and make it conscious of its rights.
 The Moderate Congress leaders were aware of the fact that India was a nation in the making.
 They had consistently worked for the development and consolidation of the idea of
national unity irrespective of region, religion, or caste without any radical changes.
 They made a modest beginning in this direction by promoting close contacts and friendly
relations among the people from different parts of the country.
 The economic and political demands of the moderates were structured with a view to
unify the Indian people on the basis of a common political program.
  Social Reforms were not part of the agenda. Congress was to be a political body to represent
political aspirations of the Indian people as a whole with the aim to create political unity and not a
platform to discuss social reform as it would have created division.
 Congressmen were cautious reformers seeking to alleviate certain unpleasant aspects of what
Surendranath Banerjee or Dadabhai Naoroji described as the “un-British rule” in India and their
method was sending prayers, petitions and memoranda.
 Banerjee, the president of the first Congress, made it clear at the very outset that it was not “a nest
of conspirators and disloyalists”; they were “thoroughly loyal and consistent well-wishers of the
British Government”.
 This explains why the founders of the Congress had to involve A.O. Hume in their
project.
 His association would assuage official suspicion and this was crucial, as Gokhale, another
stalwart of the early Congress, wrote in 1913, any attempt by the Indians to form an all India
organization would immediately attract the unfriendly attention of the authorities.
 “If the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman”, he wrote, “the
authorities would have at once found some way or the other to suppress the movement”.
 Thus, “if Hume and other English liberals hoped to use Congress as a safety-valve, the
Congress leaders hoped to use Hume as a lightning conductor”.”

Social Composition of Early Congress Leadership was elitist as it had uneven representation and
total exclusion of non-elite groups of Indian society:

 The Composition of the delegates at the first congress reflected the changing patterns of organised
political life in India, the western educated professional groups gradually taking the lead over the
landed aristocrats.
 There were lawyers, merchants, bankers, landowners, medical men, journalists, educationalists,
religious teachers and reformers. About 18.99% of the delegates who attended the congress
sessions between 1892 and 1909 were landlords; the rest were lawyers (39.32%), traders
(15.10%), journalists (3.18%), doctors (2.94%), teachers (3.16%) and other professionals
(17.31%).
 They predominantly belonged to the high caste Hindu communities and this pattern continued for
two decades.
 Between 1892 and 1909, nearly 90% of delegates who attended congress sessions were Hindus
and only 6.5 % were Muslims. Among Hindus, 40% were Brahmins and rest were upper caste
Hindus.

Hence the Congress movement started in India as a limited elitist politics for limited reforms. But
nevertheless, it represented a new and modern trend in Indian political tradition.

Despite its limitations, it sought to forge an overarching national unity and raised a very important
political demand: “the basis of the government should be widened and the people should have
their proper and legitimate share in it”. It was from here that the mainstream of Indian nationalist
politics began to flow.

Founding fathers of the Congress visualised it as ‘the germ of a Native Parliament.’ Despite
scant respect shown to the Congress by Viceroy Dufferin and his immediate successors, its
pressure for constitutional reforms yielded the first fruit with the 1892 Council Act.
The social composition of early Congress
leadership
 The social base of the early Congress was unmistakably narrow. It had uneven representation and
total exclusion of non-elite groups of Indian society.
 The Composition of the delegates at the first congress reflected the changing patterns of organised
political life in India, the western educated professional groups gradually taking the lead over the
landed aristocrats.
 Geographically, within the overall ascendancy of the presidencies, Bengal was gradually slipping
from its leadership position, which was being taken over by Bombay, surging ahead of all other
regions. The first meeting of the Indian National Congress in 1885 was attended by seventy-two
non-official Indian representatives and they included people apparently from various walks of life,
or belonging to “most classes”, as claimed by the official report of the Congress.
 If we look at their regional distribution, thirty-eight came from Bombay Presidency,
twenty-one from Madras, but only four from Bengal, as the Indian Association had convened
its own national conference in Calcutta almost at the same time and the Bengal leaders were
told of the Bombay conference only at the very last moment.
 Apart from the presidencies, seven representatives came from the four principal towns of
North-Western Provinces and Awadh and one each from the three towns of Punjab.
 It was in other words, despite lofty claims, a gathering of professionals, some landlords
and businessmen, representing primarily the three presidencies of British India.
selfstudyhistory.com
 There were lawyers, merchants, bankers, landowners, medical men, journalists, educationaists,
religious teachers and reformers.
 About 18.99% of the delegates who attended the congress sessions between 1892 and 1909 were
landlords; the rest were:
 lawyers (39.32%),
 traders (15.10%),
 journalists (3.18%),
 doctors (2.94%),
 teachers (3.16%) and
 other professionals (17.31%).
 They predominantly belonged to the high caste Hindu communities and this pattern continued for
two decades. Delegates for the sessions being overwhelmingly from the educated and professional
sections of the Hindu community.
 Bearing the exception of Bombay politician, Badruddian Tyabji, mostly were Hindus.
 Between 1892 and 1909, nearly 90% of delegates who attended congress sessions were
Hindus and only 6.5 % were Muslims.
 Among Hindus, 40% were Brahmins and rest were upper caste Hindus.
 However, the organisation increasingly assumed a representative character.
 The number of registered Muslim delegates rose from the paltry figure of two in 1885 to
  33 in 1886,
 81 in 1887,
 221 in 1888,
 254 in 1889.
 The Congress even resolved in 1887-88 not to debate social or religious matters for
ensuring the support of religious minorities.
 Six-tenths of Muslim delegates to Congress sessions from 1886 to 1901 were from Lucknow
alone.
 The number of delegates, representing the country’s four corners, rose from 72 in 1885 at
Bombay, to
 436 in 1886 at Calcutta,
 607 in 1887 at Madras,
 1,248 in 1888 at Allahabad and
 1,889 in Bombay.
 Owing to the efforts of Dwarkanath Ganguly, six women delegated were present at the 1889
Congress session in Bombay (10 registered lady delegates) including social reformer Pandita
Ramabai, Rabindranath Tagore’s sister Swarnakumari Devi and Calcutta University’s first lady
graduate Kadambini Ganguly. The two from Bengal were Dwarkanath’s wifeKadambini and
Swarnakumari Debi, wife of Janakinath Ghosal.
 The presence of both women was closely connected with the extent of their husbands’
links with Congress politics. Orthodox opinion objected to even to this limited participation,
and ridiculed Dwarkanath for insisting on the right of women to be represented in Congress to
express their views and on their right to be elected members of the Legislative Council.
 In 1890 Calcutta Session, Kadambini Ganguly addressed the Congress Session. Her
contributions at these sessions were more symbolic than substantial- in Calcutta she made a
motion to thank the Chairman.
 The 1889 session was attended by 41 ‘simple’ cultivators and two working artisans.
 Carefully ‘sheltering’ diverse social concerns, the Congress sessions proved to be the melting
point of all …interconnections.
 This limitation of participation did not fluster the members of the Congress, as they complacently
claimed to represent the whole nation; but it obviously put some constraints on their programmes.
 1. Moderate period (1885 –1905)
2. Extremist period (1905 – 1920)
3. Gandhian Period (1920-1947)

Moderate Period of Indian National Congress

(1885-1905)
 Congress politics during the first twenty years of its history is roughly referred to as moderate
politics. Congress at that time was hardly a full-fledged political party; it was more in the nature of
an annual conference, which deliberated and adopted resolutions during the “three
day tamashas”, and then dispersed.
 Its members were mostly part-time politicians, who were successful professionals in their personal
lives-a thoroughly Anglicized upper class who had very little time and commitment for full-time
politics.

Moderate Leaders:

 The leading figures during the first phase of the National Movement were A.O. Hume, W.C.
Banerjee, Surendra Nath Banerjee, Dadabhai Naoroji, Feroze Shah Mehta,
Gopalakrishna Gokhale, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Badruddin Tyabji, Justice
Ranade, G.Subramanya Aiyar etc.

W.C. Banerjee

 He was the first president of Indian National Congress. He was the first Indian to contest the
election for the British House of Commons although he lost the election.
 He was the president of the Indian National Congress again in the 1892 session in Allahabad

Feroze Shah Mehta

 Sir Pherozeshah Mehta (4 August 1845 – 5 November 1915) was a Parsi Indian political leader,
activist, and a leading lawyer of Mumbai, who was knighted by the British Government in India
for his service to the law.He was known as The Lion of Bombay.
 He became the Municipal commissioner of Bombay Municipality in 1873 and its President four
times.Pherozeshah Mehta was nominated to the Bombay Legislative Council in 1887 and in 1893
a member of the Imperial Legislative Council.
 He was chosen the president of the Indian National Congress in 1890.
 In 1910, he started Bombay Chronicle, an English-language weekly newspaper
Justice Ranade

 Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade (18 January 1842 – 16 January 1901) was a distinguished Indian
scholar, social reformer and author.
 He was a founding member of the Indian National Congress and owned several designations as
member of the Bombay legislative council, member of the finance committee at the centre, and
the judge of Bombay High Court.
 He published books on Indian economics and on Maratha history. He saw the need for heavy
industry for economic progress and believed in Western education as a vital element to the
foundation of an Indian nation.
 With his friends Atmaram Pandurang, Bal Mangesh Wagle and Vaman Abaji Modak, Ranade
founded the Prarthana Samaj, a Hindu movement inspired by the Brahmo Samaj, espousing
principles of enlightened theism based on the ancient Vedas. Prarthana Samaj was started by
Keshav Chandra Sen.
 Ranade founded the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha & Ahmednagar Education Society and later
was one of the originators of the Indian National Congress. He has been portrayed as an early
adversary of the politics of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and a mentor to Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
 Ranade was a founder of the Social Conference movement , directing his social reform efforts
against child marriage, the shaving of widows’ heads, the heavy cost of marriages and other social
functions, and the caste restrictions on traveling abroad, and he strenuously advocated widow
remarriage and female education. He was one of the founders of the Widow Marriage
Association in 1861.
 Ranade valued India’s history, having had a great interest in Shivaji and the Bhakti
movement,Ranade encouraged the acceptance of change, believing traditional social structures,
like the caste system, should accommodate change, thereby preserving India’s ancient heritage.
 Though Ranade criticised superstitions and blind faith, he was conservative in his own life.Upon
the death of his first wife, his reform-minded friends expected him to marry (and thereby rescue) a
widow. However, he adhered to his family’s wishes and married a child bride, Ramabai Ranade,
whom he subsequently provided with an education. After his death, she continued his social and
educational reform work.

Surendranath Banerjee

 He founded the Indian National Association. He was also known by the Rashtraguru.

 He cleared the Indian Civil Service examinations in 1869, but was barred owing to a dispute over
his exact age.Banerjee cleared the exam again in 1871 and was posted as assistant magistrate in
Sylhet. However, Banerjee was dismissed soon from his job owing to racial discrimination.
Banerjee went to England to protest this decision, but was unsuccessful. During his stay in
England (1874–1875), he studied the works of Edmund Burke and other liberal philosophers.
These works guided him in his protests against the British. He was known as the Indian Burke.
 In 1879, he founded the newspaper, The Bengalee.
 He founded the Indian Association (1876) to agitate for political reforms. He had convened
the Indian National Conference (1883) which merged with the Indian National Congress in
l886.
 He firmly opposed the Partition of Bengal.He was an important figure in the Swadeshi
movement – advocating goods manufactured in India against foreign products.
 Banerjee supported the Morley-Minto reforms 1909 – which were resented and ridiculed as
insufficient and meaningless by the vast majority of the Indian public and nationalist politicians.
Banerjee was a critic of the proposed method of civil disobedience advocated by Mahatma
Gandhi,

G. Subramanya Aiyar
  He was a leading Indian journalist, social reformer and freedom fighter who founded ‘The Hindu‘
newspaper along with M. Veeraraghavachariar, T. T. Rangachariar, P. V. Rangachariar on 20
September 1878. He preached nationalism through the Madras Mahajana Sabha. He also
founded Swadesamitran.
 He was one of the 72 delegates present at the Bombay Conference at Tejpal Sanskrit College on
12 December 1885, which resulted in the founding of the Indian National Congress.
 Subramania Iyer campaigned vehemently for reforms in Hindu society. He supported widow
remarriage and desired to abolish untouchability and child marriages. Subramania Iyer arranged
for the remarriage of his widowed daughter for which he was socially boycotted.

Dadabhai Naoroji

 Dadabhai Naoroji (4 September 1825 – 30 June 1917), known as the Grand Old Man of
India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social
leader. He was a member of parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom House of Commons
between 1892 and 1895, and the first Asian to be a British MP.In his political campaign and duties
as an MP, he was assisted by Muhammed Ali Jinnah,
 In 1867 Naoroji helped to establish the East India Association, one of the predecessor
organisations of the Indian National Congress with the aim of putting across the Indian point of
view before the British public. This Association soon won the support of eminent Englishmen and
was able to exercise considerable influence in the British Parliament. He was also a member of
the Indian National Association founded by Sir Surendranath Banerjee from Calcutta a few
years before the founding of the Indian National Congress in Bombay, with the same objectives
and practices. The two groups later merged into the INC, and Naoroji was elected President of the
Congress in 1886.
 In 1874, he became Prime Minister of Baroda and was a member of the Legislative Council of
Mumbai (1885–88).
 Dadabhai Naoroji became Indian representative in the socialist Second International, at their
1905 congress in Amsterdam. Later , on 22 August 1907, his assistant   Mrs. Bhikaiji Rustom
Cama attended the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart, Germany, where she described
the devastating effects of a famine that had struck the Indian subcontinent. In her appeal for
human rights, equality and for autonomy from Great Britain.
 Naoroji published Poverty and un-British Rule in India in 1901.Dadabhai Naoroji’s work
focused on the drain of wealth from India into England through colonial rule. Naoroji’s work on
the drain theory was the main reason behind the creation of the Royal commission on Indian
Expenditure in 1896 in which he was also a member. This commission reviewed financial
burdens on India and in some cases came to the conclusion that those burdens were misplaced.
 In 1906, Naoroji was again elected president of the Indian National Congress.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

 Gokhale became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1889, as a protégé of social
reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade.
 In 1899, Gokhale was elected to the Bombay Legislative Council. He was elected to the Council
of India of Governor-General of India on 22 May 1903 as non-officiating member representing
Bombay Province. He later served to Imperial Legislative Council after its expansion in 1909.
He there obtained a reputation as extremely knowledgeable and contributed significantly to
the annual budget debates. Gokhale developed so great a reputation among the British that he
was invited to London to meet with secretary of state Lord John Morley. Gokhale would help
during his visit to shape the Morley-Minto Reforms introduced in 1909.
 In many ways, Tilak and Gokhale’s early careers paralleled – both were Chitpavan Brahmin
(though unlike Gokhale, Tilak was wealthy), both attended Elphinstone College, both became
mathematics professors, and both were important members of the Deccan Education Society.
When both became active in the Congress, however, the divergence of their views concerning how
best to improve the lives of Indians became increasingly apparent.Gokhale’s first major
 confrontation with Tilak centred around one of his pet issues, the Age of Consent Bill introduced
by the British Imperial Government, in 1891–92. Gokhale and his fellow liberal reformers,
wishing to purge what they saw as superstitions and abuses in their native Hinduism, supported
the Consent Bill to curb child marriage abuses. Though the Bill was not extreme, only raising the
age of consent from ten to twelve, Tilak took issue with it; he did not object per se to the idea of
moving towards the elimination of child marriage, but rather to the idea of British interference
with Hindu tradition. The bill however became law in the Bombay Presidency.
 In 1905, Gokhale became president of the Indian National Congress. Gokhale used his now
considerable influence to undermine his longtime rival, Tilak, refusing to support Tilak as
candidate for president of the Congress in 1906. By now, Congress was split: Gokhale and Tilak
were the respective leaders of the moderates and the “extremists”.
 In 1905, when Gokhale was elected president of the Indian National Congress and was at the
height of his political power, he founded the Servants of India Society to specifically further
one of the causes dearest to his heart: the expansion of Indian education and  to train Indians to
dedicate their lives to the cause of the country.Gokhale wrote that “The Servants of India Society
will train men prepared to devote their lives to the cause of country in a religious spirit, and will
seek to promote, by all constitutional means, the national interests of the Indian people.”
 Gokhale was famously a mentor to Mahatma Gandhi in his formative years. In 1912, Gokhale
visited South Africa at Gandhi’s invitation. As a young barrister, Gandhi returned from his
struggles against the Empire in South Africa and received personal guidance from Gokhale,
including a knowledge and understanding of India and the issues confronting common Indians.
 Despite his deep respect for Gokhale, however, Gandhi would reject Gokhale’s faith in western
institutions as a means of achieving political reform and ultimately chose not to become a member
of Gokhale’s Servants of India Society. Many members of Society were also against Gandhi
joining it. After death of Gokhale, first Gandhi wanted to join it but later withdrew application due
to division among members.
 Gokhale was also the role model and mentor of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future founder of
Pakistan, who in 1912, aspired to become the “Muslim Gokhale”.
 Gokhale died on 19 February 1915 at an early age of forty-nine. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, his lifelong
political opponent, said at his funeral: “This diamond of India, this jewel of Maharashtra, this
prince of workers is taking eternal rest on funeral ground. Look at him and try to emulate
him”.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya

 Madan Mohan Malaviya pronunciation (1861–1946) was an Indian educationist and politician

notable for his role in the Indian independence movement. He was also addressed
as ‘Mahamana’.In December 1886, Malaviya attended the 2nd Indian National Congress session
in Calcutta under chairmanship of Dadabhai Naoroji,
 He remained a member of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1912 and when in 1919 it was
converted to the Central Legislative Assembly he remained its member as well, till 1926.Malaviya
was an important figure in the Non-cooperation movement. However, he was opposed to the
politics of appeasement and the participation of Congress in the Khilafat movement.
 Malaviya was the founder of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) at Varanasi in 1916. In April
1911, Annie Besant met Malaviya and they decided to work for a common Hindu University at
Varanasi. Besant and fellow trustees of the Central Hindu College, which she has founded in
1898 also agreed to Government of India’s precondition that the college should become a part of
the new University. Thus Banaras Hindu University (BHU) was established in 1916, through
under the Parliamentary legislation, ‘B.H.U. Act 1915’ In 1933, Malaviya started Sanatana
Dharma from BHU, a magazine dedicated to religious, dharmic interests.
 He was a moderate leader and opposed the separate electorates for Muslims under the Lucknow
Pact of 1916.
 Malaviya was the President of the Indian National Congress on four occasions (1909 &
1913,1919,1932) he left congress in 1934 and also one of the initial leaders of the  Hindu
Mahasabha.
  In protest against the Communal Award which sought to provide separate electorates for
minorities, Malaviya along with Madhav Shrihari Aney left the Congress and started
the Congress Nationalist Party. The party contested the 1934 elections to the central legislature
and won 12 seats.
 Malviya was one of the founders of Scouting in India.He also founded a highly influential,
English-newspaper, The Leader published from Allahabad in 1909.
 In 1924, Malviya along with the help national leaders Lala Lajpat Rai and M. R. Jayakar and
industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla, acquired Hindustan Times and saved it from an untimely
demise .His efforts resulted in the launch of its Hindi edition named Hindustan Dainik in 1936
 Malaviya played an important part in the removal of untouchability and in giving direction to the
Harijan movement. The Harijan Sevak Sangh was founded at a meeting in 1933 at which Pandit
Malviya presided.

Badruddin Tyabji

 Badruddin Tyabji (10 October 1844 – 19 August 1906) was an Indian lawyer who served as the
third President of the Indian National Congress.
 Badruddin Tyabji returned to India in 1867 after study in Europe and became the first Indian
solicitor.

Ideology:

 They did demand equality, which seemed to be a rather abstract idea; they equated liberty with
class privilege and wanted gradual or piecemeal reforms.
 ‘British rule’, to most of them seemed to be an act of providence destined to bring in
modernization. Indians needed some time to prepare themselves for self-government. In the
meanwhile, absolute faith could be placed in British in Parliament and the people. Their complaint
was only against “un-British” in India perpetrated by the viceroy, his executive council and the
Anglo-Indian bureaucracy-an imperfection that could be reformed or rectified through gentle
persuasion.
 Their politics was very limited in terms of goals and methods.
 They were secular in their attitudes, though not always forthright enough to rise above their
sectarian interests. They were conscious of the exploitative nature of British rule, but wanted its
reforms and not expulsion.

Methods:

 Early Congressman had an implicit faith in the efficacy of peaceful and constitutional
agitation as opposed to popular mean of agitation. It was well explained by Gokhle in his
journal Sudhar as 3P method: Petition, Prayer and Protest. The press and platform of the
annual sessions were their agency of agitation.
 The holding of annual sessions was another method of Congress propaganda. At this session,
the government policy was discussed and resolutions were passed in forceful manner, this annual
sessions attracted the attention of both educated section of educated middle class and government.
But the biggest drawback was that the Congress lasted only for 3 days in a year and it had no
missionary to carry on the work in the internal between the two sessions.
 The congressmen believed in the essential sense of justice and the goodness of British
nation. The Moderates believed that the British basically wanted to be just to the Indians but were
not aware of the real conditions.They thought it was only the bureaucracy which stood between
the people and their rights.Therefore, if public opinion could be created in the country and public
demands be presented to the Government through resolutions, petitions, meetings, etc., the
authorities would concede these demands gradually.To achieve these ends, they worked on a two-
pronged methodology (1)create a strong public opinion to arouse consciousness and
national spirit and then educate and unite people on common political questions;
 (2)persuade the British Government and British public opinion to introduce reforms in India on
the lines laid out by the nationalists.
 To remind the British, deputations of leading Indians were sent to Britain to give this viewpoint.
To do this in 1889, a British committee of INC was founded to carry was founded to carry out
its propaganda. It was to present India’s view point to the British authority. Dadabhai
Naoroji was to present it. He spent his major part in England where he got elected in the British
House Commons and formed a powerful Indian lobby in the House of Commons. In 1890, it was
decided to hold a session of the Indian National Congress in London in 1892, but owing to the
British elections of 1891 the proposal was postponed and never revived later.

Programs and Limited Successes:

(a)Constitutional field

1. They first of all wanted to abolish the Indian Council which prevented the secretary of state from
initiating liberal policies in India.
2. They also wanted to broaden Indian participation in legislatures through an expansion of the
central and provincial legislature by introducing 50% elected representation from local bodies,
chambers of commerce, universities, etc.
3. They also wanted new councils for North-Western Provinces and Punjab and two Indian members
in the Viceroy’s Executive Council and one such member in each of the executive councils of
Bombay and Madras.
4. The budget should be referred to the legislature, which should have the right to discuss and vote
on it and also the right of interpellation.
5. There should also be right to appeal to the Standing Committee of the House of Commons against
the Government of India.

 Thus their immediate demand was not for full self-government or democracy; they
demanded democratic rights only for the educated members of the Indian society, who would
substitute for the masses.
 The expectation of the moderate politicians was that full political freedom would come gradually
and India would be ultimately given the self-governing right like those enjoyed by the other
colonies as Canada or Australia.
 With an intrinsic faith in the providential nature of British rule in India, they hoped that one day
they would be recognized as partners and not sub-ordinates in the affairs in the affairs of the
empire and be given the rights of full British citizenship.
 What they receive in return, however, was Lord Cross’s Act or the Indian Council’s
Amendment Act of 1892, which only provided for marginal expansion of the legislative councils
both at the center and the provinces.
 Some Moderates like Ranade and Gokhale favoured social reforms. They protested against child
marriage and widowhood.

Constitutional Reforms and Propaganda in Legislature:

 Legislative councils in India had no real official power till 1920. Yet, work done in them by the
nationalists helped the growth of the national movement. The Imperial Legislative Council
constituted by the Indian Councils Act (1861) was an impotent body designed to disguise official
measures as having been passed by a representative body.
 Indian members were few in number—thirty years from 1862 to 1892 only forty-five Indians were
nominated to it, most of them “being wealthy, landed and with loyalist interests. Only a handful of
political figures and independent intellectuals such as Syed Ahmed Khan, Kristodas Pal, V.N.
Mandlik, K.L. Nulkar and Rashbehari Ghosh were nominated.
 From 1885 to 1892, the nationalist demands for constitutional reforms were centred
around:
 1. Expansion of councils—i.e., greater participation of Indians in councils,
2. Reform of councils—i.e., more powers to councils, especially greater control over finances.

 The early nationalists worked with the long-term objective of a democratic self-government. Their
demands for constitutional reforms were conceded in 1892 in the form of the Indian Councils Act.
 These reforms were severely criticised at Congress sessions. Now, they demanded (i) a majority of
elected Indians, and (ii) control over the budget i.e., the power to vote upon and amend the budget.
They gave the slogan—”No taxation without representation”. Gradually, the scope of
constitutional demands was widened and Dadabhai Naoroji (1904), Gopal Krishna Gokhale
(1905) and Lokmanya Tilak (1906) demanded self-government like the self-governing colonies of
Canada and Australia. Also, leaders like Pherozshah Mehta and Gokhale put government policies
and proposals to severe criticism.
 The British had intended to use the councils to incorporate the more vocal among Indian leaders,
so as to allow them to let off their “political steam”, while the impotent councils could afford to
remain deaf to their criticism. But the nationalists were able to transform these councils into
forums for ventilating popular grievances, for exposing the defects of an indifferent bureaucracy,
for criticising government policies/proposals, raising basic economic issues, especially regarding
public finance.

(b)Administrative system

 The first demand of the moderates was for the Indianisation of the services. An Indianised civil
service would be more responsive to the Indian needs, they argued. It would stop the drainage of
money, which was annually expatriated through the payment of salary and pension of the
European officers. More significantly, this reform was being advocated as a measure against
racism.
 They demanded actually were simultaneous civil service examination both in India and
London and raising of the age limit for appearing in such examinations from nineteen to twenty-
three.
 In 1892-93, under the initiative of William Gladstone, the House of Commons passed a
resolution for simultaneous examination, though the secretary of state was still opposed to it. But
at the same time, the maximum age for examination was further lowered to the disadvantage of
the Indians.
 Criticism of an oppressive and tyrannical bureaucracy and an expensive and time-consuming
judicial system.
 They demanded Separation of judicial from executive functions.
 The other administrative demands of the moderates included the extension of trial by jury, repeal
of the arms act, and a campaign against the exploitation of the indentured labour at the
Assam tea gardensm  Increase in expenditure on welfare (i.e., health, sanitation), education—
especially elementary and technical— irrigation works and improvement of agriculture,
agricultural banks for cultivators, etc.
 They demanded better treatment for Indian labour abroad in other British colonies, who faced
oppression and racial discrimination there.

(c)Military

 The British Indian army was being used in imperial wars in all parts of the world, particularly in
Africa and Asia. These and the Indian frontier wars of the 1890s put a very heavy burden on the
Indian finances.
 The moderates demanded that this military expenditure should evenly shared by the
British government; Indians should be taken into the army as volunteers and more and more of
them should be appointed in higher ranks. All of these demands were however rejected.
 Criticism of an aggressive foreign policy which resulted in annexation of Burma, attack on
Afghanistan and suppression of tribals in the North-West.
(d)Economic  Critique of Imperialism

 The most significant historical contribution of the moderates was that they offered an economic
critique of colonialism. This economic nationalism, as it is often referred to, became a major
theme that developed further during the subsequent period of nationalist movement and to a large
extent influenced the economic policies of the Congress government in independent India.
 The early nationalists took note of all the three forms of contemporary colonial economic
exploitation, namely, through trade, industry and finance. They clearly grasped that the essence of
British economic imperialism lay in the subordination of the Indian economy to the British
economy.
 Names important to remember in this respect: Dinshaw Wacha, Dadabhai Naoroji, a successful
businessman, Justice M.G. Ranade (wrote ‘Essays  in Indian Economics‘ (1898))and R.C
Dutt, a retired ICS officer, who published The Economic History of India in two volumes
(1901-1903).
 The early nationalists complained of India’s growing poverty and economic backwardness and the
failure of modern industry and agriculture to grow and they put the blame on British economic
exploitation. Dadabhai Naoroji declared that the British rule was “an everlasting, increasing,
and every day increasing foreign invasion”.
 The main thrust of this economic nationalism was on Indian poverty created by the application of
the classical economic theory of free trade their main argument was that British colonialism had
transformed itself in the 19th century by jettisoning the older and direct modes of extraction
through plunder, tribute and mercantilism in favour of more sophisticated and less visible
methods of exploitation through free trade and foreign capital investment. This turned India into a
supplier of agricultural raw materials and foodstuffs and a consumer of manufactured goods.India
was thus reduced to the status of a dependent agrarian economy and a field of British capital
investments.
 Dadabhai Naoroji in his famous book Poverty and Indian Poverty and UnBritish Rule in
India wrote his Drain Theory. He showed how India’s wealth was going away to England in the
form of salaries, savings, pensions, payments to British troops in India and, profits of the British
companies. In fact, the British Government was forced to appoint the Welby Commission, with
Dadabhai as the first Indian as its member, to enquire into the matter.
 In Naoroji’s calculation this drain of wealth from India to Britain amounted to about £ 12
million per year, while William Digby calculated it to be £ 30 million. To quote Dadabhai Naoroji
“materially British rule caused only impoverishment; it was like ‘the knife of sugar’. That
is to say there is no oppression; it is all too smooth and sweet, but it is the knife
notwithstanding.
 What the moderates wanted was a change in economic policies. Their recommendations
included reduction of expenditure and taxes, reallocation of military charges,
a protectionist policy to protect Indian industries, abolition of salt tax, reduction of land
revenue of land revenue assessment, extension of Permanent Settlement to Ryotwari
and Mahalwari areas,(this was pro Zamindar demand)mreduction in military
expenditure, encouragement of cottage industries and handicrafts, and encouragement to
modern industry through tariff protection and direct government aid. But none of these demands
were fulfilled.
 This economic theory of linking Indian poverty to colonialism rule, and also perhaps by
implication challenging the whole concept of paternalistic imperialism or British benevolence. In
this way, the moderate politicians generated anger against British rule, though because of their
own weaknesses, they themselves could not convert it into an effective agitation for its overthrow.

(e)Defence of Civil Right:

 The early Indian nationalists were attracted to modern civil rights, namely, the freedoms of
speech, the Press, thought and association. They put up a strong defence of these civil rights
whenever the Government tried to curtail them.
  The struggle for democratic freedoms became an integral part of the nationalist struggle for
freedom. The Government arrested B.G.Tilak and several other leaders in 1897 for spreading
disaffection against the Government. The Natu brothers were deported without trial. The entire
country protested against this attack on the liberties of the people.

Limitations of the Moderates:

(a)3P (Prayers, Petitions and Protest): 

 The moderate politicians could not or did not organize an agitation against British rule because of
them still shred an intrinsic faith in the English democratic liberal political tradition. Their method
was to send prayers and petitions, to make speeches and publish articles. By using these tools of
colonial modern public life, they tried to prepare a convincing logical case aimed at persuading the
liberal political opinion in England in favour of granting self-government to India.
 They did ot understand true nature of British rule in India.
 The failure of moderate politics was quite palpable by the end of the 19 th c. and their failure was
doomed as the less sympathetic Tories returned in power in Britain at the turn of the century.

(b)Narrow Social base, absence of mass participation and negative attitude of Government:

 There early moderate politicians were also mainly Hindus, barring the notable exception of
Bombay politician, Badruddin Tyabji. Between 1892 and 1909, nearly 90% of the delegates who
attended the Congress sessions are Hindus and only 6.5% were Muslims and among the Hindus
again, nearly 48% were Brahmans and the rest were upper-caste Hindus. This social composition
inevitable resulted in social orthodoxy as social questions were not to be raised in the congress
sessions till 1907.
 Muslim participation in Congress sessions began to decline rather dramatically after 1893. Yet,
there was major Congress politicians suffered from a sense of complacency as no rival Muslim
political organization worth its name developed until 1906.
 The basic weakness of the early national movement lay in its narrow social base. It did not
penetrate down to the masses. In fact, the leaders lacked faith in the masses. Describing the
difficulties in the way of organizing of active political struggle, Gopal Krishna Gokhale pointed to
the endless divisions and subdivisions in the country, the bulk of the population ignorant and
clinging with a tenacity to the old modes of thought and sentiment, which are averse to all changes
and do not understand change. Lacking support of the masses, the early nationalists could not
adopt a militant political position.
 They failed to visualize that the masses could prove to be the real driving force in the movement.
 There were contradictions in moderate politics, which made it more limited and alienated from the
greater mass of the Indian population. This was related to the social background of the mostly
belonged to the propertied classes.About 18.99% of the delegates who attended the congress
sessions between 1892 and 1909 were landlords; the rest were lawyers (39.32%), traders
(15.10%), journalists (3.18%), doctors (2.94%), teachers (3.16%) and other professionals
(17.31%).
 The congress could therefore not consequently take a logical stand on peasant questions. They
demanded extension of the Permanent Settlement only in the interest of the zamindars and
opposed cadastral survey in 1893-94, though it was meant to protect the peasants from the
manipulations of the zamindars.
 They were opposed to factory reforms like factory reforms like the Mining Bill which proposed
to improve the living condition of women and children and restrict their employment under certain
plea that they were prompted by Lancashire interests. However, they supported labour reforms for
Assam tea gardens as capitalist interest involved there was of foreign origin, happily forgetting
that the Indian mill owners in Bombay exploited their labourers in no less flagrant ways.

(c)Other Failure:
  British agreed to share only a small fraction of military expenditure and demand for appointing
Indian in commissioned ranks were rejected as no European officer would cherish the thought of
being ordered by Indian Commander.
 Many other demands were rejected.
 The moderate politics thus remained quite limited in nature in terms of its goals, programs,
achievements and participation. Lord Dufferin, therefore could easily get away with his remark in
November 1888 that Congress represented only a ‘microscopic minority’ of the Indian people.

An Evaluation of the Early Nationalists:

1. Despite limitations representation, the historical significance of the early Congress lay in the fact
that by providing an economic critique of colonialism and by linking Indian poverty to it, the
moderate politicians had constructed a discursive field within which the subsequent nationalists
attack on colonialism could be conceptualized.
2. On the request of Moderates in 1886, Lord Dufferin appointed Aitchison Committee on Indian
Civil Service. On its recommendation, the upper age was increased to 22 but examination was to
be held in London only.
3. The Moderates had succeeded in getting the expansion of the legislative councils by the Indian
Councils Act of 1892.
4. On request of Moderates, Calcutta University Act of 1904 and Calcutta Municipal Corporation
Act of 1904 were passed.
5. The Moderates were able to create a wide national awakening among the people and above all, the
feeling of belonging to one nation. They popularized the ideas of democracy, civil liberties and
representative institutions.
6. They represented the most progressive forces of the time.
7. They trained people in political work and popularised modern ideas.This helped in generating
anti-imperialist sentiments among the public.
8. They exposed the basically exploitative character of colonial rule, thus undermining its moral
foundations.
9. Their political work was based on hard realities, and not on shallow sentiments, religion, etc.
10. They were able to establish the basic political truth that India should be ruled in the interest of
Indians.
11. They created a solid base for a more vigorous, militant, mass-based national movement in the
following years.
12. But, at the same time, the nationalists failed to widen the democratic base of the movement by not
including the masses, especially women, and not demanding the right to vote for all.

Extremist period (1905 – 1920)

 The closing decade of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century witnessed
the emergence of a new and younger group within the Indian National Congress, which was
sharply critical of the ideology and the methods of the old leadership.
 These “angry young men” advocated the adoption of Swaraj as the goal of the Congress to be
achieved by more self-reliant and independent methods. The new group came to be called the
Extremist party in contrast to the older one, which began to be referred to as the Moderate party.
 By the starting of the 20th century, Indian politics had come under influence and dominance of
extremists. Though from the last few years of the 19th century, extremists came into existence, it
was only after the partition of Bengal that they gained popularity.
 From 1905 onwards, the moderate leaders rapidly lost their influence over the National Congress.
Gradually, over the years, the trend of militant nationalism (also known as Extremism) grew in the
country. Extremism on the Indian national scene did not spring up all of a sudden in the first
decade of the twentieth century. In fact, it had been growing slowly since the revolt of 1857, but
was invisible. The nationalist ideas behind the revolt of 1857, according to the extremists, were
Swadharma and Swaraj.
Causes of Extremism:

1. The refusal to meet the political and economic demands by the government and its repressive
measures against the growing national movement shook the faith of an increasing number of
Indians in the ideology and technique of liberal nationalism. Leadership of moderates had failed to
deliver any fruit to India and so young nationalist leaders started to acquire dominant position
gradually.
2. Act of 1892 dissatisfied the congress leaders and so they choose to resort to legal and nationalist
policies for their demands.
3. Now they recognised the true nature of the British rule which moderates failed to and had belief in
its being just.
4. Education gave them a new vision and they got inspiration from India history. Western thinkers
also influenced them.
5. Increasing westernisation of India by British led them to think that they will destroy Indian
traditions, customs and culture and so they grew against British.
6. Lord Curzon’s reactionary policy was also responsible for the growth of extremism. He spoke
derogatorily of Indian character in general which hurt pride of Indians.At Calcutta University
Convocation, he said,” Undoubtedly truth took a high place in th codes of the west before it had
been similarly honoured in the East.” The Calcutta Corporation Act, Official Secret Act, Indian
University Act of 1904 created great resentment in India. The Delhi Durbar held n 1903 when
India had not fully recovered from famine of 1899-1900 was interpreted as a “a pompous pageant
to a starving population”.
7. Much more was the dissatisfaction with achievements of moderates which pave a way to
extremists in Indian politics.
8. The rise of the extremism in the national movement was a reaction against the attempts of the
Western reformists to reconstruct India in the image of the West. They were greatly influenced by
the growth and development of spiritual nationalism in India.
9. Contemporary International influences: Abyssinia’s repulsion of Italian Army in 1896, and
Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 broke the spell of European invincibility. Nationalistic
movements in Egypt, Persia, Turkey and Russia also influenced extremism, Also humiliating
treatment of Indians in British colonies like South Africa helped extremism.
10. Partition of Bengal was one of the most important reason of emergence of extremism.
11. Most of the limitations of moderates were cause of birth of extremism.

Goal:

 The goal of the extremists was ‘swaraj’, which different leaders interpreted differently.

 For Tilak, it meant, Indian control over the administration, but not a total severance with Great
Britain.
 Bipain Chandra Pal believed that no-self government was possible under British rule. So, for
him,swaraj was complete autonomy, absolutely free from the British control.
 Aurobindo ghosh in Bengal also visualized swaraj still meant self-rule within the parameters of
British imperial structure.

Nature of Extremism and Its Leaders:

1. Extremists had wide social base of political agitations, they involved lower middle class and
middle class public apart from educated class of people.
2. They did not believe in British rule and believed crown’s claim unworthy.
3. They got their inspiration from Indian history, tradition, culture and heritage and had faith in
masses capacity to participate and sacrifice.
4. They also adopted extra constitutional methods of boycott, etc.
5. Their demand was Swaraj, as their birthright.
6. Strong reaction to British imperialist policies in India.
 7. The philosophy of political extremism, was greatly influenced by the writings of Bankim
Chandra and his spiritual nationalism.
8. Attachment to rationalism and western ideals almost alienated the moderates from the masses in
India. That is why despite their high idealism, they failed to create a solid mass base for their
movement.The militant nationalists drew inspiration from India’s past, invoked the great Episodes
in the history of the Indian people, and tried to instill national pride and self-respect among the
Indian people.
9. They opposed the idealizing of the Western culture by the liberals and considered it cultural
capitulation to the British rulers. The militant nationalist leaders emphasized that it would only
bring about an inferiority complex among the Indians and repress their national pride and self-
confidence so vital to the struggle for freedom.
10. The militant nationalists revived the memories of the Vedic past of the Hindus, the great phase of
the regimes of Asoka and Chandragupta, the heroic deeds of Rana Pratap and Shivaji, the epic
patriotism of Rani Laxmibai. They propounded that the Indian people were endowed with a
special spiritual consciousness.
11. The leading extremists such as Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin
Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosem Rajnarayan Bose, Ashwini Kumar Dutt were all products
of English education. Though all of them were highly educated and greatly influenced by English
literature and political ideas, and institutions, they drew heavily from the traditional culture and
civilization of India rather than from the West. All of them felt the necessity for changing the
outlook of Indians in the light of the advancement made by the West in the fields of science and
technology and also the need for reforming the society and the religion.
12. Extremist thought derived its support from teachings of Vivekananda and Dayananda
Sarswati. Extremist slogan of Swaraj was first introduced by Arya Samaj of dayannada
Sarswati.
13. (More clarity in Nature of Extremism will be discussed in the next chapter : Swadeshi
Movement in Bengal)

 Lal Bal Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal) were a triumvirate of
assertive nationalists in British-ruled India in the early 20th century, from 1905 to 1918. They
advocated the Swadeshi movement involving the boycott of all imported items and the use of
Indian-made goods in 1907 during the anti-Partition agitation in Bengal which began in 1905.The
militant nationalist movement gradually faded with the arrest of its main leader Bal Gangadhar
Tilak and retirement of Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh from active politics.

Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab Keshari) 

 Lala Lajpat Rai(28 January 1865 – 17 November 1928) was an Indian Punjabi author and
politician. He sustained serious injuries by the police when leading a non-violent protest against
the Simon Commission and died less than three weeks later. His death anniversary (17 November)
is one of several days celebrated as Martyrs’ Day in India. Despite being injured, Rai
subsequently addressed the crowd and said that “I declare that the blows struck at me today
will be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India”.Bhagat Singh vowed to take
revenge, and joined other revolutionaries, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar and
Chandrashekhar Azad, in a plot to kill Scott.However, in a case of mistaken identity, Bhagat
Singh was signalled to shoot on the appearance of John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent
of Police. He was shot by Rajguru and Bhagat Singh while leaving the District Police
Headquarters in Lahore on 17 December 1928.
 His involvement with Hindu Mahasabha leaders gathered criticism as the Mahasabhas were non-
secular, which did not conform with the system laid out by the Indian National Congress.. He was
a devotee of Arya Samaj and was editor of Arya Gazette
 After joining the Indian National Congress, and taking part in political agitation in the Punjab,
Lajpat Rai was deported to Mandalay, Burma , without trial, in May 1907. In November, however,
he was allowed to return when the viceroy, Lord Minto, decided that there was insufficient
evidence. Lajpat Rai’s supporters attempted to secure his election to the presidency of the party
 session at Surat in December 1907, but elements favouring co-operation with the British refused
to accept him, and the party split over the issues.
 Lala Lajpat Rai wrote Unhappy India. He said, ” A man without a soul is a mere animal. A
nation without a soul is only a dumb driven cattle.“

Bipin Chandra Pal

 BC Pal founded journal ‘New India‘.Sri Aurobindo referred to him as one of mightiest prophets
of nationalism.

Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak

 Within Congress, TIlak was foremost extremist. He was called father of Indian unrest by

Valentine Chixole. He founded Ganesh Festival Committee in 1893, organised no tax
campaigns in famine affected Bombay Presidency in 1894, and founded Shivaji Festival
Committee in 1895.
 Deccan Education Society came into existence after Shri Vishnushastri Chiplunkar founded
New English School along with Tilak, in 1880.
 Tilak started two weeklies, Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English in 1880–81 with Gopal
Ganesh Agarkar as the first editor. By this he was recognized as ‘awakener of India’.
 During late 1896, a Bubonic plague spread from Bombay to Pune, and by January 1897, it reached
epidemic proportions. British troops were brought in to deal with the emergency and harsh
measures were employed including forced entry into private houses, examination of occupants,
evacuation to hospitals and segregation camps, removing and destroying personal possessions, and
preventing patients from entering or leaving the city. Tilak took up this issue by publishing
inflammatory articles in his paper Kesari (Kesari was written in Marathi, and Maratha was
written in English), quoting the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, to say that no blame could be
attached to anyone who killed an oppressor without any thought of reward. Following this, on 22
June 1897, Commissioner Rand and another British officer, Lt. Ayerst were shot and killed by
the Chapekar brothers. He was sentenced for 18 months imprisonment for supporting Chaplekar
Brothers.
 Following the Partition of Bengal, which was a strategy set out by Lord Curzon to weaken the
nationalist movement, Tilak encouraged the Swadeshi movement and the Boycott movement.
 Tilak opposed the moderate views of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and was supported by fellow Indian
nationalists Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab. They were referred to as
the “Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate”. In 1907, the annual session of the Congress Party was held at Surat,
Gujarat. Trouble broke out over the selection of the new president of the Congress between the
moderate and the radical sections of the party . The party split into the radicals faction, led by
Tilak, Pal and Lajpat Rai, and the moderate faction.
 Nationalists like Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai were Tilak supporters.
 On 30 April 1908, two Bengali youths, Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, threw a bomb on a
carriage at Muzzafarpur, to kill the Chief Presidency Magistrate Douglas Kingsford of Calcutta
fame, but erroneously killed two women travelling in it. While Chaki committed suicide when
caught, Bose was hanged. Tilak, in his paper Kesari, defended the revolutionaries and called for
immediate Swaraj or self-rule. The Government swiftly arrested him for sedition. A special jury
convicted him, and the judge Dinshaw D. Davar  gave him the sentence of six years’
transportation.Tilak was sent to Mandalay, Burma from 1908 to 1914. While in the prison
he wrote the Gita Rahasya.
 After coming out of Jail, he was eager for reconciliation with Congress and had abandoned his
demand for direct action and settled for agitations “strictly by constitutional means”.
 Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of “Swaraj” (self-rule) and a strong radical in
Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote,”Swarajya is my birthright, and I shall have
it“. He formed a close alliance with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, during the Indian Home Rule
Movement.
V O Chidambaram Pillai

 Chidambaram Pillai (1872–1936), or, V.O.C. also known as Kappalottiya Tamilan “The Tamil
Helmsman”, was a Tamil political leader. He was a disciple of Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
 He launched the first indigenous Indian shipping service between Tuticorin and Colombo with
the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, competing against British ships.
 At one time a member of the Indian National Congress, he was later charged with sedition by the
British government and sentenced to life imprisonment; his barrister license was stripped.

Aurbindo Ghosh

 Aurobindo Ghose, was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet.Aurobindo studied
for the Indian Civil Service at King’s College, Cambridge, England. After returning to India he
took up various civil service works under the maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and began
to involve himself in politics. He was imprisoned by the British for writing articles against British
rule in India. He was released when no evidence was provided. During his stay in the jail he had
mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for
spiritual work.He founded there Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926.From 1926 he started to sign
himself as Sri Aurobindo,
 For Sri Aurobindo, nationalism was not a mere political or economic cry; it was rather the
innermost hunger of his whole soul for the rebirth in him and through men like him, the whole
India, the ancient culture of the Hindustan and its pristine purity and nobility. Indian nationalism
was given a spiritual orientation by the nationalists.
 Aurbindo Ghosh wrote pamphlet, New Lamps For The Old which is considered as Bible of
Extremism in which he described Congress being out of touch with proletariats. He wrote a series
of articles in Bangadarshan, the journal of Bankim Chandra Chatarjee. He potrayed India
as “Mother” and appealed to the emotional aspect of Indian Nationalism.
 Vishnu Shahtri Chiplunkar wrote Nibandhmala, a collection of poems with extremist thoughts.
 Till Mahatma Gandhi arrived on the political scene of India, the extremists dominated the Indian
National Congress.

Assessment of Extremism:

 Advocates of extremism ranged from active revolutionaries at one end to secret sympathizers of
revolutionaries to those who were opposed to all violent methods at the other end.
 Their goal of swaraj also had different meaning as we have seen earlier.
 The extremists transform patriotism from ‘an academic pastime’ to ‘service and suffering for
nation’.
 Socially they became revivalists. Rai and Pal, though advocates of social reform spoke of Hindu
nation. TIlak opposed age of consent bill though reason was ligitimacy of British to enact this Act.
TIlak’s Cow protection policy, organisation of Ganesh festival in 1893 projected him as a leader
of Hindu orthodoxy. These factors divided Hindu and Muslim.
 They got some success: (a)Partition of Bengal was annulled in 1911 (b) Aim of Swaraj, though
denied by Lord Morley, was no longer looked upon as a revolutionary demand.

Differences between Moderates and Extremists in Indian Politics:

Moderates:

1. Social base was zamindars and upper middle classes in towns.

2. Ideological inspiration was western liberal thought and European history.
3. Believed in England’s providential mission in India.
 4. Believed political connections with Britain to be in India’s social, political and cultural
interests.They believed in cooperation.
5. Professed loyalty to the British Crown.
6. Believed that the movement should be limited to middle class intelligentsia; masses not yet ready
for participation in political work.
7. Demanded constitutional reforms and share for Indians in services.
8. Insisted on the use of constitutional methods only.
9. They were patriots and did not play the role of a comparator class.

Extremists:

1. Social base was educated middle and lower middle classes in towns.
2. Ideological inspiration was Indian history, cultural heritage, national education and Hindu
traditional symbols.
3. Rejected ‘providential mission theory’ as an illusion.
4. Believed that political connections with Britain would perpetuate British exploitation of
India.They believed in confrontation.
5. Believed that the British Crown was unworthy of claiming Indian loyalty.
6. Had immense faith in the capacity of masses to participate and to make sacrifices.
7. Demanded swaraj as the panacea for Indian ills.
8. Did not hesitate to use extra- constitutional methods like boycott and passive resistance to achieve
their objectives.
9. They were patriots who made sacrifices for the sake of the country.
 Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi Movement
Partition of Bengal:

 The provincial state of Bengal had an area of 189,000 sq. miles and a population of nearly 8
crores. It included the Hindi-speaking regions of Bihar, the Oriya-speaking regions of Orissa as
well as the Assamese-speaking region of Assam, making it a huge administrative
entity.Moreover, the capital Calcutta was the capital of the entire British India.
 With the growing efforts of the Indian National Congress to secure the independence of India,
The partition was expected to weaken what was perceived as the nerve center of Indian
nationalism.
 With real objective as second one but declared objective as first one, Lord Curzon decided to
partition Bengal into two entities, which would result in a Muslim-majority in the eastern
half, and a Hindu-majority in the western half. This he hoped would reduce the administrative
pressures as well divide the population on religious grounds, quelling the Indian
Independence Movement.
 The main reason for the Partition was purely political. The Hindus were in a better position in
terms of economic status, professional qualities etc., than the Muslims. During the pre-Sepoy
Mutiny period, section of Hindu traders greatly helped the British while their Muslim
counterparts did not. The British were angry. With the spread of Western education Hindus
made a big way, but the Muslims could not. A sense of deprivation crept in. Perhaps, the sense of
deprivation was engineered. When the discontentment grew in the beginning of this century, the
British capitalised on this sense of deprivation.
 Even Lord Minto, Curzon’s successor was critical of the way in which partition was imposed
disregarding public opinion saw that it was good political strategy; Minto argued that ‘from a
political point of View alone, putting aside the administrative difficulties of the old province, I
believe partition to have been very necessary.‘
 The Partition of Bengal in 1905 was made on October 16 by Viceroy Curzon. The former
province of Bengal was divided into two new provinces (1) “Bengal” (comprising western
Bengal as well as the province of Bihar and Orissa) and capital at Calcutta. It was to have 17
million Bengali and 37 million Oriya and Hindi speaking people thus reducing Bengali to a
minority in Bengal itself. (2) “East Bengal and Assam” with a population of 31 million people
and with its capital at Dhaka.

 In the official note, Risley, the Home Secretary to the Government of India said, “Bengal united
is power; Bengal divided will pull several different ways”.
 The partition of the state intended to curb Bengali influence by not only placing Bengalis under
two administrations, but by reducing them to a minority in Bengal itself.
  Also, the partition was meant to foster another kind of division-this time on the basis of religion,
i.e.  between the Muslims and the Hindus. The Indian Nationalist clearly saw the design behind
the partition and condemned it unanimously. The anti-partition and Swadeshi movement had
begun.
 Due to these political protests, the two parts of Bengal were reunited in 1911. A new partition
which divided the province on linguistic, rather than religious grounds followed, with the Hindi,
Oriya and Assamese areas separated to form separate administrative units: Bihar and Orissa
Province was created to the west, and Assam Province to the east. The administrative capital of
British India was moved from Calcutta to New Delhi as well.

Swadeshi Movement:

 The Swadeshi movement had its genesis in the anti-partition movement which started with the
partition of Bengal by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, 1905 and continued up to 1911.
  It was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements. Its chief architects were Aurobindo
Ghosh, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, V. O. Chidambaram
Pillai.
 Though affected in 1905, the partition proposals had come onto the public domain as early as
1903. Therefore, since 1903, there was prepared the ground for the launch of the Swadeshi
movement.In first phase (1903-1905), moderate way of 3Ps was in full sway but it could not stop
partition.
 Strong sense of unity among Bengalis fostered by their regional independence,cultural
development of 19th century, spread of western education and Hindu revivalist mood gave birth
to a vehement resistance.

The Nature of the Swadeshi Movement:

 The Bengalis adopted the boycott movement as the last resort after they had exhausted the
armoury of constitutional agitation (between 1903 and 1905) known to them, namely vocal
protests, appeals, petitions and Conferences to coerce the British to concede the unanimous
national demand.
 This was boycott-cum-swadeshi movement.
 The original conception of Boycott was mainly an economic one. It had two distinct, but allied
purposes in view. The first was to bring pressure upon the British public by the pecuniary loss
they would suffer by the boycott of British goods, particularly the Manchester cotton goods for
which Bengal provided the richest market in India. Secondly, it was regarded as essential for the
revival of indigenous industry which being at its infant stage could never grow in the face of free
competition with foreign countries which had highly developed industry.
 Like the Boycott, the Swadeshi as a purely economic measure for the growth of Indian Industry
was not an altogether novel idea in India. It was preached by several eminent personalities in the
19th century, Gopal Hari Deshmukh, better known as Lokahitawadi of Bombay, Swami Dayananda
and Bholanath Chandra of Calcutta. But the seeds sown by them did not germinate till the soil
was rendered fertile by the grim resolve of a united people, exasperated beyond measure; to
forge the twin weapons of Boycott and Swadeshi in order to undo the great wrong which was
inflicted upon them by an arrogant Government.
 Later on, the economic boycott receded into background with the passage of time and it
developed into an idea of non-cooperation with the British in every field and the object aimed
at was a political regeneration of the country with the distant goal of absolute freedom looming
large before the eyes of the more advanced section.
 Similarly, Swadeshi completely outgrew the original conception of promoting Indian industry. It
assumed a new form based upon the literal connotation of the word swadeshi, namely
attachment to everything Indian.
  The movement marked the beginning of new politics, it marked the beginning of a new
nationalist era- the former was politics of militancy and the later the politics of the militant
nationalism. It was characterised by a shift from political moderation to political extremism, from
constitutional agitation to radical struggle and from politics of petition to direct action.
 The movement marked the beginning of new form of mobilization. New political weapons for
giving a new orientation to the politics of pressure came to be used- Swadeshi, Constructive
Swadeshi, Boycott, Extended Boycott, passive resistance, mass agitation etc.
 The movement was the first popular upsurge and humble beginning of multi-class movement
ensuring participation of new section of people like students, women, lower middle class people,
zamindars, peasant etc. The mobilisation is remarkable by mobilisation of pantry in some areas
and politicization of the economic grievances of the labours. Even though mobilization was in
limited areas, the very beginning of modern mass politics in India is markable. Peasants in most
parts didn’t actively join boycott or passive resistance but many though meetings, constructive
works, etc. were exposed for the first time to modern nationalist ideas and politics.

Samitis and Swadeshi:

 Corps of volunteers (or samitis as they were called) were another major form of mass
mobilization widely used by the Swadeshi Movement.
 The Swadesh Bandhab Samiti set up by Ashwini Kumar Dutt, a school teacher, in Barisal was
the most well known volunteer organization of them all. Through the activities of this Samiti,
whose 159 branches reached out to the remotest corners of the district, Dutt was able to
generate an unparalleled mass following among the predominantly Muslim Peasantry of the
region.
 The samitis took the Swadeshi message to the villages through magic lantern lectures and
Swadeshi songs, gave physical and moral training to the members, did social work during famines
and epidemics, organized schools, training in Swadeshi craft and arbitration courts.
 Though the samitis stuck their deepest roots in Barisal, they had expanded to other parts of
Bengal as well. British officialdom was genuinely alarmed by their activities, their growing
popularity with the rural masses.

The Economic Boycott and Swadeshi:

 In the economic sense, Swadeshi would represent both a positive and a negative element. These
have been discussed as under:-
 The positive element of economic swadeshi was the regeneration of indigenous goods.The
boycott of foreign goods led to the increase in demand of indigenous goods especially clothes
which felt short of supply. The mill-owners of Bombay and Ahmadabad came to its rescue. The
Boycott movement in Bengal supplied a momentum and driving force to the cotton mills in India
and the opportunity thus presented was exploited by the mill-owners. It was complained at that
time that the Bombay mill-owners made a huge profit at the expense of what they regarded as
‘Bengali Sentimentalism’, for buying indigenous cloth at any sacrifice and there maybe some
truth in it but this is not sure.
 Bengal had to supplement the supply from Bombay mills by the coarse production of handlooms.
The weaving industry in Bengal was a very flourishing one till the British ruined it after they had
established their rule over the province in the 18th century. The economic boycott movement
seemed to be a suitable opportunity for reviving that industry. The clothes produce were very
coarse but were accepted by the Bengalis in the true spirit of the Swadeshi Movement. A song
which became very popular all over the country urged upon the people to give the place of
honour to the coarse cloth which is the gift of the Mother, too poor to offer a better one.
 J N Tata founded Tata Iron ad Steel. Prafulla Chandra Ray set up Bengal Chemicals Factory.
 Tilak described Swadeshi as Yoga of Bahiskar, a rligious ritual of self punishment.
  The negative element of the economic swadeshi was the boycott and burning of foreign
goods. Though Manchester cloth was the chief target of attack, the movement was extended to
other British manufacturers also, such as salt and sugar as well as luxury goods in general. The
ideas of Swadeshi and economic boycott was kept alive and brought home to every door by
articles in newspapers, processions, popular songs, enrolment of volunteers to keep vigilant
watch and by occasion bonfires of foreign cloth, salt and sugar. The old apparels of foreign made
belonging to sundry people were placed in a heap and then it was set on fire.
 Fines were inflicted on anyone found using foreign sugar. Foreign cigarettes were bought and
burnt in the streets, Brahmins refused to assist any religious ceremonies in houses where
European salt and sugar in houses where European salt and sugar were used and Marwaris were
warned of importing foreign articles.
 All these bonfires however affected the economy of the people. To burn ‘Manchester made
goods’ bought at a high price literally affects the people but swept by national enthusiasm.

Swadeshi and Social Boycott:

 The social boycott was an outcome of economic swadeshi movement. It was preached to go
against the repressive measures of the Government. The social boycott was a very powerful
weapon. A man selling or buying foreign goods or in any way opposing swadeshi Movement and
helping Government in putting it down would be subjected to various degrees of humiliation.
Such social ostracism would make a man quite unhappy, sometimes even very miserable and the
Government could do very little to help him in his distress. But such non-violent ostracism was
not the only form of persecution. Sometimes, the ‘renegade’ would suffer material loss and
bodily or mental pain.

Swadeshi and National Education:

 One of the major planks of the programme of selfreliance was Swadeshi or national education.
Taking a cue from Tagore’s Shantiniketan, the Bengal National College was
founded, with Aurobindo as the principal.
 Students in promoting the boycott and swadeshi movement drew upon them the wrath and
violence of the British Raj. Circulars were issued forbidding the students under threat of severe
penalty to associate themselves in any way with the Boycott movement even the cry of Bande
Mataram in streets and other public places was declared to be a punishable offence.
 Scholars or colleges whose students disobeyed the order were not only threatened with the
withdrawal of Government grants and even with disaffiliation, but their students were to be
declared ineligible for Government Service.The authorities of the educational institutions
were asked to keep strict watch over their pupils, and if unable to control them, were to
report the names to the Education Department for taking necessary disciplinary
action.The magistrates were asked to inform the teachers and those connected with the
management of educational institutions, that of necessary they might be enrolled as Special
Constables. The Direction of Public Instruction asked the principals of colleges to show causes
why their students who took part in the picketing should not be expelled.
 All this produced a storm of indignation in the country and the Indian-owned Press denounced
the circulars in the strongest language. Anti-circular society was set up with the objective of
rallying students through processions, picketing, collection of funds and creating awareness.
 The students of some colleges in Rangpur defied the Government orders and when they were
fined, the guardians refused to pay the fine and stabled a national school for the boys who were
expelled. Teachers were also asked to resign for not whipping the boys.
 The action of the authorities led to a movement among the students to boycott the Calcutta
University which they described as Golamkhana (House of manufacturing slaves).
 At a conference attended by a large number of very eminent men of Bengal in different walks of
life held on 10th November, 1905, it was decided to establish at once a National Council of
 Education(Jatiya Shiksha Parisad) in order to organize a system of education-literary,
scientific and technical- on national lines and under national control. The number of national
schools also grew apace with time.
 The enthusiasm with which the two Bengals responded to the idea of national education shows
the way in which the swadeshi movement, like a mighty river was overflowing its bed and
inundating vast stretches of country. It was no longer confined to its primary object of industrial
regeneration and boycotting British goods. More important still, the movement with its extended
connotation was no longer confined to Bengal but spread to the whole of India.
 The earliest use of the term national education was made by Prasanna Kumar Tagore in
connection with Hindu College Pathshala in 1839. The effort to organise Tattvabodhini
Pathshala in 1840 and Hindu Hitarthi Vidyalaya in 1846 also indicated desire for
establishing national education, But real credit for popularising and organising national
education goes to Satish Chandra Mukherjee and his Dawn Society.
 Founder-editor of the Dawn magazine (1897–1913), an organ of Indian Nationalism, in
1902 Satish Chandra Mukherjee organised the “Dawn Society” of culture, to protest against
the Report of the Indian Universities Commission, representing the inadequate university
education imposed by the Government to fabricate clerks for the merchant offices.
 In a protest meeting on 5 Nov, 1905 and addressed by R N Tagore, Hirendranath Dutta,
Satishchandra Mukherjee etc , the idea of national education took a more concrete shape. By the
donation of Subodh Chandra Mullick(for which he was give title of Raja)and zamindar
Mymensingh, in 1906, Satish took a leading part in forming the National Council of
Education and became a lecturer in the Bengal National College. In 1907, after Sri Aurobindo’s
resignation on 2 August 1907 (fearing “that he might be spirited away to prison at any moment,
and his association with the National College might cause great damage to the institution”).
Under the aegis of the National Council of Education, a number of National Schools were
founded at various places like Jadavpur Engineering College. . Taraknath Patil had set up the
society for the Promotion of Technical ducation which founded Bengal Technical Institute. But
most of these schools and institutions failed to flourish due to hostile government. But Jadavpur
Engineering College continued and transformed into University in 1956.
 The scheme for National Council of Education was indebted to a letter from Sir George
Birdwood, known for his valuable census of Indian crafts and industries, to Satish in
1898. Birdwood wrote that while India must look to the west for scientific culture, she must
never surrender her spiritual culture.

Swadeshi, Art, Culture , Science and Press:

 It was perhaps in the cultural sphere that the impact of the swadeshi movement was most
marked. The songs composed at the time of Rabindranath Tagore, Rajani Kanta Sen,
Dwijendralal Ray, Makunda Das, Syed Abu Mohammad and other later became the moving
spirit for nationalist of all hues, ‘terrorists’, ‘Gandhian or Communists’ are still popular.
 Rabindranath Tagore, Rajnikant Sen, Dwijendralal Roy and Nabakrishna Chakraborty composed
patriotic songs. Rabindranath’s Amar Sonar Bangla, written at that time, was to later inspire
the liberation struggle of Bangaldesh and was adopted as the National Anthem of the country in
1971. The Swadeshi influence could be seen in Bengali folk music popular among Hindu and
Muslim villagers and it evoked collections of India fairy tales such as, Thakurmar
Jhuli(Grandmother’s tales) written by Daksinaranjan Mitra Majumdar which delights Bengali
children to this day.
 Similarly, there were great improvements in Indian art. Painting became a national
art. Abanindranath Tagore broke the domination of Victorian naturalism over Indian art and
sought inspiration from indigenous tradition of Mughal, Rajput and Ajanta. Nandlal Bose was
first recipient of a scholarship offered by Indian Society of Oriental Art founded in 1907.
 Tagore gave a call for Rakhi Bandhan as a token for Hindu-Muslim unity and wrote articles
under title Atma Shakti.
  The Swadeshi period saw the creative use of traditional popular festivals and melas as a means of
reaching out to the masses. The Ganapati arid Shivaji festivals, popularized by Tilak, became a
medium for Swadeshi propaganda not only in Western India but also in Bengal. Traditional folk
theatre forms such as jatras i.e. extensively used in disseminating the Swadeshi message in an
intelligible form to vast sections of the people, many of whom were being introduced to modern
political ideas for the first time.
 Ramsay Macdonald visiting Bengal during this period wrote that Bengal was creating India
by song and worship.
 In science, J C Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray and others pioneered original research that was
prased by the world over.
 The writings of Bande Mataram, practically revolutionized the political attitude of
Bengal. Surendranath Banerjea, Krishna Kumar Mitra, Prithwishchandra Ray and other
leaders launched a powerful press campaign against the partition proposals through journals and
newspapers like the Bengalee, Hitabadi and Sanjibani.
 The four leading newspapers of Calcutta- the Bengalee, the Amrita Bazaar
Patrika, the Indian Mirror and the Hindu Patriot protested against this division of Bengal.The
Amrita Bazaar Patrika in its issue of 14th December, 1903 called on the people of East Bengal to
hold public meetings in every town and village to prepare petition for submission to the
government, which was signed by lakhs of people.
 Vernacular newspapers such as the Sanjivani and the Bangabashi expressed open hostility
against this proposal.

Swadeshi Movement outside Bengal:

 The message of Swadeshi and the boycott of foreign goods soon spread to the rest of the
country: Lokamanya Tilak took the movement to different parts of India, especially Poona and
Bombay; Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai spread the Swadeshi message in Punjab and other
parts of northern India. Syed Haidar Raza led the movement in Delhi; Rawalpindi, Kangra,
Jammu, Multan and Haridwar witnessed active participation in the Swadeshi
Movement; Chidambaram Pillai took the movement to the Madras presidency, which was also
galvanized by Bipin Chandra Pal’s extensive lecture tour.

Repressive measures taken by the Government:

 Other than boycott and burning of foreign goods, people also resorted to ‘peaceful
picketing’ which destined to become a normal feature in almost every type of political agitation
in future. All these gave the police a good opportunity to interfere.
 The volunteers were roughly handled and if they resisted the police a good opportunity to
interfere. The volunteers were roughly handled and if they resisted, the police beat them with
lathis. These ‘Regulation Lathis’, were freely used by the police in the first instance to drive
away the picketers and to disperse crowds, whether rioters or peaceful.
 The uttering of Bande Mataram was an indisputable evidence of sympathy to movement and
later it was made illegal to shout Bande Mataram in a public place.
 The official phrase, “mild lathi charge” to describe the assault of the police, was a misnomer. It
was certainly not mild as the gaping wounds on the bodies loudly proclaimed.
 The  Government also issued instructions to the educational institutions to control their boys and
prevent them from participating in the swadeshi movement. Rural markets were controlled bans
were put on processions and meetings, leaders were put into confinement without any trial and
loyal Muslims were made to go against the recalcitrant Hindus.

Drawbacksm Effects and Estimate of Swadeshi Movement:

 It didn’t garner the support of mass Muslims and they were turned against the movement by
British. The use of traditional popular customs and festivals to mobilise masses was
misinterpreted by Communal forces backed by the State. Communal riots broke in Bengal.
 Curzon said: Dacca would become capital of new Muslim majority province and they will
get better deal free from Calcutta. To mollify the people of East Bengal, Lord Curzon declared
that a university as a center of excellence would be established in Dacca (which would later be
named as University of Dhaka) and formed a committee in this regard consisting Khwaja
Salimullah, A. K. Fazlul Huq and others. The decision was severely criticized by some Hindu
leaders in West Bengal.
 The swadeshi partition and the Government measures finally led to the split of Hindus and
Muslims and virtually the formation of Muslim League in 1906.
 Movement lacked effective organisation and politcal structure and they lacked struggle-
pause-struggle technique of Mahatma Gandhi.
 Split of Congress in 1907 weakened the movement and repression of British caused intensity
dreamed.
 Though swadeshi movement had spread outside Bengal but rest of the country was not yet
prepared to adopt new style and stage of politics.
 For the first two or three years, there was a serious decline in the import of British
goods, particularly cloth.
 Passive resistance could not go for long and its ultimate result could never be in doubt. This was
the genesis of the sudden emergence of a network of secret revolutionary
organizations which were determined to meet the Government on equal terms, by collectively
arms and opposing terrorism by terrorism. The youth of the county, who had been part of the
mass movement, now found themselves unable to disappear tamely into the background once
the movement itself grew moribund and Government repression was stepped up. Frustrated,
some among them opted for ‘individual heroism’ as distinct from the earlier attempts at mass
action.
 Although swadeshi was originally conceived as merely a handmade of boycott of foreign goods
and meant only to be an urge to use indigenous in preference to foreign goods, it soon attained a
much more comprehensive character and became a concrete symbol of nationalism.
 Swadeshi in Bengal brought into the vortex of politics a class of people-the landed
aristocracy– who had hitherto held studiously aloof from the congress or any other political
organization.
 Outside Bengal, it gave a rude shock of disillusionment to the whole of India and stimulated the
political thoughts of the people. Swadeshi emphasized on ‘atmasakti’ or soul force.Movement
gave a thrust to self-reliance, a new confidence and reassertion of national pride.
 Self-help and constructive work at the village level was envisaged as a means of bringing about
the social and economic regeneration of the villages and of reaching the rural masses. This
meant social reform and campaigns against evils such as caste oppression, early marriage, the
dowry system, consumption of alcohol, etc.
 It had permanent impact on the development of several industries like textile mills, soap and
match factories etc. Banks and insurance companies were started. The greatest beneficiaries
were Bombay and Ahmedabad where enterprising industrialists came forward to fill the vacuum
created by decrease of British import.
 It had direct impact on cultural development and education in Bengal.
 The movement evolved several new methods and techniques of mass mobilization and mass
action though it was not able to put them all into practice successfully. It also widened social
base of movement.
 One particular aspect of the swadeshi movement which M.K. Gandhi prized was that it taught
the people to challenge and defy the authority of the Government openly in public and took
away from the minds of even ordinary men the dread of police assault and prison as well as the
sense of ignominy which hitherto attached to them. To go to prison or get badge of honour and
not as hitherto a brand of infancy.
  Swadeshi Movement was only the first round in the national popular struggle against
colonialism. It was an important battle’ in the long drawn out and complex ‘war of position’ for
Indian independence.

Attitude of the Congress to Swadeshi Movement:

 In 1905, Congress with Gokhale as President recorded emphatic protest agaist partition of Bengal
which was already done.
 Moderates were not ready to extend open support to boycott. Under pressure fro Bengal
delegates a colourless compromise resolution was passed, leaving it unclear whether the boycott
of British goods was approved or not.
 In 1906, the Extremists were able to secure better terms from the Moderates. The Congress with
Dadabhai Naoroji as President, recognized Boycott as legitimate and accorded its most cordial
support to Swadeshi Movement. Another resolution asked th people to take up the question of
national education for booth boys and girls.
 Extremists wanted to etend the movement to rest of India and beyond the programme of just
Swadeshi and Boycott to full fledged mass struggle with aim of Swaraj but Moderates were not
ready for it.
 After the open split in Surat in 1907, Congress with under grip of the Moderates never reiterated
of discussed the resolution passed in 1906. They looked up Bengal as local issue and ignored
because it meant a direct confrontation with the government.