Question

What is safety valve theory of indian national congress?

Answer 1

• The Safety Valve Theory says that Indian National Congress was created by the British so that another 1857 like revolt wouldn’t occur and the grievances of people would have a medium to be expressed through. This would have ensured that accumulated grievances don’t steam off, as happened in 1857.

• The theory has been discarded. While other answers have described the basis of this theory, I will directly come to why this theory holds no ground
• .The Indian Leaders had come together through different organisations before the formation of INC. Madras Mahajan Sabha, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Indian Association of Calcutta were some of the prominent ones. Thus, the Indian Leaders had mediums to express themselves. INC being a safety valve is, but a fraction of the truth.

• A.O. Hume had been sympathetic to Indian cause even before there was any talk of building a political organisation. Hume, as the District Magistrate of Etawah, defended the district during the 1857 revolt.

• Blaming the uprising on the British government's political ineptitude, Hume sympathised strongly with the plight of ordinary Indians unwittingly caught up in the action, writing, and "God help the poor cowed villagers I can't...and nobody else seems inclined to do so".

• He pursued a deliberate policy of mercy towards the local population estimating that there were no more than 3,000 rebels in the area.
• From 1850, when he was first posted to India, Hume had been a prominent social reformer introducing secular education in Hindi and Urdu, newspapers in the same language, and improving health care provision. [4]
• A person, who could see the plight of Indians in times as tough as 1857 revolt for the British, wouldn’t create an organisation as INC just for the sake of its proposed in role in continuation of British Empire. Of course that is one reason, but several historians also regard it as a means of saving INC from the ire of British administrators by the early founders including Hume.