Who Founded The Congress Party In India?

In 1885 the Indian National Congress was formed on the initiative of the retired British official, Allan Octavian Hume. It was the wish of the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, to develop a controlled and responsible opposition and serve as a canalizing agent for the agitated discontent among the intelligentsia. Its first president was Mr. Womesh Chandra Banerjee.

There were a number of factors that helped in the emergence of this organization:

--- The principal source of patriotic inspiration was furnished by the English Literature, European and American history and their accounts of struggles for freedom. The western education came first to the Hindus: so did the new nationalism.

--- The revivalist movements among Hindus promoted Hindu Nationalism.

--- Then there was the racial hatred against the British who had gone to their peak of isolation after the shock they had suffered in 1857. The personal ties with the people were almost non-existent.

--- Some Englishmen in India even forgot the most elementary rules of decent behavior. Indians were not allowed into English society, restaurants and clubs. The mutual hatred assumed dimensions when a very large number of Indians were killed by some Englishmen who either unpunished or got light penalties.

--- In 1882, the Ilbert Bill was suggested, which allowed the Indian magistrate of some standing to try European criminals.  The English community in the subcontinent raised a strong voice against this measure, and to counter this the Indians organized great demonstrations particularly in Bengal.  That strengthened further to nationalist movement.