Rise of Nationalism: Associations and the press

Spectrum records that the Indian League was started in 1875 by Sisir Kumar Ghosh to stimulate national feeling and encourage political education; Shambhu Charan Mukherjee was associated with its founding. The League soon foundered and was superseded in 1876 by the Indian Association of Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose, which had much the same aims. Sisir Kumar Ghosh and his brother Motilal Ghosh are better remembered for the Amrita Bazar Patrika, which Bipan Chandra notes became an English- language paper only in 1878 and remained one of the leading nationalist newspapers.

Bipan Chandra's old NCERT Modern India calls the Landholders' Society the earliest public association of modern India. Also known as the Zamindari Association, it was formed in the late 1830s by zamindars such as Dwarkanath Tagore, Prasanna Kumar Tagore and Radhakanta Deb. Its aims were narrow, the protection of landlord interests, but Spectrum notes that it marked the beginning of organised political activity and of constitutional agitation for the redress of grievances. In 1851 it merged with the Bengal British India Society to form the British Indian Association.

The British Indian Association came into being in 1851 when the Landholders' Society and the Bengal British India Society merged. Spectrum records its petition to Parliament on the eve of the Charter Act of 1853: a separate legislature of a popular character, separation of executive from judicial functions, lower salaries for higher officers and abolition of the salt duty, abkari and stamp duties. The Act of 1853 partly met this by adding six members to the Governor-General's council for legislative purposes. Bipan Chandra adds that the Association came to identify itself with zamindari interests, which is why younger men later broke away to form the Indian Association in 1876.

Spectrum and Bipan Chandra's old NCERT text agree that the Bengal British India Society was founded in 1843 and that Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose founded the Indian Association in July 1876. The Indian League, the body it superseded, was started by Sisir Kumar Ghosh in 1875, not 1885. The Bombay Presidency Association was formed in 1885 by Pherozeshah Mehta, K.T. Telang and Badruddin Tyabji, the year the Congress itself was founded; Bipan Chandra describes it as the work of militant Bombay intellectuals who broke away from older leaders. So pairs 1 and 3 are correct and pairs 2 and 4 have their dates swapped.

Spectrum quotes the aims of the Bengal British India Society, founded in 1843: to collect and spread information on the actual condition of the people of British India, and to use peaceful and lawful means to secure the welfare and extend the just rights of all classes. Bipan Chandra's old NCERT text puts it the same way: unlike the Landholders' Society, which promoted the class interests of landlords, the 1843 society was meant to protect and promote general public interests. The two bodies merged in 1851 to form the British Indian Association, so the 1843 society was short-lived but marked a wider outlook than the zamindars' body.

Both Bipan Chandra's old NCERT text and Spectrum state that Dadabhai Naoroji organised the East India Association in London in the 1860s 'to discuss the Indian question and to influence British public men to promote Indian welfare'. The place followed from the purpose: the Moderates believed that the British Parliament and public wanted to be just to India but did not know the facts, so the case had to be argued in Britain itself. Only later did Naoroji open branches of the Association in prominent Indian cities. Its members included Indians and retired British officials, and Pherozeshah Mehta was active in it while studying law in London.

Bipan Chandra's old NCERT text calls the Indian Association the most important of the pre-Congress bodies. To draw in large numbers it kept a low membership fee for the poorer classes. Its first big campaign concerned the Civil Service regulations and the examination age limit, cut to 19 in 1877; Surendranath Banerjea toured India in 1877-78 to build all-India opinion on it. The Association also agitated against the Arms Act and the Vernacular Press Act, demanded protection of tenants and, during 1883-85, organised large peasant demonstrations to make the Rent Bill more pro-tenant. It also took up the condition of labourers on English-owned tea plantations.

Spectrum records that in 1890 the Congress decided to hold a session in London in 1892, but owing to the British general elections the proposal was postponed and never revived. The plan fits the Moderates' belief that British voters and Parliament would act justly once they knew the facts. The same belief explains the British Committee of the Congress set up in London in 1889, deputations of Indians to Britain, the appeal to British voters in 1885 and the career of Dadabhai Naoroji, who spent much of his life and income campaigning in England and was elected to the House of Commons from Finsbury Central in 1892. A London session would have carried this work in Britain to its peak, but it was never held.