Back in Time is ED’s newspaper-like column that reports the past as though it had happened just yesterday. It allows the reader to relive it several years later, on the date it occurred.
Bombay, 28th December, 1885- Yesterday afternoon, in the large hall of the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, a momentous gathering of Indians and British officers inaugurated the first annual session of the newly founded Indian National Congress.
Called into being by Sir Allan Octavian Hume, C.B. (a retired member of the Bengal Civil Service), the Congress convened seventy-two delegates from all provinces of India, lawyers, journalists, landholders, and reformers, to consider the grievances and hopes of the people under British rule.
Hon. W C Bonnerjee of Bengal (Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee) was elected President of the Congress, and Sir A.O. Hume assumed the post of Honorary Secretary of the new body.
Among the distinguished attendees were Sir Dadabhai Naoroji (present by letter, as he was confined by illness), Mr Surendranath Banerjee and other notable gentlemen from Bengal, Mr Badruddin Tyabji (Ahmednagar), Mr Pherozeshah Mehta (Bombay), Mr S Ramaswami Mudaliar and Sir Subramania Iyer (Madras), Mr Romesh Chunder Dutt (Bengal), and prominent Press proprietors and jurists from the Punjab and the North-West Provinces.
Two British officers, Sir William Wedderburn, K.C.S.I., of Bombay, and Mr John Jardine of the Punjab, also took part in the founding proceedings. The gathering was reported widely in the Anglo-Indian and vernacular press, and it was noted that delegates came in a friendly, decorous spirit.
In his opening remarks, Sir A.O Hume explained that the Congress was established at the Viceroy’s approval, not as a body in opposition but as “a common meeting-place for the representatives of Indian thought, and had no purpose of violence or sedition, but only to present Indian views on reforming government policy and administration.”
Mr Hume expressed his confidence that the assembly would advance “the harmony of subject and ruler”, and that in years to come its members would speak for India with authority. Mr W.C. Bonnerjee, taking the chair, declared himself proud to preside over what he called “the first national assembly ever yet convened in India.”
He noted that the attendees included delegates from Karachi, Ahmedabad, Surat, Poona, Bombay, and other districts of the Bombay Presidency; from towns and associations in Madras; from Lahore, Lucknow, Agra, and Benares, representing the North-West Provinces; and even as far afield as Calcutta (Bengal).
The President explained that the objects of the Congress might be classed broadly under two heads.
In Mr Bonnerjee’s words, the Congress must work to “eradicate by friendly intercourse all possible race, creed, or provincial prejudices” and to consolidate the common sentiment of national unity. He emphasised that Indians of every faith, Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Christian, and others, could come together on equal terms.
Every delegate agreed in principle that their loyalty to the British Throne remained undiminished, and indeed Sir Dadabhai Naoroji (in a letter read by Mr Dutt) had reminded the Congress of the delegates’ duty as faithful subjects of Her Majesty.
The session lasted three days. On Friday, the opening addresses by Mr Hume, Mr Bonnerjee, and others were followed by patient debate on the Congress’s structure. Resolutions were passed to hold future annual meetings in rotation and to appoint committees.
It was agreed that a joint petition expressing the people’s demands should be forwarded to the Viceroy at each year’s end. A standing Committee of the Congress was formed under Mr Hume’s supervision, charged with collecting grievances from every province and laying them before the Government in due course.
Mr Badruddin Tyabji urged that Sindh and the Bombay Deccan, from which the recent Peasant Associations sent speakers, should also have a louder voice in New Delhi.
Yet all demands were conveyed in the tone of petition, not protest. The Congressmen affirmed they sought “administrative reforms” within the Empire, not independence.
By Saturday evening, all resolutions were formally adopted, and the first session was brought to a close with a dignified ceremony. The President, Mr Bonnerjee, declared that if Providence allowed, the next Congress would assemble in Calcutta in December of the coming year.
Mr Hume remarked that this successful meeting had “laid the foundations” of an enduring national organisation. As he rose to adjourn the session, Mr Bonnerjee assured those present that, though “judged from the standard of the British Parliament,” they were not strictly elected by popular constituencies, they had earned the right to speak for their countrymen by virtue of their knowledge and earnestness.
Also Read: Back In Time: 117 Years Ago Today, The Indian National Congress Boycotted British Goods
Post Scriptum
Indeed, as historians observe, the Congress of 1885 was “the first modern nationalist movement” in colonial Asia. In the decades that followed, under leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and many others, the party became the principal driver of India’s struggle for independence.
After independence in 1947, the Congress was the dominant party in India: its founder, Pandit Nehru, became the first Prime Minister, and Congress-led governments directed the nation’s development through fifty years of mostly uninterrupted rule. Over seventeen general elections, Congress coalitions governed for more than fifty-four years.
In the Republic of India, the Congress shaped the polity as a secular, big-tent party committed to democratic government. It gave India its first President, built the public-sector economy and established the Planning Commission and Five-Year Plans under Nehru, and presided over critical events (among them the Green Revolution, the 1960s wars, and the Emergency of 1975-77).
Though its fortunes have waxed and waned since, the Congress remains one of the country’s two major parties.
In 2024, it won ninety-nine seats in the Lok Sabha, serving as the principal opposition to the ruling coalition. Thus, the little Congress of Bombay lives on today, in 2025, continues as the grand old party of Indian politics.
Sources: The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Times of India
Find the blogger: Katyayani Joshi
This post is tagged under: Indian National Congress, Congress Foundation Day, Indian Freedom Movement, Modern Indian History, Colonial India, Bombay 1885, Nationalism in India, Indian Independence Struggle, Political History of India, British Raj, Freedom Fighters of India, Indian Democracy, Nation Building, History Through Journalism, Back In Time India, Then And Now India, Indian Politics Explained, Congress Legacy
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