While
reading history of this august party, that is attributed the credit
for having gains freedom from British rule; I found some very
interesting points in that. After 1857 uprise against East India
Company rule, British parliament passed an act and by that the power
of rule was transferred to the British Crown and India became a
British domicile. Ever since then, the administration of the British
government was studying the behavior of Indian people and a very
accurate scrutiny was made in that so that they can understand Indian
mind and so they may be able to rule such a wast land without much
hassles. Government gazettes were prepared carefully so, after
studying them the British officers shall be able to understand
natives and their expectations appropriately. They wanted to give a
good governance in this country because the Queen Victoria had
promised in her proclamation that this is responsibility bestowed
upon British Crown by the Almighty and she wanted her government to
do the best. This was so because the British were astonished that
they could take over this country without much efforts. A group of
thinkers had advised the Crown that is was a gift of God to Briton
and should be treated in that way. This led them to advise Queen
Victoria to give that promise however, there was other group who
believed in treating Indians as their slaves same as the previous
rulers of Indian origin did to natives. In this way we see two groups
of British were active in Indian administration. Hume and some
Scottish as well as Irish officers were favoring Queens promise while
Macaulay, Churchill and many more were in favor of treating Indians
as their slaves. Congress party was formed by the first group and
Hume did admit of that in his speech that he delivered at the time of
founding of Congress party in Bombay on December 1885. Excerpt of
that speech is given below; read it the next post.
Already
some freedom activity was a afoot and the government had realized
that the desire for total freedom by the nobles was not to be
disregarded. An unsuccessful attempt by Vasidev B. Phadke was just
about and many more such incidences were happening all over the
country. To that, the atrocity at Jalianwala Baug added more pressure
on the administration at the London office of India. Some intelligent
attempt was very much essential to either curb or streamline these
freedom fighter's moves. All this was taken up as against the scene
of recently calmed uprise on 1857. British administration wanted some
thing tangible to hook on and in that direction they appointed some
officers such as Allan Octavian Hume, to arrange for such an outlet
for disposal of unrest among natives on various issues. The purpose
of formation of a body so that the government can have sensible and
fruitful dialogue with natives to understand them. Already some
British officers were shot dead and some were wounded by restless
youth such as Kanhere brothers. In view of that Allan Octavian Hume,
prepared a proposal to form a joint body of British and native
English educated and English cultured natives for the interaction to
consider and if possible to resolve the problems in the
administration. For that they wanted a friendly and mature dialogue
between these two groups, namely, British officers on one side and
native intellectuals on the other side. For that British wanted
natives who are well accomplished in English governance practices and
for that he preferred to have advocates and Barristers in that group
to have dialogue with the government on many issues. He proposed for
that first at Calcutta University in 1883, and requested Alumni to
join that body and help secure place in administration for the
benefit of all
natives. Calcutta was then Capital of British government.
In
May 1885 Hume secured approval of then Administration to form and get
approved by the Viceroy; "Indian National Union", was
finally formed. On 12 October 1885, Hume and a group of English
educated Indians also published "An Appeal from the People of
India to the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland". The Appeal
asked British voters in the 1885
British general election
to support candidates sympathetic to the positions of Indians. These
included opposition to taxing India to finance the British campaigns
in Afghanistan, and support for legislative reform in India. That
appeal was not accepted by the electoral of Great Britain and Ireland
and that was a rude shock as generally it was expected that English
people in general were in favor of Indian natives but that was not
the position. Finally, the group decided to form a separate political
group as Indian realized that their fight they have to fight on their
own and cannot rely on anybody else. Indian National Congress was
formed in Mumbai, then Bombay on 28th December 1885. Only 72 people
attended that meeting at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit college. Mr. Hume
became secretary and Womesh
Chandra Bonnerjee of Culcutta
became first president. Besides Hume, two additional British members,
both Scottish civil servants, were members of the founding group,
William
Wedderburn
and Justice (later, Sir) John
Jardine.
The other members were mostly Hindus from the Bombay
and Madras
Presidencies.
The party was working on the guidance from the British administration
that was placed at India office in London. Interesting part in that
is none of the initial members were from the erstwhile ruling
families, they were either businessmen or advocates from wealthy
families of natives who were well trenched in English culture and
language, elite from British angle; there were few from the real
common man society. This shows that the Indian National Congress was
a creation of British government with help from loyal English
educated natives of proper financial position and those holding
position of merit in the Indian society. By this strategy British
wanted to guide our freedom movement in manner most suitable to them.
It is this, that later created a group of natives who wanted no
interference in their freedom movement by British. That group of
activists believed in removing British forcibly by violent methods,
and they continued to keep on doing their bloody activities. There
were some who were fluctuating from one to other and they were with
Congress for some time and otherwise with this opposite group as it
was convenient. Subhash Chandra Bose and Vitthalbhai and Vallabhbhai
Pater brothers belonged to that type. In this way we see there were
three types of people active in freedom struggle.
On
face it was given an impression that some body to voice Indian side
was created but in actuality that was only a ploy to keep Indians
from trying to do something more effective in marching to freedom. To
undercut that later on some native leaders such as Lokmanya Tilak and
Gokhale with Ranade joined that party to force British part in the
party to yield to their demands. However, not much could be gained by
that strategy as most people of this vast country were not aware of
what is freedom in the first place as most were already used to life
of bonded labor for many centuries under their arrogant landlords.
The freedom fight was mainly being fought by these landlords and
their hands; masses not aware of what is going on. As a result
nothing was being gained by that Congress party excepting creating
some fuss on paltry issues like tax on salt. As both Gohkale and
Tilak passed out as it always happens there was a big vacuum created
and there was nobody to take up the reigns of this party. That was in
1920; and at that time British administration who were on the lookout
for a suitable hand to help them hold on this party, they discovered
one man Mohandas K. Gandhi from Africa where he had created some
debut on the issues of local people. They were already weary of
violent freedom fighters such as Kanhere brothers, Savarker brothers
and many more who were all out to simply kill the British officers.
Due to this British administration had a big problem as nobody from
Briton was interested in working in India, their families were not
wanting any posting in India out of fear of being killed. Something
had to be done and convert that violent freedom movement into a less
violent and if possible non-violent movement so that British
administration can work without fear of being killed by the freedom
fighters and thus continue to hold on this country forever.
Part
two continues in next post –
20 January 2016
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