Who was the first Muslim president of the Indian National Congress?

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.