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Associations& Movements
o Associations, like Cricket, were British innovation and like Cricket,
became an Indian craze Anil Seal.
o Rammohan Roy was the pioneer of political movement in India.
o In 1821, Roy celebrated in Calcutta, the establishment of a
constitutional Government in Spain. He demanded liberty of the press,
appointment of Indians in Civil Courts and other higher posts,
codification of laws etc.
o Some of the provisions of the Charter Act of 1833 were due to his
lobbying in England.
o Bangabhasa Prakashika Sabha was established in 1836. It discussed
topics connected with the policy and administration of the government
and sought re-dressal by sending petitions and memorandum to the
Government.
o Zamindary Association or Landholders Society was established in
1838 to safeguard the interests of the landlords. It marks the
beginning of an organized political activity and use of methods of
constitutional agitation for the redressal of grievances. The Zamindari
Association, which was later renamed Landholders Society, was
headed by Prince Dwarkanath Tagore, Prasanna Kumar Tagore,
Radhakanta Deb, Ramkamal Sen and Bhabani Charan Mitra. It has
been described as the first organisation of Bengal with distinct
political object. The society virtually became defunct after the death
of Dwarkanath Tagore.
o British India Society was founded by Mr. Adams in London in July
1839.
o On 20th April 1843, Bengal British India Society was founded in
Calcutta.

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o On 29th October, 1851 both Bengal British India Society & Landholders
Society merged together to form British Indian Association. Their popular
demands partially met in Charter Act of 1853; addition of 6 members in GGS Council for legislative purposes.
o In 1875, Babu Sisir Kumar Ghose, founded the Indian League with the object
of stimulating the sense of nationalism amongst the people and encouraging
political education.

o Indian Association founded on 26th July, 1876 by Ananda Mohan Bose and
Surendranath Banerjee. Annual subscription was Rs.5/- to appeal to the
masses.
o A regulation of 1876 reduced the maximum age for appearing in the ICS
from 21 years to 19 years. Examination held only in London.
o Indian Association (IA) organized the Civil Service agitation.
o S. N. Banerjee went on a whirlwind tour of Northern India in May 1877 and
visited Benaras, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Delhi, Meerut,
Amritsar and Lahore. Next year in 1878, he went on a similar mission to
Bombay and Madras including Pondicherry.
o Bhaskar Pandurang Tarhadkhar wrote in the Bombay Gazetteer in 1841
If I were to give the English credit, then that should be for having saved us
from Pindaris and Ramosis, and imparting knowledge & wisdom.
o Bombay Association on 26th August, 1852 by Jagannath Shankar Seth.
o Bombay Presidency Association in 1885 : Mehta,Tyabji & Telang were
the three lawyers who played a key role in establishing this
association. Dadabhai Nauroji also played a key role and he was the
vice president of the association.

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o Poona Sarvajanik Sabha in 1867
o Madras Native Association (1853)
o Madras Mahajan Sabha in May 1884 by Viraraghavachariyar,
Subramaniya Iyer &Ananda Charlu
o East India Association in London in October, 1866.
o In 1883, Telang went from Bombay to Calcutta to arrange for more
political consent between the 2 cities. Planned to form a Native Press,
Newspaper Court reform Assocn.
o During Nov-Dec, 1884, there were spontaneous demonstration
throughout India to mark Ripons departure.
o All India National Conference in Dec 1883 by the Indian Association
and gave a call for another in Dec, 1885. For this reason, S. N.
Banerjee, could not attend the founding session of INC.

o President of INC was to belong to a region other than where the

Congress session was being held.
o A rule was made at the 1888 session that no resolution was to be
passed to which an over-whelming majority of Hindu or Muslim
delegates objected.
o In 1889, a minority clause adopted a resolution that wherever Parsis,
Christians, Muslims or Hindus were a minority, their no. elected to the
counsils would not be less than their proportion in the population.
o Moderators sincerely believed that Indias progress could be possible
only under the supervision of the British. Hence, their loyalty to
British Crown.
o Badruddin Tyabji, the third Congress President declared that nowhere
among the millions of Her Majestys subject were to be found more

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loyal than Indians.
o Raja Sheo Preasad of Benaras and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan organized the
United Indian Patriotic Association to counter Congress propaganda (in
1888).
o Lord Dufferin termed INC as representing only a microscopic
minority.
o At its 2nd session, Dadabhai, the President said that A National
Congress must confine itself to questions in which the entire nation
has a direct participation.
o Anti-corn Law league formed in Britain in 1838 by Cobden and Bright
to reform Corn Laws.

Justice M G Ranade was known as Political Sage

I.

Foundation of the Congress.

The nucleus of the Congress leadership consisted of men from Bombay and
Calcutta who had first come together in London in the late 1860s and early 70s
while studying for the ICS or for Law Pherozeshah Mehta, Badruddin Tyabji,
W. C. Bonnerji, Anandamohan Bose, and Romeshchandra Dutta, who all fell under
the influence of Dadabhai Naoroji who was then settled in England as
businessman-cum-publicist. Those among this group who did not join the civil
service (or, as in the case of Surendranath was thrown out of it), along with
some others like a Sadharan Brahmo group headed by Dwarkanath Ganguli in
Calcutta, Ranade and G. V. Joshi in Poona, K. T. Telang in Bombay, and a little
later G. Subramaniya Iyer, Viraraghavachari and Ananda Charlu in Madras, took
th e initiative in starting a number of local associations. These were middleclass-professional rather than zamindar-led in composition. The most important
of these organizations were the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870), the Indian
Association (1876 )which organized the first all-India agitations in 1877-78 on

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the civil service and the press act issues, the Madras Mahajana Sabha (1884),
and the Bombay Presidency Association (1885).
From the early 1880s onwards, there had been numerous suggestion and
attempts at a coming-together of such groups on an all-India scale, and the
Indian Association even organized two National Conferences at Calcutta in
1883 and 1885. But eventually only the attempt launched at the initiative of
Allan Octavian Hume (retired British Civil Servant) succeeded on a permanent
basis, and 72 largely self-appointed delegates met for the first session of the
Indian National Congress at Bombay in December 1885.
Some unnecessary controversy has been caused by the statement of W.C.
Bonerji in 1898 that Hume was acting under the direct advice of Lord Dufferin
(first Vice-Roy of India). Originally put forward no doubt as a means of gaining
respectability, this version of the foundation of the Congress later came to be
studied together with Humes pleas to officials for concessions to educated
Indians to stave off the mass violence which he repeatedly prophesied was just
around the corner. The result was a theory with considerable appeal for later
radical critics of the Congress (like R.P. Dutta, for instance) the Congress, it
was argued, had been deliberately created by a British Viceroy acting through a
British ex-civilian to act as a safety-valve against popular discontent. This
conspiracy theory, however, has been discredited by the opening of Dufferins
private papers, which reveal that no one in ruling circles took Humes Cassandralike predictions of imminent chaos very seriously.
Hume did meet Dufferin at Simla in May 1885, but Viceroys most immediate
reaction was to advise the Governor of Bombay to keep away from the proposed
political convention of delegates. (O'Connell previous to Catholic Emancipation...
" Dufferin to Reay, Governor of Mumbai, 17 May 1885!. In any case, the whole
story greatly exaggerates the personal role of Hume. Something like a national
organization had been in the air for quite some-time. Hume only took advantage
of the already-created atmosphere; though he was perhaps helped by the fact
that he was more acceptable to Indians as free of regional loyalties. Indians
probably also had an exaggerated idea of Humes potential influence in official
circlesan impression which he did nothing to dispel.

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The Moderate Congress: Objectives and Methods.
It is customary to discuss the first twenty years in the history of the
Congress-its Moderate phase-as a single bloc, and certainly a broad uniformity
in objectives and methods of activity seems fairly obvious over the entire
period. The Congress met at the end of each year for three days in what
became a great social occasion as well as a political assembly, heard and
applauded a long Presidential address and numerous speeches (almost always in
English language), and dispersed after passing a roughly similar set of
resolutions dealing with three broad types of grievances political,
administrative and economic. The principal political demand was reform of
Supreme and Local Legislative Councils to give them greater powers (of budget
discussion and interpellation, for instance) and to make them representative by
including some members elected by local bodies, chambers of Commerce,
universities, etc. Thus the immediate perspective fell far short of selfgovernment or democracy, and as late as 1905, Gokhales presidential address
asserted that the educated were the natural leaders of the people, and
explained that political rights were being demanded not for the whole
population, but for such portion of it as has been qualified by education to
discharge properly the responsibilities of such association.
There was however also an expectation that freedom would gradually broaden
from precedent to precedent on the British pattern, till India entered the
promised but distant land of what Naoroji in 1906 described with considerable
ambiguity as Self-Government or Swaraj like that of United Kingdom or the
colonies. Among administrative reforms, pride of place went to the demand for
Indianization of services through simultaneous ICS examinations in England and
India a demand raised not really just to satisfy the tiny elite who could hope
to get into the ICS, as has been sometimes argued, but connected with much
broader themes. Indianization was advocated as a blow against racism; it would
also reduce the drain of wealth in so far as much of the fat salaries and pension
enjoyed by white officials are being remitted to England, as well as help to make
administration more responsive to Indian needs. Other administrative demands
included separation of the judiciary, extension of trial by jury, repeal of the
Arms Act, higher jobs in the army for Indians, and the raising of an Indian
volunteer force demands which evidently combined pleas for racial equality
with a concern for civil rights. The economic issues raised were all bound up

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with the general poverty of India-drain of wealth theme. Resolutions were
repeatedly passed calling for an enquiry into Indias growing poverty and
famines, demanding cuts in Home Charges and military expenditure, more funds
for technical education to promote Indian Industries, and an end to unfair
tariffs and excise duties. The demand for extension of the Permanent
Settlement was also related to the drain of wealth argument, for overassessment was held to be responsible for forced sale by peasants leading to
the export surplus. That the early Congress was not concerned solely with the
interests of the English-educated professional groups, Zamindars, or
industrialists is indicated by the numerous resolutions on the salt tax,
treatment of Indian coolies abroad, and the sufferings caused by forest
administration.
Resolutions condemning forest laws were passed every year between 1891 and
1895. In addition, the Indian Association launched a campaign exposing the
horrors of indentured labour in Assam tea gardens in the late 1880s and its
assistant secretary Dwarkanath Ganguli even went to the Assam plantation area
at considerable personal risk to bring back information about the slave labour
conditions prevailing there. The Congress, however, refused to take this up on
the ground that it was a local issue.
What made the Moderate Congress increasingly a target of criticism was not so
much its objectives as its methods and style of functioning. The keynote here
had been struck by Naorojis phrase, un-British Rule and the early Congress
concentrated on building up through petitions, speeches and articles a foolproof logical case aimed at convincing, not so much the sundried bureaucrats of
British India, but the presumably liberal-minded public opinion of the land of
Cobden, Bright, Mill and Gladstone. Even these politics of what Extremists were
to describe as mendicancy, moreover, were tried out in a rather intermittent
manner. Politics remained for the bulk of the Moderates very much a part-time
affair the Congress was not a political party, but an annual three-day show,
plus one or two secretaries, and the local associations which were quite
numerous on paper were no more than tiny coteries, usually of lawyers, which
met occasionally to elect among themselves the Congress delegates for the
year or to pass resolutions on some immediate grievances, and otherwise
enjoyed long spells of complacent hibernations.

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All this is well-known; the more interesting question is why this should have
been so. The answer perhaps lies in the nature and social composition of the
early Congress leaders and participants. The Moderate Leaders tended to be
Anglicized in their personal life and behaviour and highly successful men in their
professions. The first bred ambivalent attitudes towards Englishmen, with
criticism of specific policies balanced by general admiration and even a belief in
the providential nature of British rule. The second meant little time left over
for political activity; as Wacha complained to Naoroji on 18th November, 1887,
Pherozeshah is nowadays too busy with his professional work.... They are
already rich enough...Mr Telang too remains busy. I wonder how if all remain
busy in the pursuit of gold can the progress of the country be advanced?
Success also bred complacency, a belief that things would improve gradually,
since after all some concessions like the 1892 Council Act had been obtained.
Above all, many top Congressmen had developed a highly elitist life style (Mehta
travelled in a special railway saloon, Gandhi recalls J. Ghoshal asking him to
button his shirt for him during the Calcutta Congress in 1901, and even the less
Anglicized Ranade visited Simla in 1886 with 25 servants, and this often led to
the feelings of mingled contempt and fear of the lower orders, and a
dependence on the British for law and order which must have been
strengthened by the revivalist frenzies and communal riots of the 1890s. Thus
Wacha in his Shells from the Sands of Bombay recalled the blowing from British
guns of 1857 rebels without the slightest sympathy; Mehta in 1874 was mobbed
during a Parsi-Muslim clash by what he described as this beggarly rabble and
scum of the Mohomedan population; Surendranath during a temperance
campaign in 1887 found the lower classes utterly alien; and food rioters at
Nagpur in 1896 chose a Congress leaders house as a principal targetno doubt
because he was also a landlord and moneylender.
Recent research, as has been seen, is bringing out the connections between the
early Congress professional intelligentsia and propertied groups a few
industrialists in Bombay, commercial magnates like the Tandons of Allahabad,
landholders or tenure-holders practically everywhere. Such groups were not
likely to support radical programmes or unrestrained mass agitation.

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Phase of Moderate Politics
So far we have been talking of uniformities, but certain interesting variations
over time and between regions are also being revealed by current research.
Though the broad pattern of Congress resolutions remained on the whole the
same, Council reform hardly figured much between 1892 and 1904 some
concessions had after all been obtained here, the Congress leaders were being
elected to the new local and imperial legislatures. Repeated famines and the
cotton excise issue, however, focussed increasing attention on economic
matters. Gokhales speech on the budget in 1901 expounded nationalist economic
theory on the floor of the Imperial Legislative Council for the first time, and,
as Bipan Chandra has pointed out, the drain of wealth doctrine served as a
radicalizing force, for at this crucial level things were evidently getting worse
rather than better. Naoroji was an old man who became more extreme with age,
even developing some contacts with British socialist like H. M.Hyndman.
British efforts to woo peasants and develop the image of a paternalist sarkar
(as against alleged Congress elitism) through measures like the Punjab Land
Alienation Act of 1901 for restricting transfer outside agricultural tribes, also
compelled some Congress rethinking on the thorny issue of land relations.
Though the Hindu urban trader-dominated Punjab Congress was bitterly
opposed to the Act, the Lahore session (1900) made a significant concession by
dropping the resolution on that subject. Again, while early movers aof
resolutions advocating Permanent Settlement had more or less equated it with a
settlement with Zamindars, R. C. Dutt in the late 1890s developed a broader
formula. The 1899 session over which he presided passed a resolution clearly
demanding both permanent fixation of revenue in raiyatwari areas and a ceiling
on zamindari rent. Incidentally, McLanes detailed study also reveals British propeasant righteous rhetoric to be largely a myth. Surendranaths opposition in
1898 to certain pro-zamindar modifications of the 1885 Bengal Tenancy Act, for
instance, was immediately followed by the transfer of a Council seat from
municipalities to zamindars.
Turning to the activities and organization of the Congress, three broad phases
can be distinguished within the Moderate era. Till 1892, the Congress was
largely dominated by Hume as general secretary and sole full-time activist.
Erratic, paternalistic and domineering, his presence did impart a certain

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dynamism which was to be conspicuously absent in the succeeding years.
Congress attendance figures rose rapidly for the first five sessions, from 72 in
1885 to nearly 2000 in 1889. The detailed studies of Washbrook and Bayly have
revealed the sessions of 1887 (Madras) and 1888 (Allahabad) to have been
usually broad based as compare to the Congress of the 1890s, and to have
aroused widespread interest.
Funds for the Madras session, for instance, were raised through mass
collections 5500 in amounts between one anna and Rs. 1-8 annas from 8000
persons, and another Rs. 8000 from donations ranging from Rs. 2 to Rs.30.
Faced with the opposition from the old U.P. elite led by Sayyid Ahmed (which
initially included Hindu aristocrats like the Maharaja of Benaras as well as
Muslims) to Congress demands for elected Councils and service recruitment
through examinations, Hume made a determined effort to woo Muslim support in
1887-88, utilizing the personal contacts of Badruddin Tyabji and evolving a
formula (at the 1887 session) by which a resolution would be rejected if it was
opposed by the bulk of any community. Even more notable was the unique
attempt, again at Humes initiative, to rally peasant support in 1887 through two
popular pamphlets translated into no less than twelve regional languages. Hume
himself wrote an imaginary dialogue exposing arbitrary administration in
villages, while Viraraghavacharis Tamil Catechism attacked existing legislative
councils as sham, and is said to have been sold in 30,000 copes. Nothing quite
like this was to be attempted again till the 1905 days.
Such efforts, however, were short lived and not particularly successful. The
Aligarh Muslim elite still felt that they had a lot to lose from elected Councils
which Hindus would be sure to dominate and from competitive recruitment
where the latters lead in English education would give them an advantage.
The 1893 riots strengthened Muslim alienation, and the percentage of Muslim
delegates in Congress, which had averaged 13.5of the total between 1885 and
1892, fell to only 7.1 between 1893-1905. Even the latter figure is artificially
swollen by the high local Muslim attendance at the Lucknow session (1899) 313,
out of a total of 761 Muslims who attended all sessions in the 1893-1905 period.
However, the Congress leaders were not particularly worried, as no rival Muslim
political organization had as yet emerged. Theodore Becks Muhammedan AngloOriental Defence Association (1893) proved to be quite short lived. No special

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attempt seems to have been made after 1887-88 to woo Muslim opinion. The
peasant strategy of Hume was abandoned even more quickly as soon as it was
found to have aroused intense official suspicion and hostility. The U.P. Lt.
Governor, Auckland Colvin tried to obstruct the holding of the Allahabad session
and Dufferin in November 1888 in a famous speech denounced the Congress as a
microscopic minority no doubt precisely because there were a few signs that
it might soon become somewhat less microscopic. A badly frightened Congress
leadership privately rebuffed Hume, and the bid for mass contact was
abandoned.
A frustrated Hume left for England in 1892 with the parting shot of a circular
prophesying imminent peasant revolution (unless Congress became more
energetic and the British more responsive) which officials condemned as
incendiary and other Congress leaders repudiated. The Congress fell into the
doldrums in the 1890s. Decisions were taken by a caucus consisting usually of
Surendranath, W.C. Bonnerji, Ananda Charlu, and Pherozeshah Mehta with
Ranade as adviser behind the scenes, but no effective leadership emerged, till
Mehta decided to take more active interest in the Congress from 1899 and
established his predominance. Hume was still elected General Secretary despite
his absence, for the want of any agreed substitute. These were the years when
failures in India led to a shift in emphasis almost entirely to campaigning in
England through the British Committee of the Congress headed by Wedderburn,
Hume and Naoroji with its journal India. The bulk of the fairly paltry Congress
funds were sent over to this London Committee (about Rs. 32,000 annually), and
though Dinshaw Wacha was made joint-secretary from 1895, the money allotted
to him was minimal. Yet in England, too, the hopes aroused by the 1892 Act and
the snap Commons resolution supporting simultaneous examinations in 1893 were
quickly dissipated, particularly after the Tories returned to power and Naoroji
was unseated in the 1895 elections. Meanwhile interest in the Congress in India
was waning. This was indicated for instance by the rising proportion of local
delegates at its sessions, which had varied from 43.5% to 59.5% between 188593, but went up to between 64.7% to as high as 88.6% during 1894-1903. A
decline in the activities of local or regional bodies like the Indian Association,
the Poons Sarvajanik Sabha, or the Madras Mahajana Sabha was also marked in
the late 1890s. It needed the provocative policies of a Curzon (to be studied in
the next chapter) to breathe some new life into the Moderates that, and the

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rise of a new leader in Gokhale, with his assets of an attractive personality
(unlike the rather abrasive Pherozeshah Mehta), youth (he was ten years
younger than Tilak), and undoubted self-sacrifice and devotion to full-time
public work.

Roots of Extremism
Yet if Curzons assessment in November 1900 that the Congress was tottering
to its fall (Curzon to Secretary of State, Hamilton, 18 November 1900) was
soon to be proved ludicrously off the mark, this was principally due to the fact
that the Moderate Congress was increasingly reflecting only a small segment of
nationalist sentiment. (McLane) British unpopularity was increasing under the
impact of famines and plagues the countervailing excise and Curzons package of
aggressive measures. The potential base for political activity was expanding
fast, with the circulation of vernacular newspapers going up from 299,000 in
1885 to 817,000 in 1905. It was significant that some of the most popular
journals were those which were critical of the Congress for a variety of
reasons, like the Calcutta Bangabasi or the Kesari and Kal of Poona. The soil was
becoming ripe for the rise of Extremism.
Historians of the Cambridge School have been trying in recent years to present
the emergence of Extremist dissent as basically a set of factional quarrels
between ins and outs for the control of the Congress. Certainly there was no
lack of factionalism in Congress circles during the 1890s. In Bengal,
Surendranath and his newspaper, the Bengalee, had a running quarrel with the
Amrita Bazar Patrika group of Motilal Ghosh ever since the formers Indian
Association had overshadowed the short lived India League in 1875-76.
Factionalism was particularly acute in the Punjab, with three groups within the
Lahore Brahmo Samaj, a major split within the Aryas, and a conflict between
Lala Harkishan Lal and Lala Lajpat Rai. Washbrook has tried to analyse Madras
politics in terms of a triangular conflict between the Mylapore clique (V.
Bhashyam Iyengar and S. Subramania Iyer in the 1880, followed by V.
Krishnaswami Iyer the in group, according to him), its less successful Egmore
rivals, also Madras city based (C. Sankaran Nair, Kasturi Raanga Iyengar), and
mofussil outs like T. Prakasam and Krishna Rao in coastal Andhra or
Chidambaram Pillai in Tuticorin who allied with some Egmore politicians to

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constitute Madras Extremism after 1905. In Poona, too, it has been argued,
Tilaks quarrel in the late 1880s with Agarkar and Gokhale was over the control
of the Deccan Education Society and had little to do initially with differences
on political or even social reform issues.
Faction-analysis does have a certain utility, particularly in the context of earlier
tendencies to present conflicts within nationalism in terms of debates between
more-or-less disembodied ideals. Yet Cambridge scholars surely press it much
too far. It is difficult to understand why dissidents should have been so eager
to capture the Congress not yet a real political party with power and patronage
opportunities, it must be remembered, but no more than an annual platform with
very inadequate funds unless it was because they had certain alternative
strategies and ideals to put forward. Above all, such scholarship ignores entirely
the fairly systematic critique of Moderate politics which was emerging in the
1890s, most notably in three principal bases of later Extremism Bengal, Punjab
and Maharashtra.
The starting-point of the new approach was a two-fold critique of the Moderate
Congress for its mendicant technique of appealing to British public opinion,
felt to be both futile and dishonourable, and for its being no more than a
movement of an English-educated elite alienated from the common people.
Instead of prayers and petitions, self-reliance and constructive work became
the new slogans starting swadeshi enterprises, organizing what came to be
called national education, and emphasizing the need for concrete work in
villages. Self-help, use of the vernaculars, utilization of traditional, popular
customs and institutions like the village fair or mela, and, increasingly, an
evocation of Hindu revivalist moodscame to be regarded as the best ways of
bridging the gulf between the educated and the masses. The overall reaction
against Moderate agitation took in the end, three main forms, which become
distinct only after 1905 but can be seen in germ from the 1890s a somewhat
non-political trend towards self-development through constructive work,
ignoring rather than directly attacking foreign rule; political Extremism proper,
attemptingmass mobilization for Swaraj through certain new techniques which
came to be called passive resistance; and revolutionary terrorism, which sought
a short-cut to freedom via individual violence and conspiracies.

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The first really systematic critique of Moderate politics was made in 1893-94 in
a series of articles entitled New Lamps for Old by Aurobindo Ghosh, then
living in Baroda, having returned from England after a highly Anglicized
upbringing against which he had begun to react sharply. Aurobindo rejected
the English model of slow constitutional progress admired by the Moderates as
much inferior to the French experience of the great and terrible republic. He
attacked Congress mendicancy (a little too much talk about the blessings of
British rule), and striking a remarkable class-conscious note which was no doubt
derived from his recent European experience, urged as the most vital of all
problems the establishment of a link between the burgess, or the middle class
which the Congress represented and the proletariat....the real key of the
situation....the right and fruitful policy for the burgess, the only policy that has
any chance of eventual success, is to base his cause upon an adroit management
of the proletariat. But the proletariat to Aurobindo was surely no more than
the common people of town and country in general, and they key to its heart,
which he was already seeking through revivalist Hinduism in the 1894 essays of
Bankimchandra, in the end eluded the Extremists. At the turn of the century,
Aurobindo was trying to organize secret societies and sending Jatindranath
Banerjee and Barindrakumar Ghosh to Bengal as emissaries. He was also,
however, to elaborate a programme of mass passive resistance when the antiPartition upsurge revealed for a time the possibilities of a broader movement.
Such an oscillation was seen fairly often in other Extremist figures too.
In Bengal, disillusionment with the Congress was voiced by Aswini Kumar Dutt,
who described the Amraoti session of 1897as a three days tamasha. Dutt was
a Barisal school teacher who through a lifetime of patient social work in his
district built up a unique kind of mass following and made his region the
strongest base of the Swadeshi movement in the 1905 days. It was voice
memorably also by Rabindranath Tagore, already Bengals leading literary figure
(which he was to remain for fifty years), who was contributing to patriotism
not only through magnificent poems and short stories evoking the beauty of the
Bengal countryside and describing the life of its people, but also more directly
through attacks on Congress mendicancy, repeated calls for atmasakti (selfreliance) through swadeshi enterprise and national education, and extremely
perceptive suggestions for mass contact through melas, jatras and the use of
the mother-tongue in both education and political work. By the early years of

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the twentieth century, Vivekanandas message was also being given a more direct
political colour by his disciple, the Irish Sister, Nivedita (Margaret Noble), with
her experience of Irish and other European revolutionary movements. The
Bengali bhadralok was also turning to swadeshi industrial enterprise the
scientist Profulla Chandra Roy started his Bengal Chemicals in 1893, for
instance and Satis Mukherji through his Dawn Society and Rabindranath
through his Shantiniketan ashrama were experimenting with new forms of
education under indigenous control. All this obviously contributed much more to
Bengal Extremism than the petty factionalism of Surendranath and Motilal
Ghosh.
In the Punjab, both Harkishan Lal (who started the Punjab National Bank) and
Arya Samajists of the College faction were active in Swadeshi enterprise from
the 1890s. Congress delegates from the Punjab also pressed from 1893 onwards
for a formal constitution, evidently to reduce the powers of the informal
Bombay-Bengal axis which dominated the organization. They managed to set up a
permanent Indian Congress Committee at the 1899 session, only to see it
successfully sabotaged two years later by the Pherozeshah caucus. In two
articles published in the Kayastha Samachar of 1901, Lajpat Rai advocated
technical education and industrial self-help in place of the fatuous annual
festival of the English-educated elite which was all that the Congress amounted
to. He also argued that the Congress should openly and boldly base itself on the
Hindus along, as unity with Muslims was a chimera. Once again we see the
chalking-out of Extremist themes and limitations.

But the man who really blazed the trial for Extremism was Bal Gangadhar Tilak
of Maharashtra. Tilak was a pioneer in many ways in the use of religious
orthodoxy as a method of mass contact (through his alignment against
reformers, on the Age of Consent issue, followed by the organization of the
Ganapati festival from 1894), in the development of a patriotic-cum-historical
cult as a central symbol of nationalism (the Shivaji festival, which he organized
from 1896 onwards) as well as in experimenting with a kind of no-revenue
campaign in 1896-97. The countervailing Cotton Excise of 1896 produced
intense reactions in western India on which Tilak tried to base something like a
boycott movement the first trial use of a method which was to become the
central nationalist technique from 1905 onwards.

TRADEMARK IAS
SWADESHI MOVEMENT against Partition of Bengal(1905 1908)
!

Bengal with a population of 7.8 crores (1/4 of the British Indian pop.) had
become administratively problematic.

But real motive of partitioning was political. Risley, Home Secretary:

Bengal united, is power, Bengal divided, will pull in several difficult ways.

500 protest meetings in East Bengal alone, especially Dacca,

Mymenshingh, Chittagong were staged.

50,000 copies of pamphlets were distributed criticizing partition all over

Bengal.

Protest meetings were held in the Town Hall of Calcutta in March 1904
and January 1905. Some petitions were signed by 70,000 peoples.

Partition was announced on July 19, 1905.

Formal proclamation of the Swadeshi Movement was made on 7th August,

1905 in Calcutta Town Hall. Boycott Resolutions was passed.

S. N. Banerjee toured the country urging boycott of Manchestor Cloth

and Liverpool Salt.

Bengal Partition was effected on and from 16th October, 1905.

Protest meeting at Barisal drew crowds of about 10-12 thousands.

Value of British cloth fell by 5-15 times in India.

On 16th October, 1905 people fasted and fires were not lit at the cooking
hearth. In Calcutta, a hartal was declared. Paraded streets singing
Bande Mataram. People tied Rakhi. Ananda Mohan Bose and S. N.
Banerjee addressed 2 huge mass meetings of crowds of 50,000 75,000.
Perhaps the largest mass nationalist meetings. A sum of Rs.50,000 was

TRADEMARK IAS
raised for the movements.
!

Abdul Rasul, President of the Barisal Congress described it as:

what we could not achieve in 50-100 years, partition did in 6 weeks.

Tilak took the movement to different parts of India.

* Ajit Singh in Punjab
* Syed Haider Raza in Delhi
* Chidambaran Pillai in Madras
* Bipin Pals lectures in Madras.

Benaras session of INC in 1905supported Swadeshi and Boycotta.

In 1906, INC at Calcutta Session by Dadabhai Naoraji declared goal of

self-government or Swaraj

In 1907 Surat Split of INC.

Swadesh Bandhab Samiti set up by Ashwini Kumar Dutta, a school teacher

in Barisal, 159 branches. By August 1906, the Barisal Samiti settled 523
disputes tho 89 arbitration committees.

Bengal National College was founded with Aurobindo Ghosh as Principal.

In 1906 National Council of Education was established.

Bengal Technical Institute was set up and funds were raised to send
students to Japan.

Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, India's first pharmaceutical company

established by Acharya Prafullya Ch. Roy . He is the author of A History

of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of Sixteenth

Century (1902).

TRADEMARK IAS
!

Thakumar Jhuli was written by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder

Abanindranath Tagore -> pioneer in Art

Nandalal Bose -> first recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian
Society of Oriental Art (founded in 1907)

Strikes in Eastern Indian Railway and Clive Jute Mills etc.

Main drawback of the Swadeshi movement was that it was not able to
garner the support of the mass of Muslims and Muslim peasantry.

Riots broke out in Bengal.

Between 1907 & 1908, 9 major leads of Bengal (viz. A. K. Dutta & K.K.
Mitra) were deported Ajit Singh and Lajpat Rai deported.

The Deccan Sabha Gokhale

In 1895, Tilak ousted Ranade and Gokhale from Poona Swarajanik Sabha.

Aurobindo Ghosh (1893-94) in the series of articles termed as:

New Lamps for the Old criticized Congress as out of contact with the
proletariat.

Essays in Indian Economics Ranade (1898).

Economic History of India R. C. Dutta (1901)

Anandamath -- Bankimchandra (1880)

Krishna Charitra Bankimchandra (1886)

India for the Indians -

said Dayanand Saraswati

Political freedom is the life breath of a nation -- said Aurobindo

TRADEMARK IAS
!

We will not achieve any success in our labour, if we croak once a year like
a frog -- Tilak on the performance of the INC

Gurudas Banerjee -- Bengal Council of National Education.

Tilak opposed: Age of Consent Bill (age of marriage of girls from 10 to

12).

Servants of India Society by Gokhale.

REVOLUTIONARY TERRORISM (1897 1918)

Abinav Bharat V. D. Sawarkar (1904)
April 1908 - Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, hurled a bomb at
unpopular judge Kingsford at Muzzaffarpur.
Lord Hardinge was wounded by the bomb of Rash Behari Bose and Sachin
Sanyal (Dec, 1912). Curzon Wylie assassinated in London by Madan Lal
Dhingra.
186 Revolutionaries were killed or convicted between 1908 1918.

Chempakaraman Pillai, also Cemapakaraman Pilla (Malayalam)was an Indian

revolutionary during the Anti-British Movements in India, who went

TRADEMARK IAS
abroad to organise an army to declare war against the British for the
self-rule in Indian subcontinent. He organized Berlin Committee,
Provincial Government of India.

History of the Indian Press

o Portuguese first brought a printing press to India. The first printing press
arrived in India in the year 1556, through the efforts of
Jesuit missionaries. It was brought from Portugal.
o First book published in India was by the Jesuits of Goa in 1557.
o In 1684, East India Co (English) set up a printing press in Bombay (presently
Mumbai)
o In 1776, William Bolts resigned from Companys service and admonished the
authorities in having lots of evidences against other, by publishing
Newspaper. But his scheme failed
o James Augustus Hickey published the first newspaper in India titled The
Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser in 1780.
o Hickeys press seized in 1782 due to his attack on Government
o The Calcutta Gazette published in 1784 showing the political and social
conditions of the English in India.
o The Bengal Journal in 1785
o The Oriental Magazine of Calcutta or Calcutta Amusement in 1785.
o Calcutta Chronicle in 1786
o The Madras Courier: in 1786

TRADEMARK IAS
o Bombay Herald published in 1789
o Circulation of news-papers during this period never exceeded 100 200
pieces.
o In absence of Press laws, the newspapers were at the mercy of the
Companys official.
Censorship of Press Act, 1799 Wellesley imposed censorship on all
newspapers. Punishment of immediate deportation . In 1807, the Act was
extended to cover journals, pamphlets and books.
Hastings relaxed press restrictions. In 1818, pre-censorship abolished.
He refused to deport or cancel the license of James Buckingham, the
editor of The Calcutta Journal.
John Adams imposed stringent press regulations in 1823.

Ram mohan Roys Mirat-ul-Akhbar was stopped. Buckingham was deported.

" Charles Metcalfe (1835 -36) repealed the Regulations of 1823 and earned
The Liberator of Indian Press. Thus rapid growth of newspapers all over
the country.
" Licensing Act (1857-58) was an emergency measure in the wake of the
revolt.
" Registration Act, 1867
" Famine of 1876-81 took a toll of 6 million of people
" Imperial Darbar at Delhi in January 1877.
" Vernacular Press Act (1878):

TRADEMARK IAS
i)

District Magistrate with the previous permission of a local government

can call upon the printer and publisher of any vernacular newspaper to
enter into a bond not to publish anything objectionable against the
government; otherwise, press would be seized.

ii)

Magistrates action was final and no appeal to any court of law is

permissible.

iii)

A vernacular newspaper could get exemption by submitting proofs of

the paper to a government censor.

The Vernacular Press Act was known as Gagging Act of 1857.

General threats to the Indian language press were these:

1

Any attempt to subvert the functioning of democratic institutions

2. Agitations and violent incidents

3. False allegations against British authorities or individuals
4. Attempts at endangering law and order to disturb the normal functioning of
the state
5. Threats to internal stability
Any one or more of the above were punishable by law. No redress could be
sought in any court in the land.

Proceedings initiated against Som Prakash, Dacca Prakash & Samachar.

" In September 1878 the pre-censorship deleted at the instance of

Cranbrook, Secretary of State. A Press Commissioner was appointed.

" Vernacular Press Act was repealed in 1882 by Ripon.

News-paper Act, 1908enacted by Lord Curzon

# I) Magistrates could confiscate printing press which may incite violence
and or murder.

TRADEMARK IAS
# Ii) Appeal to the High Court can be made within 15 days of the order of
forfeiture of press.
The Indian Press Act, 1910
It empowered the Local Government to demand > Rs.500/- and <Rs.2000/- at
the time of Registration, from the keeper of a Printing Press or publisher of
a newspaper and to forfeit the security and annul the declaration of
registration of an offending newspaper.
The government could allow fresh registration and may demand a security of
>Rs.1,000/- and <Rs. 10,000/-.
Aggrieved party could appeal to a Special Tribunal of the High Court within 2
months of such order.

In 1921, a Press Committee was appointed under the chairmanship of

Sir. Tej Bahadur Sapre, then Law member of Viceroys Executive
Council, to review working of press laws. On recommendation, Press
Acts of 1908 and 1910 were repealed.

Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931.

!

A reaction to the Civil Disobedience Movement

Amplified to form the Criminal Amendment Act, 1932

Publication of all news relating to Congress was illegal during 2nd World
War.

In March 1947, Press Enquiry Committee was appointed to examine the

press laws in the light of the fundamental rights formulated by the
constituent assembly.

Press Act 1951: empowered the government to demand and forfeit

security and further security for publication of objectionable matter.
Right to trial by jury. The Act remained in force till 1956.

Press Commission in 1952 under G.S. Rajadhyaksha. It recommended the

formation of All India Press Council, banning of cross word puzzles, and a
strict code for advertisements.

TRADEMARK IAS
KOTHARI Education Commission 196466

Appointed in July 1964

J. F.Dongal from UNESCO served as Associate Secretary of the

Commission.

Introduction of work experience and social service as integral parts of

general education at more or less all levels of education.

Vocationalisation of Secondary Education

A small number of major Universities which would aim to achieve highest

international standards to be built.

Special emphasis on training and quality of school teachers.

National Policy on Education.

Education Policy as based on Kothari Commission adopted in 1968 :

Stressed free and compulsory education up-to the age of 14 years.

Improved emoluments of Teachers

Development of Regional Languages

Science and Research in proportion

Education for Agriculture & Industry

Inexpensive Text Books

Investment of 6% of National Income on education

NEW EDUCATION POLICY, 1986

!

Literacy rate to 56% by 2000 from 36% in 1986.

Universalization of Elementary Education.

10% School Children by 1990 & 25% by 1995 under Higher Secondary
Education.

Improvement of Higher Education

Education to inculcate principles and ideals as enshrined in our

Constitution.

IMPORTANT ACTS AND WHEN THEY CAME INTO FORCE

TRADEMARK IAS
1850: Public Servants (Inquiries) Act
1860: Indian Penal Code
1861: Married Women Property Act
1872: Indian Contract Act
Indian Evidence Act
1881: Negotiable Instruments Act
1882: Transfer of Property Act
Easements Act
1899: Indian Stamp Act
1908: Civil Procedure Code
1923: Workmans Compensation Act
1926: Trade Unions Act
1929: Child Marriage Restraint Act
1930: Sale of Goods Act
1932: Indian Partnership Act
1947: Industrial Dispute Act
1948: Employees State Insurance Act
Minimum Wages Act
1950: Representation of Peoples Act
1952: Commission Of protection of Child Rights Act
1955: Citizenship Act
Essential Commodities Act
Hindu Marriage Act
Insurance Act
Protection of Civil Rights Act
1956: Companies Act
Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act
Hindu Succession Act
1957: Copyright Act
1960: Prevention of Cruelty towards Animals Act
1961: Advocates Act
Dowry Prohibition Act
Income Tax Act
1963: Specific Relief Act
Limitations Act
1969: Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act
1970: Patents Act
1971: Contempt of Courts Act
1972: Indian Wildlife Protection Act
1973: Criminal Procedure Code
1986: Consumer Protection Act

TRADEMARK IAS
Environment Protection Act
1987: Commission of Sati (prevention) Act
Legal Service Authority Act
1988: Motor Vehicles Act
Prevention of Corruption Act
1993: Protection of Human Rights Act
1997: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act
1999: Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA)
Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime (MCOCA)
Trade Markets Act
2000: Information Technology Act
Juvenile Justice (care and protection of Children) Act
2002: Competition Act
Prevention of Money-laundering Act
Biological Diversity Act
2003: Repatriation of Prisoners Act
2004: National Commission for Minority Education Institute Act
2005: Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act
Disaster Management Act
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
National Tax Tribunal Act
Right to Information Act
Special Economic Zones Act
Weapons of Mass destruction and their Delivery Systems (prohibition of
unlawful activities) Act
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act
2006: Food Safety and Standards Act