Origins and the Founding Vision

The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded on 28 December 1885 at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, an event that would reshape the political destiny of the Indian subcontinent. The driving force behind its creation was Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant who had served as the secretary to the Government of India’s Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce. Hume believed that a platform for political dialogue would act as a safety valve for growing discontent among educated Indians and prevent the kind of violent unrest that had erupted during the 1857 Rebellion. With the support of seventy-two delegates from across the country, the first session of the INC convened, and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, a distinguished lawyer from Calcutta, was elected its first president.

The INC was not conceived as a revolutionary body. In its early decades, it functioned as a loyal opposition within the British imperial framework, a forum where educated Indians could articulate their grievances and petition the government for reforms through constitutional means. The early leaders, who came to be known as the Moderates, were men of high education and liberal principles: Dadabhai Naoroji, who would later become the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons; Pherozeshah Mehta, the uncrowned king of Bombay; Surendranath Banerjee, the revered patriarch of Bengali politics; and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, whom Mahatma Gandhi would later acknowledge as his political guru. These leaders believed sincerely in the fairness of British liberalism and the power of reasoned argument. Their methods were those of respectful petitioning, annual resolutions, and appeals to the British sense of justice. Their demands were measured and specific: greater representation for Indians in the legislative councils, the simultaneous holding of civil service examinations in India and Britain, a reduction in the oppressive military expenditure that drained Indian revenues, and relief from the crushing burden of land taxes that impoverished millions of peasants.

During these first two decades, the INC achieved modest successes. It secured the appointment of a commission to examine the working of the Indian administration and won a few concessions on the composition of the legislative councils. More importantly, it created something that had never existed before in Indian history: a pan-Indian political consciousness. Delegates from Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the Punjab, and the United Provinces met annually, shared their experiences, and began to see their local problems as part of a national malaise. The INC, in these early years, was a school for political education, teaching Indians the vocabulary of rights, representation, and responsible government. It was not yet a mass movement, but it had laid the essential foundation upon which a national struggle could be built.

The Rise of Assertive Nationalism and the Swadeshi Movement

By the turn of the twentieth century, a growing faction within the INC grew impatient with the Moderates’ patient and respectful approach. These younger, more radical nationalists argued that petitions and appeals to British conscience were futile; the British Empire, they insisted, would not grant concessions unless compelled by force. The partition of Bengal in 1905 by Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy, provided the spark that ignited a new phase of political activism. Curzon divided the large province of Bengal along communal lines, creating a Muslim-majority East Bengal and a Hindu-majority West Bengal. The official rationale was administrative efficiency, but the underlying motive was clear: to weaken the growing nationalist movement in Bengal, the heartland of Indian political activity.

The partition triggered widespread outrage and gave birth to the Swadeshi movement, a programme of economic nationalism that urged Indians to boycott British manufactured goods and revive indigenous industries. The movement was far more than a protest; it was a comprehensive programme of national self-reliance. Students left government-run schools and colleges to establish national institutions of learning; lawyers abandoned British courts; and women took to the streets in unprecedented numbers, picketing shops that sold foreign cloth. The demand for swadeshi goods led to the revival of traditional crafts, the establishment of Indian-owned textile mills, and the promotion of khadi as a symbol of national pride.

Leading this more assertive nationalism was a trio of charismatic figures known as Lal-Bal-Pal: Lala Lajpat Rai from the Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak from Maharashtra, and Bipin Chandra Pal from Bengal. Tilak, in particular, emerged as the most powerful voice of the Extremist faction. He declared that Swaraj (self-rule) was the birthright of every Indian and that it would not be won through petitions but through self-sacrifice and mass mobilization. He revived the Ganesh and Shivaji festivals as public platforms for nationalist propaganda and used his newspapers, Kesari and Maratha, to spread the message of resistance. The Extremists advocated passive resistance, national education, and the boycott of all symbols of British authority.

The ideological division within the INC came to a head at the Surat session in December 1907. The Moderates, led by Gokhale and Mehta, controlled the organizational machinery and were determined to prevent the Extremists from taking over the presidency. The session descended into chaos, with chairs thrown and the police called in to restore order. The Congress split, with the Moderates expelling the Extremists from the organization. The split was a severe blow to the INC, temporarily weakening its influence and reducing its annual sessions to poorly attended gatherings that merely reaffirmed loyalty to the British Crown. However, the Extremists’ emphasis on swadeshi and swaraj had already resonated deeply with the Indian public, and the ideas they planted would continue to germinate in the years to come. The partition of Bengal was finally reversed in 1911, a testament to the effectiveness of sustained organized protest and a vindication of the belief that mass mobilization could force the British to concede ground.

The Home Rule Movement and the Reunification of the Congress

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 created a new political landscape. The British committed Indian men, money, and material to the war effort, expecting unquestioning loyalty from the Empire’s subjects. The INC initially adopted a posture of cooperation, hoping that Indian contributions to the war would be rewarded with constitutional reforms. But as the war dragged on, with no concrete promises forthcoming, nationalist sentiment began to stir once again.

The Home Rule Movement, launched simultaneously by Bal Gangadhar Tilak (who had been released from a six-year imprisonment in Mandalay) and Annie Besant, an Irish-born British activist who had made India her home, revived the INC’s flagging energy. The movement demanded self-government for India within the British Empire, on lines similar to the dominions of Canada and Australia. Tilak and Besant established Home Rule Leagues across the country, recruited thousands of members, and organized public meetings, lectures, and propaganda campaigns. The movement forced the British to take Indian demands seriously and to make political concessions. In 1916, the British government announced the Montagu Declaration, which promised the gradual development of self-governing institutions in India.

The Lucknow session of the INC in 1916 marked a watershed moment. The Moderates and Extremists, recognizing that their division had only served British interests, agreed to reunite. More importantly, the session saw the historic Lucknow Pact between the INC and the All-India Muslim League, the political organization representing Muslim interests led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The pact accepted the principle of separate electorates for Muslims, a concession that the INC had previously resisted but now accepted in the spirit of Hindu-Muslim unity. The Lucknow session demonstrated the INC’s ability to forge alliances and negotiate from a position of strengthened public support. It also set the stage for the arrival of a leader who would transform the INC into a truly mass organization: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

The Gandhian Transformation: From Elite Forum to Mass Movement

Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in January 1915, having spent two decades fighting for the rights of the Indian community there. He had developed his distinctive philosophy of satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance, and had tested it successfully in campaigns against racial discrimination. Gandhi did not immediately dominate the INC; he spent his first year travelling across India, observing conditions, and studying the country’s problems. His first major political interventions came in the form of local struggles that established his credentials as a leader of the common people.

The Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 was Gandhi’s first major campaign in India. The indigo farmers of Champaran district in Bihar were forced by British planters to grow indigo on a portion of their land and sell it at fixed prices, a system of near-feudal exploitation. Gandhi arrived in the district, conducted a detailed investigation, and organized the peasants to resist the oppressive system. The British authorities, alarmed by his presence, ordered him to leave the district. Gandhi refused and courted arrest. The resulting public outcry forced the government to appoint a commission of inquiry, with Gandhi as a member, which ultimately recommended the abolition of the indigo system. The Champaran campaign was a stunning victory and established Gandhi as a leader who could mobilize the peasantry.

The Kheda Satyagraha of 1918 followed, in which Gandhi supported farmers in Gujarat who were unable to pay land revenue due to crop failure and plague. When the government refused to remit the revenue, Gandhi organized a campaign of nonpayment, with farmers refusing to pay despite the threat of confiscation of their property. The government eventually capitulated and suspended revenue collection. In the same year, Gandhi led a strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad, using fasting as a weapon to pressure the mill owners into accepting arbitration. These early struggles gave Gandhi an intimate understanding of Indian rural and urban poverty and forged the tools of nonviolent resistance that he would later deploy on a national scale.

Gandhi’s approach differed fundamentally from that of the Moderates and Extremists who had preceded him. The Moderates had relied on petitions and constitutional arguments; the Extremists had preached resistance but had not built a durable mass organization. Gandhi combined moral authority with organizational genius. He insisted on nonviolence as an absolute principle, not merely a tactical expedient. He spoke the language of the peasant, the worker, and the artisan, using simple metaphors drawn from everyday life. He dressed in the loincloth of the poorest Indian, identifying himself completely with the masses. And he had an extraordinary ability to communicate with ordinary people, travelling across the country by third-class train, walking through villages, and addressing audiences in Hindi and Gujarati rather than the English of the educated elite.

The Rowlatt Acts and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

The war ended in 1918, but instead of the promised reforms, the British government passed the Rowlatt Acts in 1919, which granted the authorities sweeping powers to arrest and detain individuals without trial, suppress the press, and restrict public meetings. The acts were intended to curb the rising tide of nationalism, but they had the opposite effect. Gandhi called for a nationwide hartal (strike) and peaceful protests. The response was overwhelming: millions of Indians came out on the streets in an unprecedented display of unity.

The British response was brutal. In Amritsar, on 13 April 1919, British troops under the command of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed crowd that had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden, to celebrate the Sikh festival of Baisakhi. The crowd included men, women, and children; there was no warning to disperse, and the only exit was narrow and blocked by the troops. Dyer ordered his soldiers to fire until the ammunition was exhausted. Official estimates put the dead at 379, but Indian sources placed the figure much higher, at over a thousand. Thousands more were wounded. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was a turning point in the history of the Indian independence movement. It shattered any remaining faith in British justice and convinced even the most loyal Indians that British rule could not be reformed; it had to be ended.

The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922)

Gandhi, now the undisputed leader of the INC, responded with a programme of non-cooperation that he presented at the Nagpur session of the INC in December 1920. The programme called for the surrender of all government titles and honours, the boycott of British courts, schools, and legislative councils, and the promotion of khadi as a symbol of economic self-reliance. Gandhi insisted that non-cooperation was not merely a negative programme of boycott but a positive programme of national reconstruction: Indians must learn to govern themselves without British institutions.

The response was extraordinary. Students left government colleges and universities in droves; by the end of 1921, thousands had enrolled in national institutions like the Jamia Millia Islamia and Gujarat Vidyapith. Lawyers abandoned their practices, including the formidable Motilal Nehru and the young Jawaharlal Nehru. Peasants refused to pay taxes, and the production of khadi became a national movement, with spinning wheels appearing in homes across the country. The INC, which had been a small elite organization, was transformed into a mass party with millions of members. Its annual sessions became vast gatherings of tens of thousands of delegates, and its leaders, especially Gandhi, became household names.

The movement reached its peak in late 1921 and early 1922. Gandhi had promised the attainment of swaraj within one year if non-cooperation was fully implemented. But on 5 February 1922, a violent incident occurred in the town of Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces. A mob of peasants, angered by police firing, attacked the local police station and set it on fire. Twenty-two policemen were burned to death. Gandhi, who had received reports of growing violence across the country, immediately suspended the Non-Cooperation Movement, even though it was at its height and many leaders believed they were on the verge of victory.

Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years in prison. His suspension of the movement caused deep disillusionment among many nationalists. Leaders like Motilal Nehru and Chittaranjan Das were frustrated by what they saw as Gandhi’s unpredictability. The younger radicals, including Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose, began to question the efficacy of nonviolence. But Gandhi remained firm: for him, nonviolence was not a tactic to be abandoned when it became inconvenient; it was an absolute moral principle. The suspension of the movement preserved the principle, even at the cost of immediate political gains. The Non-Cooperation Movement had demonstrated, however, the immense power of mass mobilization under Gandhi’s leadership. It had also shown the British that they could no longer rely on Indian compliance.

The Civil Disobedience Movement and the Salt March (1930–1934)

The late 1920s saw a period of political lull accompanied by constitutional negotiations. The British government appointed the Simon Commission in 1927 to review the working of the reforms, but the commission contained no Indian members. The INC boycotted the commission, and when it arrived in India, it was greeted everywhere with black flags and protests. Lala Lajpat Rai died from injuries sustained during a police beating while leading a protest against the commission in Lahore. The incident radicalized a new generation of revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh, who would later be executed for his role in the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly.

At its Lahore session in December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the INC declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, as its goal, rejecting the dominion status that the British had offered. The declaration was accompanied by a pledge that millions of Indians took on 26 January 1930, a date that would later be commemorated as Republic Day. The stage was set for a new mass movement.

Gandhi chose the salt tax as the symbol of British oppression. Salt was a commodity used by every Indian, rich or poor, and the British monopoly on its production and the tax imposed on it were deeply resented. On 12 March 1930, Gandhi set out from his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad with seventy-eight chosen followers, walking towards the coastal village of Dandi. The Salt March covered 240 miles over twenty-four days and was deliberately slow, allowing word of the march to spread across the country. Villagers lined the route, offering food and water; journalists from around the world reported on the progress; and the Indian public watched with growing excitement as Gandhi, a frail man of sixty-one, walked steadily towards the sea.

On 6 April 1930, Gandhi reached Dandi and broke the salt law by picking up a handful of natural salt from the beach. The act was deliberately simple and symbolic, but it ignited a nationwide firestorm of civil disobedience. Across the country, Indians began making salt illegally and selling it openly. The boycott of foreign cloth was renewed with vigour. People refused to pay taxes, particularly the land revenue that burdened the peasantry. Forest laws were defied by villagers who collected wood and grass from reserved forests. The British responded with mass arrests: over 60,000 people were imprisoned, including Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and thousands of ordinary volunteers. Women participated in unprecedented numbers, with figures like Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and Mithuben Petit leading picketing campaigns and courting arrest. The British confiscated property, lathi-charged peaceful protesters, and imposed heavy fines, but the movement did not break.

The movement forced the British to the negotiating table. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact, signed in March 1931, secured the release of political prisoners, the return of confiscated property, and the permission for the INC to participate in the Second Round Table Conference in London, in exchange for a suspension of the civil disobedience campaign. Gandhi attended the conference alone, representing the INC, but the conference failed to reach an agreement on the fundamental issue of communal representation and the rights of minorities. The British, as was their strategy, used the divisions between Hindus, Muslims, and depressed classes to avoid making any substantive concessions. Gandhi returned to India empty-handed and resumed civil disobedience, which continued, with diminishing intensity, until 1934.

The Salt March had transformed the Indian independence movement into a global cause. The world had watched as unarmed Indians confronted the might of the British Empire with nonviolence and moral courage. The movement had not achieved immediate independence, but it had made the INC the undisputed voice of Indian nationalism and had demonstrated to the British that the cost of ruling India would continue to rise.

The Quit India Movement (1942)

The outbreak of World War II in 1939 brought the independence struggle to its final phase. The British, without any consultation with Indian leaders, committed India to the war and declared a state of emergency. The INC, under Gandhi’s leadership, demanded that Britain must promise independence after the war in exchange for Indian cooperation. When the British refused, the INC ministries that had been formed after the 1937 provincial elections resigned in protest.

The British response was the August Offer of 1940, which promised dominion status after the war but rejected any immediate transfer of power. The INC rejected the offer and launched a limited individual civil disobedience campaign, with Gandhi choosing specific individuals, including Vinoba Bhave and Jawaharlal Nehru, to offer satyagraha. The campaign was modest but kept the pressure on the British.

The situation changed dramatically with the Japanese advance into Southeast Asia. By early 1942, Singapore had fallen, Burma was under threat, and the Japanese were at India’s eastern borders. The British, desperate for Indian cooperation, sent the Cripps Mission to India in March 1942, offering a plan that promised dominion status after the war and a constituent assembly to frame a new constitution. The plan, however, allowed any province to opt out of the union, effectively granting a veto to the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. Both the INC and the League rejected the plan. Gandhi famously described the offer as a post-dated cheque drawn on a failing bank.

On 8 August 1942, the INC passed the Quit India resolution at its session in Bombay, demanding an immediate end to British rule and calling for a mass struggle on the widest possible scale. Gandhi delivered his famous call: Do or Die. We shall either free India or die in the attempt. The British reacted swiftly and brutally. Within hours of the resolution, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, and all the top INC leaders were arrested and taken to undisclosed locations. The INC was declared an unlawful association, its offices were raided, and its funds were seized. The government expected the movement to collapse without its leaders.

But the movement did not collapse. Instead, it erupted into the most widespread and violent uprising since 1857. Without the restraining hand of Gandhi, local leaders took charge. Underground networks were established, led by figures like Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Achyut Patwardhan. Sabotage became the order of the day: railway lines were cut, telegraph wires were severed, police stations were attacked, and government buildings were set on fire. Students went on strike, and workers refused to work. In some areas, particularly in eastern India, parallel governments were established that functioned for weeks, issuing their own orders and collecting their own taxes.

The British response was ferocious. The army and police used machine guns and aerial bombing to suppress the uprising. Official estimates put the number of killed at over 1,000, but informal estimates range much higher. Thousands were injured, and over 100,000 people were arrested. The movement was crushed by the end of 1942, but the British had received an unmistakable message: Indian cooperation could no longer be taken for granted. The Quit India Movement had demonstrated that India was ungovernable through force alone. The British realized that they would have to leave India after the war, and the only questions that remained were when and how.

The Leadership That Shaped the Freedom Struggle

The strength of the INC lay in the extraordinary quality and diversity of its leadership across the six decades of its existence. The party was never a vehicle for a single leader or ideology; it was a broad church that accommodated moderates and radicals, socialists and conservatives, thinkers and organizers.

Mahatma Gandhi was, of course, the central figure. He provided the moral authority and strategic vision that held the movement together. His insistence on nonviolence kept the struggle disciplined and prevented it from degenerating into chaos or terrorism. His ability to connect with the poorest Indian was unique; he made the independence struggle a movement of the masses, not just the elite. He also had a genius for selecting the right symbolic issues—salt, khadi, untouchability—that resonated with ordinary people.

Jawaharlal Nehru brought an entirely different set of strengths. An intellectual and a socialist, Nehru articulated the INC’s vision of a modern, secular, democratic India. His internationalist outlook gave the movement a global perspective, and his writings and speeches inspired the youth. Nehru was Gandhi’s chosen successor and played a crucial role in keeping the INC on a progressive path, resisting conservative and communal tendencies within the party.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel provided the organizational backbone of the INC. A brilliant lawyer and an even more brilliant organizer, Patel was responsible for the party’s finances, discipline, and election machinery. He was a man of action rather than rhetoric, pragmatic and decisive. Patel’s skills were invaluable during the 1937 elections, when the INC won a landslide victory in the provincial elections, and during the integration of the princely states after independence.

The INC also included figures who represented different strands of Indian nationalism. Subhas Chandra Bose, who was elected INC president in 1938 and 1939 despite Gandhi’s opposition, represented the left wing of the party. Bose believed that nonviolence would not be sufficient to win independence and that the British would only respond to force. He resigned from the INC when his differences with Gandhi became irreconcilable and went on to form the Indian National Army with Japanese support, a different but equally heroic path to the same goal. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a distinguished Islamic scholar and theologian, was a towering intellectual figure in the INC and a staunch advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity. He served as the INC president during the turbulent years of the 1940s and was a key negotiator during the independence talks. C. Rajagopalachari, known simply as Rajaji, was a close associate of Gandhi and a brilliant strategist; he served as the last Governor-General of India and later as Chief Minister of Madras. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, though not a member of the INC, was deeply influenced by its national movement; he would later chair the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution and serve as the first Law Minister of independent India.

Women played a vital and often underappreciated role in the INC’s struggles. Sarojini Naidu, the poetess, was the first Indian woman to become president of the INC in 1925 and was a tireless organizer and speaker. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was a leading figure in the social reform wing of the party, advocating for women’s rights and the abolition of untouchability. Aruna Asaf Ali became a symbol of defiance during the Quit India Movement, keeping the underground movement alive when all the top leaders were in prison. These women, and countless others like them, organized picketing, distributed pamphlets, courted arrest, and often suffered more than their male counterparts, yet they remained committed to the cause.

The INC also incorporated diverse social groups. It built alliances with labour unions, peasant associations, and regional linguistic groups. The party’s sessions were held in different cities each year, and its proceedings were conducted in Hindustani, the language of the common people. The INC’s leadership recognized that the independence movement could not succeed if it remained confined to the educated middle class; it had to embrace the peasant, the worker, the merchant, and the artisan. This inclusivity was the INC’s greatest strength and the source of its enduring legitimacy.

Internal Tensions and the Road to Partition

The INC was never a monolith. Throughout its existence, it was characterized by vigorous internal debates and occasional deep fissures. The party contained moderate constitutionalists, revolutionary socialists, conservative Hindu nationalists, and secular internationalists. Managing these tensions was one of Gandhi’s greatest achievements.

The 1930s saw the rise of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) within the INC, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev, and Minoo Masani. The CSP advocated for socialist economic policies, including land reform, nationalization of key industries, and the abolition of princely states. There were also tensions between Gandhi and the younger radicals like Jawaharlal Nehru, who was drawn to Marxism, and Subhas Chandra Bose, who admired the authoritarian modernizers of Europe. Gandhi’s relationship with these younger leaders was complex: he encouraged their idealism but restrained their impatience.

The most significant challenge that the INC faced was the growing communalism that threatened to tear the nation apart. The All-India Muslim League, founded in 1906, had initially been a moderate organization that sought to protect Muslim interests within a united India. Under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, however, the League became increasingly assertive in its demand for a separate Muslim state. Jinnah argued that Indian Muslims were not a minority but a separate nation, with their own culture, history, and destiny. A single independent India, he insisted, would be dominated by the Hindu majority, and Muslims would be reduced to second-class citizens.

The INC’s policy towards the Muslim League was a consistent source of controversy. The INC insisted on being a national, not a communal, organization, and it refused to accept the Muslim League’s claim to be the sole representative of Indian Muslims. The INC also resisted the League’s demand for separate electorates and weighted representation, arguing that these would perpetuate communal divisions. The failure of the INC and the League to reach a power-sharing agreement was the central tragedy of the Indian independence movement. Efforts to bridge the gap—the 1916 Lucknow Pact, the 1928 Nehru Report, the 1931 Round Table Conference, the 1942 Cripps Mission, and the 1946 Cabinet Mission—all failed, largely because the two sides could not agree on the structure of the future state.

The 1937 provincial elections were a pivotal moment. The INC won a landslide victory, forming governments in eight of the eleven provinces. The Muslim League, by contrast, performed poorly, winning only a handful of seats. Jinnah was deeply humiliated, and the INC’s refusal to form coalition governments with the League in the provinces where it had some support was seen by many Muslims as a gesture of Hindu arrogance. The Congress ministries of 1937–1939 implemented progressive reforms—in land revenue, education, and civil liberties—but their policies were perceived by some Muslims as favoring the Hindu majority. The Wardha scheme of education, which introduced compulsory basic education with a rural focus, was seen by many Muslims as an attempt to impose Hindu culture on Muslim children. The playing of Vande Mataram, a song that had Hindu overtones, in schools and at public events added to the sense of alienation.

When the Congress ministries resigned in 1939 in protest against the British war policy, Jinnah saw his opportunity. He declared 22 December 1939 as a Day of Deliverance, celebrating the end of what he called Congress tyranny. From that point on, the demand for Pakistan—first articulated formally in the Lahore Resolution of 1940—became the central plank of the Muslim League’s platform. The British, pursuing their policy of divide and rule, encouraged the League’s demands, hoping to weaken the INC’s negotiating position.

The final years of the independence struggle were marked by a tragic sequence of failed negotiations, communal violence, and political brinkmanship. The Cripps Mission of 1942 failed because it proposed a constitution that allowed provinces to opt out of the union, which the INC saw as a concession to the Pakistan demand. The Cabinet Mission of 1946 proposed a three-tier federal structure that both the INC and the League initially accepted, but mutual distrust scuttled the plan. The INC insisted on a strong central government; the League insisted on a weak center and the right of provinces to form groups. Jinnah called for Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946, which triggered horrific communal violence in Calcutta that left over 4,000 dead and spread to Noakhali, Bihar, and the Punjab. The violence, in turn, hardened positions on both sides.

By early 1947, it was clear that partition was inevitable. The British, exhausted by the war and facing a mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy in February 1946, were desperate to leave. The INC leadership, under Nehru and Patel, reluctantly accepted partition as the price for independence. The decision was a bitter one; Gandhi himself opposed it, but his influence had waned in the face of the ground realities. On 3 June 1947, Lord Mountbatten announced the plan for partition, and on 15 August 1947, India and Pakistan became independent nations, marking both the triumph of the Indian independence movement and the tragedy of its failure to preserve national unity.

The Transfer of Power and the Birth of a Nation

The final months before independence were a period of frenetic activity and immense human suffering. The Radcliffe Boundary Commission, headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, drew the borders between India and Pakistan in just five weeks, dividing the provinces of the Punjab and Bengal along religious lines. The result was one of the largest and most traumatic migrations in human history: over 10 million people crossed the borders in both directions, Hindus and Sikhs moving to India, Muslims moving to Pakistan. Communal violence, in both urban and rural areas, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Gandhi himself fell victim to the hatred that partition had unleashed: he was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist who held him responsible for the partition.

The INC government, led by Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister and Sardar Patel as deputy prime minister, faced the daunting task of building a nation from the wreckage of partition. The INC’s leadership provided continuity and stability during the transition. Many of the leaders who had spent decades in British prisons now found themselves running the government. The party’s experience in organizational work, its commitment to parliamentary democracy, and its vision of a secular, socialist republic shaped the institutions that were established after independence.

The Constituent Assembly, which had been elected in 1946, served as the provisional parliament and drafted the Indian Constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950. The INC’s vision of a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic was enshrined in the Constitution. The party also undertook the massive task of integrating the princely states into the Indian union, a feat of diplomacy and force that was largely managed by Patel. The INC government established the Planning Commission and launched the first Five-Year Plan in 1951, laying the foundation for India’s mixed economy. The party’s policy of non-alignment during the Cold War, articulated by Nehru, gave India a prominent role on the global stage.

The Enduring Legacy of the Indian National Congress

The legacy of the Indian National Congress is profound and multifaceted. It was the organization that united a vast and diverse subcontinent, with its myriad languages, religions, and cultures, under a single political banner. It achieved independence through essentially nonviolent means, a model that would inspire anti-colonial movements across the world, from the American civil rights movement under Martin Luther King Jr. to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa led by Nelson Mandela. The INC demonstrated that mass mobilization, disciplined resistance, and moral authority could confront and defeat a powerful imperial state.

The INC also laid the institutional foundations of modern India. It established the principles of parliamentary democracy, secularism, and federalism that continue to define the Indian Republic. The INC’s commitment to civil liberties, press freedom, and the rule of law, principles that it had fought for during the struggle, became the bedrock of the Indian Constitution. The party’s policy of economic planning and state-led industrialization, implemented through the Planning Commission, shaped India’s economic development for the first four decades after independence.

After independence, the INC ruled India at the national level for most of the first thirty years, from 1947 to 1977, and again from 1980 to 1989, and in various coalitions thereafter. The party contributed to the consolidation of Indian democracy, the expansion of higher education, the establishment of scientific and technological institutions, and the pursuit of a foreign policy of non-alignment. The INC also presided over the green revolution that transformed Indian agriculture and made the country self-sufficient in food grain production.

The INC has faced its share of challenges and criticisms. Its critics argue that the party became complacent, corrupt, and dynastic after independence, and that its commitment to socialism stifled economic growth. The Emergency of 1975–1977, imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was a dark chapter in the party’s history and a betrayal of the democratic values that the INC had championed during the freedom struggle. The party has also been accused of pandering to vote banks, neglecting the concerns of the poor, and failing to prevent the rise of Hindu nationalism.

Despite its flaws, the INC’s role in the independence movement remains its most celebrated achievement. The story of the Indian National Congress is not just the story of a political party; it is the story of India’s awakening from centuries of foreign rule, its struggle for dignity and self-respect, and its emergence as a modern nation on the world stage. The ideals that the INC fought for—democracy, secularism, social justice, and national unity—continue to be the guiding principles of the Indian Republic.

For further reading on the Indian National Congress and the independence movement: