Discuss the controversies regarding the origin of the Indian National Congress.

Controversies regarding the origin of the Indian National Congress:

Since the 1ndian National Congress has played an important role in India’s history, it was natural that contemporary opinion as well as subsequent historians should have speculated about the reasons which led to its establishment.

In fact this question has been discussed ever since the congress was founded.

Many scholars have made diligent attempts to identify the efforts of an individual or individuals or the particular circumstances which can be considered as the principal immediate factors behind the event.

But the evidence is conflicting. The issue continues to be discussed among historians, a hundred years after the event.

We shall see how far the foundation of the Indian National Congress can be explainec in terms of the alternative positions of:

1. Official Conspiracy Theory:

If a body like the Indian National Congress had been founded by an Indian, it would have been accepted as something normal and logical.

But the fact that the idea of an all-India political organisation was given concrete and final shape by an Englishmen -A.O. Hume has given rise to many speculations.

Why should an Englishman take the initiative?

Moreover, Hume was not just any Englishman: he belonged to the Indian Civil Service.

It is said that while in service he had come across a mass of material which suggested that as a result of the sufferings of the masses and alienation of intellectuals, much discontent had accumulated and this could pose a threat to the continuance of British rule.

2. Ambitions and Rivalries of Indian Elite:

During the last two decades many historians, mainly centred at Cambridge, have argued that the Indian National Congress was, in some ways, not really national,

that it was a movement of self-interested individuals and that it functioned as a vehicle for the pursuit of their material interests and parochial rivalries. (Anil Seal has been the most influential historian to express this view).

But this view has been challenged in India. It is true that lust for power or desire to serve one’s interests cannot be totally ignored. 

But at the same time the general factors cannot be brushed aside. Such an explanation ignores the feeling of hurt caused by racial discrimination.

feeline of nride in the achievements of fellowcountrymen and also the slowly growing perception that interests of their countrymen would be better served if relations between Britain and India were restructured.

3. Need for an All-India Body:

Viewed in a larger context, the founding of the Indian National Congress was a response to the then existing political and socio-economic conditions which had resulted from long subjection to the alien rule.

During the 1880s, as we have seen, the idea of a national organisation was very much in the air.

In fact, during the last ten days of 1885, as many as five conferences were held in different parts of the country.

The Madras Mahajan Sabha held its second annual conference from 22 to 24, December. It was so timed as to enable the members of the Sabha to attend the Congress at Poona.

The Second Indian National Conference, convened by the Indian Association, met at Calcutta.

Early in December 1885 when the plan to hold a conference at Poona was announced, an attempt seems to have been made to persuade Surendranath Banerjea to cancel his conference. But he expressed his inability to do so at that stage.

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