Indian History Quiz: Indian National Congress: Moderates and Extremists

The correct answer is C, Allan Octavian Hume. A retired officer of the Indian Civil Service who had served in the North-Western Provinces, Hume issued an appeal to the graduates of Calcutta University in 1883, organised the body he called the Indian National Union, and brought its first session together at Bombay in December 1885, where it took the name Indian National Congress; he served as its general secretary for many years. Option A is wrong because John Morley was Secretary of State for India and is remembered for the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909, which came long after the founding. Option B is wrong because Edwin Montagu was a later Secretary of State, associated with the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919 and the declaration of 1917. Option D is wrong because Gilbert Elliot is the family name of Lord Minto, a Viceroy, and a Viceroy would never have convened a nationalist organisation.

The correct answer is D, 72. The first session of the Indian National Congress met at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay from 28 to 31 December 1885 and was attended by 72 delegates, most of them lawyers, journalists, teachers and merchants drawn from the presidency towns, with W. C. Bonnerjee presiding. Options A, B and C are wrong because each is a near figure of the kind a paper setter places beside the right one to test whether the number has been learnt exactly; the session is always described in the sources as a gathering of 72 delegates, and no account puts it at 62, 68 or 78. The way to remember the founding is as a set: 28 December 1885, Bombay, Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, 72 delegates, W. C. Bonnerjee in the chair, A. O. Hume as the organiser and Lord Dufferin as the Viceroy.

The correct answer is A, 1896. Vande Mataram, written in Sanskritised Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and included in his novel Anandamath, was sung for the first time at a Congress session at the Calcutta session of 1896, and Rabindranath Tagore himself set the tune and sang it. The song went on to become the anthem of the Swadeshi movement after the partition of Bengal in 1905, and the Constituent Assembly gave it the status of the national song on 24 January 1950, the same day it adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem. Options B, C and D are wrong because they shift the year by one, two or three; the sessions of 1897 at Amraoti, 1898 at Madras and 1899 at Lucknow have no connection with the first singing. Fix 1896 Calcutta for the song and 1905 for the movement that made it famous.

The correct answer is C, Annie Besant. The Irish-born theosophist, who had made India her home and led the Theosophical Society from Adyar, presided over the Calcutta session of the Congress in 1917, the year in which the Government interned her for her Home Rule agitation. She had founded the Home Rule League in 1916 and edited the papers New India and Commonweal. Option A is wrong because Kasturba Gandhi took part in satyagraha but never held office in the Congress. Option B is wrong because Sarojini Naidu, who presided at the Kanpur session of 1925, was the first Indian woman president, which is the distinction examiners test against this question; Besant was the first woman of any nationality. Option D is wrong because Aruna Asaf Ali belongs to a later generation, famous for hoisting the flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan during the Quit India movement of 1942 and for working underground.

The correct answer is B, W. C. Bonnerjee, that is Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, a Calcutta barrister who presided over the first session at Bombay in December 1885. Option A is wrong because Dadabhai Naoroji presided over the second session at Calcutta in 1886 and again at Lahore in 1893 and Calcutta in 1906, so he was president three times but not the first. Option C is wrong because Badruddin Tyabji presided at Madras in 1887 and is remembered as the first Muslim president of the Congress. Option D is wrong because Surendranath Banerjea, who had founded the Indian Association in 1876 and is called the Indian Burke, presided at Poona in 1895 and at Ahmedabad in 1902; he was among the most important Moderates but not the first president. The order to remember for the early years is Bonnerjee in 1885, Naoroji in 1886, Tyabji in 1887 and George Yule in 1888.

The correct answer is C, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Extremist leader from Maharashtra whom the people called Lokmanya. He edited Kesari in Marathi and Maratha in English, used the Ganapati festival from 1893 and the Shivaji festival from 1895 to take politics to the streets, was sentenced in 1908 to six years of transportation at Mandalay, where he wrote Gita Rahasya, and founded his Home Rule League in 1916. Option A is wrong because Bipin Chandra Pal, who edited New India, is remembered as the father of revolutionary thought in India rather than for this slogan. Option B is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai, the Punjab Kesari, is associated with the protest against the Simon Commission and with the words that the blows struck at him would be the nails in the coffin of British rule. Option D is wrong because Aurobindo Ghose wrote in Bande Mataram and gave the Doctrine of Passive Resistance before turning to spiritual life at Pondicherry.

The correct answer is B, Surat. The session of December 1907 on the bank of the Tapti broke up in disorder when the two groups could not agree on the president or on how far the Swadeshi and boycott resolutions of the previous year should be pushed; Rashbehari Ghosh was declared president and the Extremists were excluded from the organisation. Option A is wrong because the Calcutta session of 1906, under Dadabhai Naoroji, is remembered for the opposite reason, as the session that accepted swaraj as the goal and approved swadeshi and boycott. Option C is wrong because Lucknow in 1916 is the session of the reunion of the two wings and of the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League. Option D is wrong because the Nagpur session of 1920 adopted the non-cooperation programme and changed the Congress constitution, well after the split had been healed.

The correct answer is A, Badruddin Tyabji, a Bombay barrister and one of the founders of the Bombay Presidency Association, who presided over the Madras session of 1887 and was the first Muslim to hold the office. Option B is wrong because Rahimtulla Sayani was the second Muslim president, at Calcutta in 1896, the session at which Vande Mataram was first sung, which is why the two names are often confused. Option C is wrong because Hakim Ajmal Khan presided at Ahmedabad in 1921 during the non-cooperation years and is remembered as a founder of the Jamia Millia Islamia. Option D is wrong because Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who first presided at Delhi in 1923 at the age of 35, the youngest president, held the office again from 1940 to 1946, through the Quit India movement and the transfer of power negotiations.

The correct answer is A, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the Moderate leader whom Gandhi called his political guru. He founded the Servants of India Society at Poona in 1905 to train men who would give their lives to public service on a modest allowance, and he worked through the Imperial Legislative Council on the budget, on primary education and on the conditions of indentured labour. Option B is wrong because M. G. Ranade, Gokhale's own teacher, founded the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the Indian National Social Conference and died in 1901, before the Society was formed. Option C is wrong because Pherozeshah Mehta, the Lion of Bombay, dominated the Bombay Corporation and the Moderate wing of the Congress but founded no such body. Option D is wrong because Dinshaw Wacha was a Moderate leader and an authority on finance, associated with Naoroji in the economic critique of British rule.

The correct answer is A, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India by Dadabhai Naoroji. The Grand Old Man of India argued in it that a steady drain of wealth, through home charges, pensions paid in England, interest on sterling debt and the profits of British firms, was the real cause of Indian poverty, and the argument became the Moderates' strongest weapon. Option B is wrong because A Nation in Making is Surendranath Banerjea's autobiography, an account of the national movement from the Indian Association onward. Option C is wrong because Gita Rahasya is Tilak's philosophical commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, written during his imprisonment at Mandalay, and is not an economic work. Option D is wrong because Young India is Lajpat Rai's book on the national movement, written during his years abroad, and it also became the name of Gandhi's weekly journal, which adds to the confusion.