Part 1 of 2
Indian National Movement
Last reviewed 22 Sept 2026 · 4 min read
The Congress and its early phases
The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 by A. O. Hume; its first session in Bombay was presided over by W. C. Bonnerjee.
- Moderates (1885–1905): Dadabhai Naoroji (the "drain of wealth"), Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, S. N. Banerjee — petitions, prayers and constitutional argument.
- Extremists (1905–1919): Bal Gangadhar Tilak ("Swaraj is my birthright"), Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghosh — swadeshi, boycott and self-reliance.
The two wings split at Surat in 1907 and reunited at Lucknow in 1916, where the Lucknow Pact with the Muslim League was also signed.
Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi
Curzon's partition of Bengal (1905) provoked the Swadeshi and Boycott movement; the partition was annulled in 1911, when the capital was also shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. The Muslim League was founded at Dhaka in 1906.
Home Rule
Tilak (April 1916, Pune) and Annie Besant (September 1916, Madras) launched Home Rule Leagues demanding self-government within the empire.
Gandhi's satyagrahas
| Year | Place | Issue |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Champaran, Bihar | indigo planters' tinkathia system |
| 1918 | Ahmedabad | mill workers' wages (Gandhi's first hunger strike) |
| 1918 | Kheda, Gujarat | revenue remission after crop failure |
Then came the Rowlatt Act (1919), the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (13 April 1919) and the merging of the Khilafat cause with national politics.
The three mass movements
| Non-Cooperation | Civil Disobedience | Quit India | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Years | 1920–22 | 1930–34 | 1942 |
| Trigger | Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh, Khilafat | Simon Commission, Lahore resolution | failure of the Cripps Mission |
| Programme | boycott of schools, courts, titles, foreign cloth | Dandi march (12 March – 6 April 1930) and salt law breach | "Do or Die"; mass arrests within a day |
| Ended by | Chauri Chaura, February 1922 | Gandhi-Irwin Pact 1931; withdrawn 1934 | suppressed, but made British withdrawal certain |
Between them: the Simon Commission (1927) with no Indian member, met by "Simon go back"; the Nehru Report (1928); the Lahore session (December 1929) which adopted Purna Swaraj, celebrated as independence day on 26 January 1930; the three Round Table Conferences (1930–32); the Communal Award and the Poona Pact (1932) between Gandhi and Ambedkar.