A first person observer’s rare account of the history of the Indian National Congress chronicles the movements leading to its birth in 1885 as well as the multifaceted growth achieved during the first three decades of its political journey up to 1915.

Unlike any other history of the Indian National Congress, it is more than a narrative of what during the initial years the Congress and its organs had planned and accomplished under the colonial impediments.

Mazumdar contextualised the Indian National Congress in a wide-ranging history of the growth of political consciousness in British India; the most important feature of this historical account is that Mazumdar, being a pre-Gandhian Congress leader, for the first time, put forward the idea that the Indian National Congress was not just a party, it was also a national movement.

Amvika Charan Mazumdar (1851-1922) was born at Sendiya, in the district of Faridpore in present-day Bangladesh. While studying in Calcutta he met Surendranath Banerjea in 1875 and became involved in the national movement. In the agitation against Partition of Bengal in 1905 Mazumdar was a major leader, and that led to his eventual elevation to the President’s position at Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress in 1916. One of the stoutest advocates of constitutional development of India, Mazumdar in his presidential speech at Lucknow stated: “Call it Home Rule, call it Self-Rule, call it Swaraj . . . it is representative government.”

In 1915 Mazumdar published Indian National Evolution which is the first history of the Indian National Congress.

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya is the Chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research. He was earlier Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1975-91, 1995-2003), and Vice-Chancellor, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India (1991-1995). He has also held teaching and research assignments at the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, the University of Chicago, St Antony’s College at Oxford University, and El Colegio de Mexico.

Contents

Preface

• Introduction
• The Genesis of Political Movement in India
• The Early Friends of India
• The Indian Press
• The Gathering Clouds
• The Clouds Lifted
• The Dawning Light
• The Inauguration and the Father of the Congress
• The First Session of the Congress
• The Career of the Congress
• The Surat Imbroglio and the Allahabad Convention
• The Work in England
• The Congress: A National Movement
• The Success of the Congress: Unification
• The Partition of Bengal
• The Indian Unrest and its Remedy
• The Depression
• Reorganization of the Congress
• The Reconstruction of the Indian Civil Service
• Indian Representation in British Parliament
• India in Party Politics
• The Educational Problem
• Indian Renaissance
• The Aim and Goal of the Congress
• Conclusion
• Postscript: India and the War
• New Spirit and Self-Government for India

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