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Unit 9: Establishment of the Indian National Congress: Home Rule Movement, Moderates and Extremists

Britain was ‘bleeding India white’ and the constant ‘drain of wealth’ from India was directly Notes
responsible for India’s economic miseries. He characterized British rule in India as ‘a constant
and continuous’ plunder. Nationalist leaders like Ananda Charlu, R.N. Mudholkar, D.E. Wacha,
G.K. Gokhale, Madan Mohan Malaviya too exposed the exploitative nature of British rule in
India. R.C. Dutt and G.V. Joshi, examined thread-bare the true nature of British Land Revenue
policy while S.N. Banerjee explained at length the big gap between the professed aims and
practised policy of the Government of India in matters of recruitment to public service. The
second session of the Congress (Calcutta, 1886) brought a resolution on increasing poverty of
India and this resolution was affirmed year after year at subsequent Congress sessions. The
‘proverty verging on starvation’ of fifty millions of the population was described by the Congress
as due to the most extravagant civil and military administration, mounting Home Charges,
discriminating tariff policy (as evident from the frequent changes in the Cotton Duties and
Sugar Duties etc.) shortsighted land revenue policy, indifference to technical and industrial
development of India and exclusion of the sons of the soil from a share in the Higher and
Minor services. Scholarly writings of nationalist leaders like Ranade’s Essays in Indian Economics
(1898), Dadabhai Naoroji’s Indian Poverty and un-British Rule in India (1901), R.C. Dutt’s Economic
History of India (1901) were the arsenals from which the new leaders shot their arrows at the
British rule in India. Thus the Extremist ideology was a natural and logical next step in the
development of Indian political thinking.
2. Reaction to Increasing Westernization: The new leadership felt the stranglehold of excessive
Westernization in Indian life, thought and politics—Christianity and utilitarianism (visible in
the teachings of Brahma Samaj) were a challenge to Indian religion and thought, the materialistic
and individualistic Western civilization was eroding the values of Indian culture and civilization;
and the merger of Indian national identity in the British Empire was being attempted.
The intellectual and emotional inspiration of the new leadership (Extremists) was Indian. They
drew inspiration from Indian spiritual heritage, they appealed to heroes of Indian history and
hoped to revive the glories of ancient India. The writings of Bankim, Vivekananda and Swami
Dayanand appealed to their imagination. Though Bankim, in the beginning, had written in
Bengali and on Bengal (Anandamath, published in 1880), by 1886 he had emerged an Indian and
dreamed of a united India under the leadership of a superman like Lord Krishna (video Krishna
Charitra Part 1,1886). Bankim saw in Lord Krishna a Karamyogin i.e. a man of action who fought
evil and stood for righteousness. He saw in Lord Krishna a good soldier, a clever strategist and
a successful empire-builder, at Kurukshetra war Lord Krishna deliberately worked for the
destruction of petty states and for the emergence of dharmaraja. The main mantra of Bankim,
‘Service to the Motherland’ now acquired an added significance. Vivekanand a great Vedantist,
gave new confidence to the Indians in India’s past heritage. He exhorted his compatriots to
realize the value of their rich cultural heritage. He gave a feeling of self-confidence to the youth
and gave them a new mission-to conquer the West with India’s spirituality-Swami Dayanand
exploded the myth of Western superiority. By referring to India’s rich civilization in the Vedic
Ages, when Europe was steeped in ignorance, Dayanand gave a ‘new confidence’ to the Hindus
and undermined the current belife in the superiority of the White races over the Brown or
Black. Dayanand’s Political message was ‘India for the Indians.
3. Dissatisfaction with the Achievement of the Congress: The younger elements within the
Congress were dissatisfied with the achievements of the Congress during the first 15-20 years
and were disgusted with the cold and reactionary attitude of the Government. They had lost all
faith in the British sense of justice and fairplay. They were strongly critical of the methods of
peaceful and constitutional agitation, popularly nicknamed of 3 Ps-Petition, Prayer and
Prostest—and described these methods as ‘political mendicancy’. They became impatient with
the slow, almost negligible achievements during the first fifteen years and advocated the
adoption of European revolutionary methods to meet European imperialism.
On his return from England in 1905 Lala Lajpat Rai told his countrymen that the British
democracy was too busy with its own affairs to do anything worthwhile for India, that the
British press was not likely to champion their aspirations and that it was very difficult to get a

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