The Nationalist Movement (1858-1905)- 2

Rediscovery of India's Past

In the second half of the nineteenth century a revival of interest in India's own cultural and political past became an important factor in the growth of national feeling. Many Indians had been made to feel inferior by persistent statements from some British officials and writers that India had never been capable of self-government, that Hindus and Muslims had always been bitterly divided, and that Indian religion and social life were uncivilised. Nationalist leaders responded by recovering and popularising India's cultural heritage in art, architecture, literature, philosophy, science and statecraft.

• Nationalists pointed with pride to the political and cultural achievements of rulers such as Ashoka, Chandragupta Vikramaditya and Akbar to counter colonial claims of Indian incapacity for self-rule.
• European and Indian scholars - in archaeology, philology, art history and the study of ancient texts - aided this rediscovery by publishing research and by promoting museums, archaeological surveys and editions of classical works.
• Some nationalists, however, reacted excessively by glorifying only the ancient past and overlooking India's medieval contributions and social problems. This uncritical revival sometimes produced a complacent or defensive cultural nationalism that ignored internal weaknesses.
• Such selective celebration tended to encourage communal responses: some Hindus emphasised only ancient Hindu achievements while some Muslims looked back mainly to Arab or Turkic Islamic traditions, weakening the unity of a broad national movement.
• At the same time, the impulse to revive national pride sometimes led Indians to reject useful ideas from the contemporary world; a balanced response would combine respect for heritage with critical self-improvement and reform.

Role of Scholarship and Cultural Institutions

Archaeological surveys, museums, historical research, translations and periodicals played a constructive role by making knowledge of India's past available to a wider public. These institutions helped build historical consciousness and provided symbols and narratives that nationalists used to mobilise opinion.

Racial Arrogance of the Rulers

Another factor that strengthened national sentiment was the racial arrogance expressed by many Europeans in India. This arrogance took practical forms in social exclusion, discriminatory treatment and, at times, biased administration of justice.

• As G. O. Trevelyan observed in 1864: "The testimony of a single one of our countrymen has more weight with the court than that of any number of Hindus, a circumstance which puts a terrible instrument of power into the hands of an unscrupulous and grasping Englishman."
• Racial prejudice labelled Indians as inferior irrespective of caste, religion, province or class, and excluded them from many European social clubs and privileges.
• Everyday humiliations - such as separate seating in some public spaces and discriminatory treatment in official life - created a widespread sense of national humiliation and helped fashion an emerging sense of common Indian identity when Indians faced Europeans as a group.

Predecessors of the Indian National Congress 

Before the formation of an all-India political body, a number of reformist and political associations, leaders and public institutions prepared the ground for organised national politics. These predecessor organisations helped shape public opinion, trained leaders and articulated reforms.

• Raja Rammohun Roy initiated early agitation for political and social reform; from the 1830s onward a number of local and provincial associations appeared to press for administrative reform and education.
• Most early associations were dominated by wealthy or prominent individuals and were provincial in character. Their goals commonly included administrative reform, participation of Indians in government, and expansion of modern education.
• After the transfer of power to the Crown in 1858, the gulf between the educated Indian middle classes and the British administration widened as Indians became more critical of colonial policy and began to express political discontent more openly.
• In 1866 Dadabhai Naoroji established the East India Association in London to discuss the Indian question in Britain and to influence British public opinion. He later organised branches in India. Born in 1825 and later called the 'Grand Old Man of India', Dadabhai also became India's earliest prominent economic critic of colonial rule.
• In his economic writings Dadabhai Naoroji argued that British policies produced a drain of wealth from India to Britain and that colonial rule contributed to widespread poverty in India. He was thrice elected president of the Indian National Congress in later years.
• The Indian Association of Calcutta (founded July 1876) was led by younger nationalists such as Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose. It sought to create a strong public opinion on political questions and to unify Indian opinion on a wider political programme. Surendranath, who had been dismissed from the Indian Civil Service because he was seen as politically independent, became an energetic public speaker and organiser.
• Other regional bodies included the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (organised by Justice R. G. B. Ranade and others in 1870), the Madras Mahajan Sabha (formed 1884 by M. Viraraghavachari, G. Subramaniya Iyer, Ananda Charlu and others) and the Bombay Presidency Association (formed 1885 by Pherozeshah Mehta, K. T. Telang, Badruddin Tyabji and others).
• These organisations widened political awareness, organised petitions and protests, and mobilised local opinion. Yet none had fully succeeded in becoming a truly all-India body, and so the need for an all-India political organisation became clearer by the 1880s.

The Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress (INC), founded in December 1885, represented the first sustained attempt to form an all-India political organisation of nationalist political workers. Its formation brought together leaders from various regions to discuss common political demands and to train public opinion on a national scale.

• The initiative for the Congress was largely taken by A. O. Hume, a retired British civil servant, who consulted prominent Indian leaders and helped organise the first session at Bombay in December 1885. The session was presided over by W. C. Bonnerjee and attended by 72 delegates.
• The declared aims of the Congress were: promotion of friendly relations among nationalist workers from different parts of India; development and consolidation of the feeling of national unity irrespective of caste, religion or province; formulation of public demands and presentation of these demands to the government; and the training and organisation of public opinion in the country.
• Some contemporaries suggested the Congress was intended by Hume as a 'safety valve' to release the pressure of political discontent and to prevent alliance between educated nationalists and rural unrest. While the 'safety valve' idea explains part of Hume's motive, it underestimates the indigenous drive for national organisation. Indian leaders accepted his assistance for pragmatic reasons - it lessened official suspicion while providing organisational help.
• From its second year the Congress grew rapidly. In 1886 some 436 delegates were elected by local organisations and groups. Thereafter the Congress met annually in December, each session in a different province or city, and its membership and influence expanded.
• Early delegates were typically drawn from the educated middle classes: lawyers, journalists, traders, industrialists, teachers and landlords. These cadres played a leading role in articulating demands for administrative reform, legislative representation and protection of Indian economic interests.
• In 1890 Kadambini Ganguli, the first woman graduate of Calcutta University, addressed the Congress; her presence was emblematic of how the national struggle began to raise issues of women's education and public participation.
• Alongside the Congress, the nationalist press, provincial conferences and local associations remained important channels for publicising demands and mobilising support. Many newspapers were not primarily commercial ventures but organs of political activity.
• Some leading presidents and prominent early figures of the Congress and nationalist movement included:
  • Dadabhai Naoroji
  • Badruddin Tyabji
  • Pherozeshah Mehta
  • P. Ananda Charlu
  • Surendranath Banerjea
  • Romesh Chandra Dutt
  • Ananda Mohan Bose
  • Gopal Krishna Gokhale
• Other influential leaders of this early period included Mahadev Govind Ranade, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the brothers Sisir Kumar and Motilal Ghose, Madan Mohan Malaviya, G. Subramaniya Iyer, C. Vijayaraghava Chariar and Dinshaw E. Wacha.
• From its inception the Congress functioned more as a broad movement than as a political party with a rigid programme. It provided a national forum for discussion, coordination and the gradual articulation of political demands which would later be developed and radicalised in the twentieth century.

Conclusion: The revival of interest in India's past, the experience of racial discrimination under colonial rule, the growth of regional reform associations and the emergence of an organised national forum in the Indian National Congress together formed the foundation of modern Indian nationalism between 1858 and 1905. These developments created a public sphere in which political grievances could be aired, leadership could be trained and a common sense of national purpose could be forged.