National Movement - Early Phase and Associations

Why the Early Phase Matters for CDS

The UPSC CDS General Studies paper consistently draws History questions from the freedom struggle, and the early or Moderate phase is among the most predictable. Names of associations, their founders, the year of Congress sessions and the demands raised return year after year, often as direct one-liners or match-the-following sets.

Unlike the dramatic Gandhian era, this period is quiet but dense with facts. If you fix the chronology firmly, you convert these into guaranteed marks rather than guesses. The same names — Naoroji, Gokhale, Banerjee, Hume — recur across every standard reference, so a single focused revision pays off repeatedly.

This page builds the topic the way an exam answer needs it: first the causes that produced nationalism, then the associations in date order, then the Congress, its leaders, methods and gains. Read it once carefully and the timeline will stick.

The Setting: After the Revolt of 1857

The Revolt of 1857 failed, and in 1858 the British Crown took direct control of India through the Government of India Act, ending East India Company rule. Queen Victoria's Proclamation promised non-interference in religion and equal treatment, but in practice colonial exploitation deepened and the promises were rarely honoured.

Yet the second half of the nineteenth century also created the very conditions for a national awakening. The British, in unifying India for administration and trade, unintentionally welded its diverse regions into a single political unit with a shared grievance. Out of this contradiction modern Indian nationalism was born.

Forces that produced nationalism

• Economic drain — deindustrialisation, heavy land revenue and the export of India's wealth, analysed sharply by Dadabhai Naoroji.
• Western education — a new English-educated middle class absorbed ideas of liberty, democracy and nationalism.
• Modern press and communication — newspapers, railways and the telegraph created a shared all-India consciousness.
• Racial discrimination — events like the Ilbert Bill controversy (1883) exposed British arrogance and stung educated Indians.
• Reactionary policies of Lytton — the Vernacular Press Act (1878) and the Arms Act (1878) under Viceroy Lytton angered Indians and pushed them towards organised protest.
• Influence of world events — movements for unification and democracy in Italy, Germany and elsewhere inspired educated Indians with the idea of a nation.

The Ilbert Bill episode is especially instructive. The Bill sought to let Indian judges try Europeans in certain cases; the furious agitation by the British community to block it taught Indians a sharp lesson — that organised pressure produced results, and that they too must unite to be heard.

Pre-Congress Political Associations

Before the Congress, several regional bodies trained Indians in political work. They were largely led by lawyers, journalists and landlords, and their main tool was the petition.

• Bangabhasha Prakasika Sabha (1836) — one of the earliest, in Bengal.
• Landholders' Society (1838) — Calcutta; first organised body to protect landlord interests.
• British India Society (1839) and the Bengal British India Society (1843).
• British Indian Association (1851) — Calcutta, a merger of earlier groups.
• East India Association (1866) — founded in London by Dadabhai Naoroji to influence British opinion and educate the British public on Indian affairs.

These early bodies were narrow in membership and conservative in tone — dominated by wealthy landlords and merchants who mostly defended their own class interests. Still, they introduced Indians to the machinery of constitutional politics: drafting memoranda, sending deputations and arguing within the law. This apprenticeship was essential for what followed.

The Associations of the 1870s and 1880s

A more politically conscious wave of associations appeared in the decade before the Congress. These directly fed leaders and ideas into the 1885 founding.

• Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870) — founded by M. G. Ranade and others; acted as a bridge between government and people.
• Indian League (1875) — Calcutta, founded by Sisir Kumar Ghosh.
• Indian Association (1876) — Calcutta, founded by Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose; the most important pre-Congress body, it sought to unite Indians on common political questions.
• Madras Mahajan Sabha (1884) — founded by M. Veeraraghavachariar, G. Subramania Iyer and P. Anandacharlu.
• Bombay Presidency Association (1885) — founded by Pherozeshah Mehta, K. T. Telang and Badruddin Tyabji.

Founding of the Indian National Congress (1885)

The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded in December 1885 at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay. Its first session was presided over by Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee and attended by 72 delegates.

The role of A. O. Hume

Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant, was the chief organiser and the Congress's first General Secretary. The older “safety valve” theory held that Hume founded the Congress to release rising discontent harmlessly before it exploded into another 1857; modern historians like Bipan Chandra stress that Indian leaders consciously used Hume's lightning-conductor as a cover and turned the platform into an instrument for genuine nationalist work.

The early character of the Congress

In its first years the Congress met once a year, in December, in a different city. It functioned as a debating and resolution-passing body rather than an agitating one. Each session elected a President, passed resolutions on key demands, and forwarded them to the government. By 1890 it had become the recognised all-India voice of educated opinion, and figures like Badruddin Tyabji, who became its first Muslim President in 1887, gave it a national breadth.

Aims, Demands and Methods of the Moderates

The leaders of the early Congress are called Moderates because of their faith in British justice and their gentle, constitutional methods.

Their methods — the “3 P's”

• Petitions to the government.
• Prayers and appeals to British conscience.
• Protests through speeches, articles and resolutions.

This is often summarised as the politics of Petition, Prayer and Protest, or as a “mendicancy” (begging) approach — a criticism later made by the Extremists.

Main demands

• Expansion of legislative councils and more Indian representation.
• Holding the ICS examination simultaneously in India and England, and raising the maximum age.
• Reduction of military expenditure and land revenue.
• Separation of the judiciary from the executive.
• Freedom of speech and the press.
• Indianisation of services to reduce the heavy “home charges” sent to Britain.
• Development of Indian industries and protection of native enterprise.

The Moderates were not naive flatterers. Their strategy was to win over British public opinion and Parliament by exposing the gap between liberal British ideals and illiberal colonial practice. To this end they even ran a British Committee of the Congress in London (1889) and published the journal India to lobby the British electorate.

The Leading Moderate Personalities

Know these figures by name, contribution and one identifying fact.

• Dadabhai Naoroji — Drain of Wealth theory; thrice Congress President; first Indian in the British House of Commons (1892).
• Gopal Krishna Gokhale — Gandhi's political guru; founded the Servants of India Society (1905); a master of the budget debate.
• Pherozeshah Mehta — the “Lion of Bombay.”
• Surendranath Banerjee — founder of the Indian Association; the “Indian Burke.”
• M. G. Ranade — social reformer and economic thinker of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.
• W. C. Bonnerjee — first President of the INC.
• Badruddin Tyabji — first Muslim President of the Congress (1887), a symbol of its inclusive aim.
• R. C. Dutt — economic historian whose Economic History of India reinforced the drain critique.

A useful way to remember them is by region: Bombay gave Naoroji, Mehta and Tyabji; Bengal gave Banerjee and Bonnerjee; Maharashtra gave Ranade and Gokhale; and the south contributed leaders of the Madras Mahajan Sabha. Together they made the Congress a genuinely all-India body rather than a single province's club.

Achievements and Limitations of the Early Phase

What the Moderates achieved

• Created a nationwide political platform and a tradition of organised politics.
• Built a powerful economic critique of colonial rule (the drain theory).
• Trained the public in democratic and constitutional ideas.
• Forced the British to pass the Indian Councils Act of 1892, slightly expanding councils.

Where they fell short

• Their methods were slow and won few concrete gains, frustrating the youth.
• They had a narrow social base — mainly the educated urban elite, with little contact with peasants and workers.
• Over-reliance on British goodwill that rarely materialised.

Worked Example: Building a Timeline

A common CDS task is arranging events in chronological order. Let us solve one step by step.

Previous-Year Style Practice

Test yourself with a question in the exact CDS pattern before moving on.

The Indian Councils Act of 1892

One concrete fruit of Moderate agitation was the Indian Councils Act of 1892. It is small in scope but examinable.

• Increased the number of additional (non-official) members in the central and provincial legislative councils.
• Introduced an indirect, limited element of election through recommendation by bodies like universities, municipalities and chambers of commerce, though the word “election” was avoided.
• Allowed members to discuss the budget and ask questions, but not to vote on it.

Quick Revision