Indian National Congress

Lore & Background

After Indian independence in 1947, Congress emerged as a catch-all, nationalist and secular party, dominating Indian politics for the next 50 years. The party's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, led it to support socialist policies, creating the Planning Commission and introducing Five-Year Plans. The party suffered major splits in 1969 and 1979, with Indira Gandhi's faction becoming dominant. Under leaders like Rajiv Gandhi, P. V. Narasimha Rao, and Manmohan Singh, the party shifted from socialist to economically liberal policies, and from 2004 to 2014 led the United Progressive Alliance coalition government.

Reader's Guide

The Indian National Congress holds profound significance as the principal architect of India's independence from British rule and as the dominant political force in post-independence India for over five decades. Its role in shaping India's secular, socialist, and democratic foundations—through leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru—established the country's mixed economy, planning commission, and welfare state. The party's ability to adapt, from advocating Indianisation under British rule to embracing economic liberalization under P. V. Narasimha Rao, demonstrates its ideological flexibility. However, since the 1990s, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party as its main rival has challenged Congress's dominance, leading to periods out of power and reduced parliamentary strength. Despite electoral setbacks in 2014 and 2019, the party rebounded in 2024 to win 99 seats and form the official opposition. Its legacy includes being one of the world's oldest continuously active political parties and a model for anti-colonial movements across the British Empire.

The Birth of a National Voice (1885)

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 transferred control from the East India Company to the British Empire, the resulting Raj sought legitimacy partly through the goodwill of English-educated Indians who were sympathetic to British political culture. It was within this landscape that retired ICS officer Allan Octavian Hume set out to create a structured space for political dialogue among educated Indians. He began by courting alumni of the University of Calcutta, writing in 1883 that if the most highly educated members of the nation could not mount a resolute struggle for greater freedom and a larger share in managing their own affairs, then all hopes of progress were at an end. By May 1885, Hume had secured the viceroy's approval for an 'Indian National Union' meant to channel Indian public opinion. On 28 December 1885, seventy-two representatives gathered at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay to formally establish the Indian National Congress. Hume assumed the role of General Secretary, while Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee of Calcutta was elected the first president. The founding group also included two Scottish civil servants, William Wedderburn and Justice John Jardine, alongside prominent Indian delegates such as Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, and Pherozeshah Mehta.

Modest Petitions Under an Unquestioned Raj

Between 1885 and 1905, the Congress channeled its energy into passing resolutions at annual sessions spanning civil rights, administrative reform, constitutional change, and economic policy. In the civil rights sphere, leaders stressed the importance of freedom of speech and press, as well as the right to hold processions and public meetings. On the administrative front, they pressed the government to curb abuses, implement public welfare measures, and appoint Indians to positions within government services, while also proposing the creation of agricultural banks to relieve the peasantry. Constitutionally, the demands were deliberately restrained: expand the power of legislative councils and include elected Indian representatives. Economically, the Congress attributed rising property prices and broader hardship to British policy, calling for the introduction of modern industry, the Indianization of public services, and the abolition of the salt tax to benefit the poorest sections of society. Despite the breadth of these proposals, the colonial administration largely dismissed the Congress's constitutional and administrative demands, underscoring how limited the space for meaningful political participation remained during a period in which British authority was unquestioned.

The Appeal and the Awakening

In October 1885, just weeks before the formal founding of the Congress, Hume and a circle of educated Indians published 'An Appeal from the People of India to the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland.' The document asked British voters in the upcoming 1885 general election to back candidates sympathetic to Indian positions, specifically opposing the taxation of India to fund British military campaigns in Afghanistan and supporting legislative reform within India. The appeal was a resounding failure, and its reception proved to be a defining moment for the movement. Many Indians interpreted the episode as a jarring wake-up call that convinced them they would need to wage their political struggles independently, without relying on the goodwill of the British electorate. This early setback helped shape the Congress's trajectory, pushing it away from a strategy of petitioning the imperial government and toward a more self-reliant posture. Ironically, the Congress's survival and growth during the 19th century depended in part on the patronage of British authorities and on the rising class of English-educated Indians and Anglo-Indians who were more comfortable within the British cultural and political tradition.

A Movement at the Margins of Society

Despite the intellectual energy behind its founding, the Indian National Congress in its earliest years remained a narrow, elite enterprise that failed to penetrate the broader population. Many Muslim community leaders, including the prominent educationalist Syed Ahmed Khan, viewed the Congress with suspicion and hostility, largely because its membership was dominated by Hindus. Hindu religious and community leaders, conversely, were also averse to the organization, seeing it as a vehicle for European cultural invasion rather than a genuine expression of Indian identity. Meanwhile, the ordinary people of India were largely uninformed about the Congress and showed little concern for its activities. This disconnect between the educated, English-speaking leadership and the vast majority of the population highlighted a fundamental limitation of the early movement. The Congress was, in effect, a forum for a small class of Indians shaped by British educational institutions who operated within the parameters of British political thinking. Its early resolutions, while covering a wide range of issues from civil rights to economic policy, were framed in a language and register that spoke to the colonial administration rather than to the masses whose lives those policies directly affected.

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