Question

Give a brief account of the working of the Indian National Congress during the early years of its formation.

Answer 1

• Answer:  The Indian National Congress first convened in December 1885, though the idea of an Indian nationalist movement opposed to British rule dated from the 1850s. During its first several decades, the Congress Party passed fairly moderate reform resolutions, though many within the organization were becoming radicalized by the increased poverty that accompanied British imperialism. In the early 20th century, elements within the party began to endorse a policy of swadeshi (“of our own country”), which called on Indians to boycott of imported British goods and promoted Indian-made goods. By 1917 the group’s “extremist” Home Rule wing, which was formed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant the previous year, had begun to exert significant influence by appealing to India’s diverse social classes.
• In the 1920s and ’30s the Congress Party, led by Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, began advocating nonviolent noncooperation. The new change in tactics was precipitated by the protest over the perceived feebleness of the constitutional reforms enacted in early 1919 (Rowlatt Acts) and Britain’s manner of carrying them out, as well as by the widespread outrage among Indians in response to the massacre of civilians in Amritsar (Punjab) that April. Many of the acts of civil disobedience that followed were implemented through the All India Congress Committee, formed in 1929, which advocated avoiding taxes as a protest against British rule. Notable in that regard was the Salt March in 1930 led by Gandhi. Another wing of the Congress Party, which believed in working within the existing system, contested general elections in 1923 and 1937 as the Swaraj (Home Rule) Party, with particular success in the latter year, winning 7 out of 11 provinces.

Explanation:

Answer 2

From its foundation from on 28 December 1885 A.O.Hume, a retired British officer, until the time India gained its independence on 15 August 1947, the Indian National Congress was considered to be the largest and most prominent Indian public organization, as well as the central and defining influence of the long Indian Independence Movement.