Modern Indian History

A retired ICS officer, A.O. Hume, brought 72 Indian delegates together at Bombay (Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College) in December 1885 — the first session of the Indian National Congress. Its first president was W.C. Bonnerjee. The "safety-valve" reading — that Hume wanted a yearly talking-shop to let out discontent — was argued by Lala Lajpat Rai in his book Young India; modern historians see it as the first all-India political platform.

Leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji (thrice president; first Indian MP in the British House of Commons, 1892; the 'Grand Old Man of India'), S.N. Banerjea (Indian Association, 1876; paper Bengalee), Gokhale (Servants of India Society, 1905; Gandhi's political guru), Pherozeshah Mehta ('Lion of Bombay'), R.C. Dutt (Economic History of India). Methods: petitions, prayers and protests — the '3P' path — trusting British justice. Their lasting contribution was economic criticism: Naoroji's Drain of Wealth theory (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1901) showed how India's money flowed out as salaries, pensions and profits.

Lal-Bal-Pal — Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab Kesari), Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal — plus Aurobindo Ghosh. Tilak ran Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English), started the Ganapati (1893) and Shivaji (1895) festivals, and declared "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it." Jailed for six years (1908–14) in Mandalay, where he wrote Geeta Rahasya. They wanted self-rule, not petitions, and believed in mass action, swadeshi and national education.

Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal (effective 16 October 1905) on the plea of administrative convenience — really to break Bengali nationalism: a Muslim-majority East Bengal and Assam, a Hindu-majority west. The answer was the Swadeshi movement: boycott of foreign cloth and salt, Rakhi bandhan (Tagore's idea), Amar Sonar Bangla as the marching song, national schools (the National Council of Education, 1906) and volunteer samitis. The partition was annulled in 1911.

• Surat, 1907: the session split — Moderates (Rash Behari Ghosh) vs Extremists (Tilak). The two wings reunited at Lucknow in 1916.
• Muslim League, 1906: founded at Dacca (Nawab Salimullah's initiative); it backed the partition and soon demanded separate electorates.
• Calcutta session, 1906 (Naoroji president): the word Swaraj entered the Congress resolution.
• Morley-Minto reforms, 1909: first Indians in the executive councils (Satyendra P. Sinha), but also separate electorates for Muslims — Minto is called the father of communal electorates.
• Home Rule Leagues, 1916: Tilak's (April, Maharashtra-Karnataka-CP-Berar) and Annie Besant's (September, Madras; papers New India and Commonweal); Besant became Congress president in 1917.