Indian History Quiz: Political Associations before the Indian National Congress

It discussed questions of public interest and sent representations to the government, and because it came before every other body of its kind it is counted as the first political association in India.

The Landholders' Society of 1838 spoke for the zamindars of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, while the Bengal British India Society of 1843 was set up with the help of George Thompson to collect and publish information on the condition of the people.

He had already formed the London Indian Society in 1865, and in 1866 he founded the East India Association in London, with branches later opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.

The Sabha was set up in Poona in 1870 to act as a bridge between the government and the people, and its members held written authority from the villages around Poona to speak on their behalf, which gave it a representative character unusual for the time.

It aimed to create a strong body of public opinion, to unify Indians on common political questions, to promote Hindu and Muslim friendship and to draw the masses into public movements, and it kept the membership fee low so that poorer people could join.

In 1876 the maximum age for the Indian Civil Service examination was reduced, which made it even harder for Indian candidates, who had to travel to England to sit the examination, to qualify.

It appealed to a somewhat wider social group than the landlord bodies that preceded it, and within a year many of its members moved into the Indian Association.

They founded the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885, partly in reaction to the European hostility shown during the Ilbert Bill controversy, and the body became the main platform of western India in the year the Congress was born.

The Madras Mahajana Sabha was founded that year by M. Viraraghavachariar, G. Subramania Iyer and P. Anandacharlu as a presidency-wide body for southern India, and it held a conference in Madras in December 1884 that brought together representatives of local associations.

Surendranath Banerjee's Association called the first National Conference in Calcutta in December 1883, bringing delegates from several parts of India to discuss questions of national importance, and it held a second conference in December 1885.

The session had originally been planned for Poona, but an outbreak of cholera there led to the change of venue to Bombay.

The associations of 1836 to 1885 were run by landlords, lawyers, teachers and journalists, drew their membership from the English-educated and propertied classes, and worked mainly in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Poona.