Rise of Nationalism and the Indian National Movement (1885–1947)
Rise of Nationalism and the Indian National Movement (1885–1947). This domain tests chronology and causality: which phase of the Congress used which method, and what pushed each shift from petition to mass satyagraha.
Founding and the Moderate phase
- The Indian National Congress first met in December 1885 at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay; W.C. Bonnerjee presided and A.O. Hume acted as organiser.
- Moderates used petitions, deputations and the press, but their sharpest weapon was economic argument: Dadabhai Naoroji's drain theory (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1901) and R.C. Dutt's Economic History of India.
- The "safety valve" reading - that Hume created the Congress to channel discontent - is a contested interpretation, not an established fact; present it as a historiographical debate.
Extremist turn to mass politics
- Curzon's partition of Bengal (announced 1905, effective 16 October 1905) produced Swadeshi and boycott under Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal; the Surat session of 1907 split the party, which reunited at Lucknow in 1916.
- Gandhi converted elite politics into mass politics: Champaran (1917), Kheda and the Ahmedabad mill strike (1918), then Non-Cooperation (1920–22) allied to the Khilafat agitation.
- The Lahore session (December 1929) adopted Purna Swaraj; the Dandi March (12 March–6 April 1930) opened Civil Disobedience; Quit India was launched on 8 August 1942.
Worked example
Why did Non-Cooperation end abruptly in 1922? Reason in layers: the immediate trigger was Chauri Chaura (February 1922), where a crowd burned a police station; Gandhi held that a movement pledged to non-violence could not continue after such violence; he also feared losing control of a radicalised base while the Khilafat momentum was fading. The withdrawal shows his method, not the movement's failure - it had already shaken colonial confidence.
Traps
- 1885 is the founding session, 1886 the first annual session (Calcutta).
- 26 January 1930 was Purna Swaraj Day, not the date of independence.
- The Poona Pact (1932) was between Gandhi and Ambedkar, not a Congress–League agreement.