INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS: FOUNDATION AND THE MODERATE PHASE

Question 1

Formation of Indian National Congress?

Answer 1

A retired English civil servant, A.O. Hume organized the first session of the Indian National Congress at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay in December 1885.

Question 2

First session of Indian National Congress was presided over by?

Answer 2

Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee.

Question 3

Who was elected thrice as the President of the Indian National Congress?

Answer 3

Dadabhai Naoroji.

Question 4

Who was the first women delegate to address the Congress session?

Answer 4

In 1890, Kadambini Ganguly the first women graduate of Calcutta University, addressed the Congress session.

Question 5

How many delegates attended the first session of Indian National Congress?

Answer 5

72.

Question 6

Safety valve theory?

Answer 6

Hume formed the Congress with an idea that it would prove to be a safety valve for releasing the growing discontent of the Indians.
Extremist leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai believed in the safety valve theory.

Question 7

Conspiracy theory?

Answer 7

• The Marxist historian’s conspiracy theory was an offering of the safety valve notion.
  R.P. Dutt opined that the Indian National Congress was born out of a conspiracy to abort a popular uprising in India and the burgeois leaders were a party to it.

Question 8

Lightning conductor theory?

Answer 8

Gopal Krishna Gokhale proposed the “lightning conductor theory,” suggesting that the INC was an expression of politically conscious Indians’ aspiration to form a national entity representing their political and economic demands.
Bipin Chandra observes, the early Congress leaders used Hume as a lightning conductor i.e., as a catalyst to bring together the nationalist forces even if under the guise of a safety valve.

Question 9

Important Moderate leaders?

Answer 9

1. Dadabhai Naoroji
2. Pherozshah Mehta
3. D.E. Wacha
4. W.C. Bonnerjee
5. S.N. Banerjea

Question 10

What was the moderates approach?

Answer 10

• They were staunch believers of liberalism and moderate politics.
• Moderate political activity involved constitutional agitation within the confines of law.

Question 11

Two pronged methodology of moderates?

Answer 11

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. They used the method of ‘prayer and petition’ and if that failed, they resorted to constitutional agitation.

Question 12

A British committee of Indian National Congress was established in?

Answer 12

London in 1889 which had India as its organ.

Question 13

Who put forward the “drain theory “ to explain British exploitation of India?

Answer 13

Dadabhai Naoroji in 1867.
Thus the moderates were able to create an all India public opinion that British rule in India was the major cause of India’s poverty and economic backwardness.

Question 14

What were the demands of early nationalists?

Answer 14

The early nationalists demanded reduction in land revenue, abolition of salt tax, improvement in working conditions of plantation labour, reduction in military expenditure, and encouragement to modern industry through tariff protection and direct government aid.

Question 15

Legislative councils in India had no real official power till_____.

Answer 15

1920.

Question 16

The Imperial Legislative Council constituted by the Indian Councils Act ______ was an impotent body designed to disguise official members as having been passed by a representative body.

Answer 16

Indian Council Act (1861).

Question 17

From 1885 to 1892, the nationalist demands for constitutional reforms were centred around?

Answer 17

1. Expansion of councils— greater participation fo Indian in councils.
2. Reform of councils— more powers to councils, especially greater control over franchise.

Question 18

The slogan ‘No taxation without representation’ raised by nationalists resulted in passing of which Act?

Answer 18

Indian Council Act of 1892.

Question 19

Who demanded self government on the lines of the self governing colonies of Canada and America?

Answer 19

1. Dadabhai Naoroji (1904)
2. Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1905)
3. Lokmanya Tilak (1906).

Question 20

Indian Councils Act 1892?

Answer 20

• Main Provisions
  1. Number of additional members in Imperial Legislative Councils and the Provincial Legislative Councils was raised. In Imperial Legislative Council, now the governor-general could have ten to sixteen non-officials (instead of six to ten previously).
  2. The non-oficial members of the Indian legislative council were to be nominated by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and provincial legislative councils. The members could be recommended by universities, municipalities, zamindars and chambers of commerce. So the principle of representation was introduced.
  3. Budget could be discussed.
  4. Questions could be asked.
• Limitations
  1. The officials retained their majority in the council, thus making ineffective the non-official voice.
  2. The “reformed’ Imperial Legislative Council met, during its tenure till 1909, on an average for only thirteen days in a year, and the number of unofficial Indian members present was only five out of twenty-four.
  3. The budget could not be voted upon, nor could any amendments
  be made to it.
  4. Supplementaries could not be asked, nor could answers to any
  question be discussed.

Question 21

Campaign for General Administrative Reforms?

Answer 21

1. Indianisation of goverment service: on the economic grounds that British civil servants got very high emoluments while inclusion of Indians would be more economical, on political grounds that, since salaries of British bureaucrats were remitted back home and pensions paid in England (all drawn from Indian revenue), this amounted to economic drain of national resources; and on moral grounds that Indians were being discriminated against by being kept away from positions of rust and responsibility.
2. Call for separation of judicial from executive functions.
3. Criticism of an oppressive and tyrannical bureaucracy and an expensive and time-consuming judicial system.
4. Criticism of an aggressive foreign policy which resulted in annexation of Burma, attack on Afghanistan and suppression of tribals in the North-West all costing heavily for the Indian treasury.
5. Call for 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.
6. Demand for better treatment for Indian labour abroad in other British colonies, where they faced oppression and racial discrimination.

Question 22

What did the civil rights included in the modern Indian history?

Answer 22

• Civil rights included the right to
  1. Free Press
  2. Association
  3. Speech (expression)
  4. Thought.

Question 23

Who called Indian National Congress as ‘a factory of sedition’?

Answer 23

Lord Dufferin.