The Indian National Movement is the spine of every judiciary History paper: the examiner wants dates, leaders, sessions and statutes in the right order, and the cause-and-effect logic that links them. Between the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the freedom struggle passed through three recognisable phases - the Moderate phase of prayer and petition, the Extremist and Swadeshi phase of self-reliance and boycott, and the Gandhian phase of mass satyagraha - running alongside a parallel current of revolutionary nationalism. This chapter maps that arc chronologically, fixing the precise dates, the constitutional milestones and the turning-point episodes that recur as one-mark facts and as ten-mark essays. For the deeper background to British paramountcy, read it alongside the Mughal Empire and Indian History hub.
Foundation of the Indian National Congress, 1885
The Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885, its first session convening at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay on 28 December 1885 with seventy-two delegates. The retired British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume was the prime mover, and Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee presided as the first President. The session had originally been planned for Poona but was shifted to Bombay because of a cholera outbreak.
The early Congress was a moderate, constitutionalist body of English-educated lawyers, journalists and professionals who professed loyalty to the Crown and sought reform from within the system. The so-called safety-valve theory - the idea that Hume conceived the Congress to provide a harmless outlet for educated discontent and forestall another 1857-style uprising - is a staple of objective papers, though modern historians treat it sceptically and stress the indigenous, self-generated character of the nationalist awakening. Whatever the motive, the institution rapidly outgrew its founders' intentions, supplying the organisational continuity that every later phase of the struggle would build upon.
For examination purposes, fix the inaugural facts firmly: the venue (Bombay), the date (28 December 1885), the presiding figure (W.C. Bonnerjee) and the count of delegates (seventy-two). The earliest sessions were annual gatherings of the educated elite that passed resolutions and dispersed; there was as yet no permanent organisation, no mass membership and no programme of agitation. Yet the very act of assembling delegates from every presidency under one banner created, for the first time, an all-India political consciousness that transcended region, language and caste - the indispensable precondition for everything that followed.
The Moderate Phase (1885-1905)
The first two decades belong to the Moderates - Dadabhai Naoroji (author of the Drain of Wealth theory and the first Indian in the British House of Commons), Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Banerjee and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee. Their method was the 3-P approach - prayer, petition and protest - working through constitutional agitation, resolutions and memorials addressed to the British Parliament rather than to the Indian administration, in the belief that British rule was fundamentally just and amenable to reasoned persuasion.
Their concrete achievements were modest but foundational: a sustained economic critique of colonial exploitation, the demand for expansion of legislative councils and Indianisation of services, and the partial reform secured through the Indian Councils Act, 1892, which enlarged the councils and introduced a limited, indirect element of election. Critics within the movement would soon dismiss the Moderates as the party of "political mendicancy", but their groundwork in articulating grievances and building a pan-Indian platform was indispensable.
The Moderate economic critique deserves particular weight in any answer. Naoroji's Poverty and Un-British Rule in India and the work of Romesh Chandra Dutt exposed how the colonial relationship systematically transferred Indian wealth to Britain through home charges, an unfavourable trade structure and the burden of a foreign administration - the drain of wealth. By demonstrating that British rule was not merely politically unjust but economically ruinous, the Moderates supplied the movement with its most enduring intellectual weapon, one that later leaders of every stripe, from Tilak to Gandhi, would deploy against the empire.
Partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi Movement (1905)
The turning point arrived with the Partition of Bengal. Viceroy Lord Curzon announced the partition on 20 July 1905 and it took effect on 16 October 1905, splitting the province into a Hindu-majority west and a Muslim-majority east. The official justification was administrative convenience in governing a province of some seventy-eight million people; the nationalist reading was that it was a calculated attempt to divide Hindus and Muslims and break the back of Bengali nationalism.
The response was the Swadeshi Movement - the first organised mass agitation of the freedom struggle - coupling the positive programme of swadeshi (using Indian-made goods, reviving indigenous industry and national education) with the negative weapon of boycott of British goods, courts and titles. The agitation produced new institutions such as the Bengal National College and threw up leaders like Aurobindo Ghose. The partition was finally annulled in 1911 by Viceroy Lord Hardinge at the Delhi Durbar, when the capital was also shifted from Calcutta to Delhi - a striking concession that proved the efficacy of mass agitation over polite petition.
The Swadeshi years also reshaped the texture of Indian politics. They drew students, women and sections of the urban poor into agitation, popularised the cult of indigenous enterprise, and gave nationalism a cultural and emotional vocabulary - in songs, festivals and the imagery of Bande Mataram - that the dry constitutionalism of the Moderates had lacked. It was in this crucible that the techniques of boycott and passive resistance, later perfected by Gandhi, were first tested on a mass scale.
The Extremists and the Surat Split (1907)
The Swadeshi years sharpened the divide between the cautious Moderates and the assertive Extremists - the trio of Lal-Bal-Pal: Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal. Tilak's slogan, "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it," captured a militant nationalism impatient with constitutional gradualism and willing to use boycott, passive resistance and self-reliance as instruments of pressure.
The rift came to a head at the Surat session of December 1907, where Congress split into two factions. The flashpoint was the choice of president and whether to reaffirm the Calcutta resolutions of 1906 on swaraj, swadeshi, boycott and national education; the Moderates under Gokhale and Mehta prevailed procedurally, and the Extremists were effectively pushed out. The party would remain divided until the two wings reunited at the Lucknow session of 1916. The split weakened the movement in the short term but clarified the ideological choices that the Gandhian era would later synthesise.
Lucknow Pact and the Home Rule Leagues (1916-1917)
The year 1916 produced two landmarks. The Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League (founded in 1906) marked a high-water mark of Hindu-Muslim political cooperation: the Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims in return for a joint demand for self-government, and the two wings of the Congress itself reunited at the same session.
Simultaneously, the Home Rule League movement injected fresh energy. Bal Gangadhar Tilak launched his League in April 1916 and Annie Besant launched hers in September 1916, popularising the demand for Home Rule - self-government within the Empire on the Irish model - and drawing a new generation into active politics. The wartime ferment culminated in the Montagu Declaration of August 1917, in which the Secretary of State promised the "gradual development of self-governing institutions", later given statutory form in the Government of India Act, 1919, with its scheme of provincial dyarchy.
Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (1919)
The post-war moment of hope curdled quickly. The Rowlatt Act, passed on 10 March 1919, armed the government with powers of detention without trial and trial without ordinary procedure for those suspected of sedition - the antithesis of the constitutional advance Indians had been promised. Gandhi called a nationwide satyagraha against the "Black Act".
On 13 April 1919 the agitation reached its tragic climax at Amritsar. A crowd that had gathered at the enclosed Jallianwala Bagh - many to protest the arrest of the leaders Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, others simply for the Baisakhi gathering - was fired upon for some ten minutes by troops under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, who had sealed the single narrow exit. Official figures put the dead at over 379; the true toll was far higher. The Hunter Commission later censured Dyer's conduct as "unjustified" but imposed no real punishment, and Congress boycotted its inquiry. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. The massacre destroyed whatever faith remained in British justice and set the stage for the first Gandhian mass movement.
Non-Cooperation and Khilafat (1920-1922)
The Non-Cooperation Movement, launched in 1920, was the first nationwide mass movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress, with the avowed goal of attaining swaraj within one year. It fused three grievances: the Punjab wrongs of Jallianwala Bagh, the broken promises on self-rule, and the Khilafat question - the campaign led by the Ali brothers (Shaukat and Mohammad Ali) to preserve the authority of the Ottoman Caliph - which Gandhi embraced to forge Hindu-Muslim unity.
The programme was the surrender of titles, the boycott of courts, schools, councils and foreign cloth, and the promotion of khadi and national institutions. The movement gave the Congress a genuinely mass character for the first time. It ended abruptly after the Chauri Chaura incident of 5 February 1922, when a mob in the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces set fire to a police station and killed its occupants. Holding non-violence to be non-negotiable, Gandhi withdrew the movement on 12 February 1922 - a decision that dismayed many colleagues but defined the moral discipline of Gandhian satyagraha.
Revolutionary Nationalism
Running parallel to the constitutional and Gandhian currents was the stream of revolutionary nationalism, which held that armed action and individual heroism were necessary to shake the empire. The early Bengal and Maharashtra phase produced the Anushilan Samiti, the Yugantar group and the Ghadar Party abroad. The later phase is dominated by Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), reorganised in 1928.
On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw non-lethal bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly to protest the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill, courting arrest with cries of Inquilab Zindabad - their stated aim being "to make the deaf hear". Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were later hanged in March 1931 in connection with the killing of the police officer Saunders (carried out in reprisal for the lathi-charge that caused Lala Lajpat Rai's death). The revolutionaries' courtroom defences turned their trials into propaganda for independence and made them enduring martyrs of the movement.
Bhagat Singh's significance lies less in the violence than in the ideas: he gave revolutionary nationalism a self-consciously socialist and secular content, arguing in writings such as Why I am an Atheist for a republic founded on the abolition of exploitation rather than mere transfer of power between elites. The HSRA's blend of action and ideology, and the dignity of its members on the gallows, ensured that the revolutionary stream - though never the dominant strategy - retained a permanent hold on the popular imagination and a recurring presence in examination papers.
Simon Commission, Nehru Report and Purna Swaraj (1927-1929)
In 1927 the British appointed the Simon Commission to review constitutional progress. Because it contained no Indian member, it was met on its 1928 arrival with the slogan "Simon Go Back" and black-flag demonstrations; it was during the Lahore protest against the Commission that Lala Lajpat Rai was fatally injured in a lathi-charge.
Challenged by the Secretary of State to produce their own agreed constitution, Indian leaders responded with the Nehru Report of 1928, drafted under Motilal Nehru, which recommended dominion status, a bill of fundamental rights and the rejection of separate electorates. The younger leaders - Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose - found dominion status too timid. At the historic Lahore session of December 1929, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj (complete independence) as its goal, and 26 January 1930 was observed as the first Independence Day - the date later chosen for the commencement of the Constitution.
Civil Disobedience and the Dandi March (1930-1934)
To translate Purna Swaraj into action, Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience Movement with the Dandi Salt March. On 12 March 1930 he set out from the Sabarmati Ashram with a band of followers and, after a march of some 240 miles, reached the coastal village of Dandi on 6 April 1930, where he broke the salt law by making salt from sea-water. The salt tax - a levy on a universal necessity - was a masterstroke of symbolism that drew in peasants, women and the poor.
The movement spread into the boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, refusal to pay taxes, and defiance of forest laws, and was met with mass arrests. It was paused by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 5 March 1931, under which the government agreed to release political prisoners and permit salt-making for personal use, and Gandhi agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London (September-December 1931). When that conference failed over the question of minority representation, the movement was resumed but eventually petered out and was formally withdrawn by 1934. The three Round Table Conferences (1930-1932) and the resulting communal award fed directly into the next great constitutional statute.
Government of India Act, 1935 and the 1937 Elections
The Government of India Act, 1935 was the longest and most elaborate statute the British Parliament had ever passed, and the single most important constitutional ancestor of the Indian Constitution. It abolished provincial dyarchy and granted provincial autonomy, provided for an all-India federation (which never came into being because the princely states did not accede), introduced dyarchy at the Centre, and vastly extended the franchise to roughly a tenth of the population. Its many "safeguards" and the Governor's and Governor-General's discretionary and reserve powers drew sharp nationalist criticism as a charter that conceded form while retaining control.
Under the Act, provincial elections were held in the winter of 1936-37, with results in February 1937. The Congress won majorities or emerged as the largest party in most provinces and formed ministries in several of them, giving Indians genuine responsibility in provincial government for the first time. Those ministries resigned in 1939 in protest at India being committed to the Second World War without consultation - the rupture that led directly to the Pakistan demand and to Quit India.
Pakistan Demand and Quit India (1940-1942)
With the Congress ministries gone, the All-India Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah moved decisively. At its Lahore session of 22-24 March 1940, the League adopted the Lahore Resolution (popularly the Pakistan Resolution), demanding that the Muslim-majority regions of the north-west and north-east be grouped into autonomous and sovereign "independent states" - the constitutional birth of the demand for Pakistan, grounded in the two-nation theory.
Britain's wartime overture, the Cripps Mission of March 1942, offered dominion status with the right of provinces to secede after the war but no immediate transfer of power; Gandhi famously dismissed its post-dated promise as "a post-dated cheque on a failing bank", and it was rejected by all sides. Congress responded by launching the Quit India Movement on 8 August 1942 at the Bombay session, where Gandhi gave the mantra "Do or Die". The entire Congress leadership was arrested within hours, and the movement - the August Kranti - became a spontaneous, often violent, mass uprising that the government suppressed with heavy force. Though crushed, it demonstrated that British authority now rested on coercion alone.
Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army
The militant alternative to Gandhian non-violence found its fullest expression in Subhas Chandra Bose. Having resigned the Congress presidency in 1939 and escaped house arrest, Bose reached South-East Asia, took charge of the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) - originally raised from Indian prisoners of war - and on 21 October 1943 proclaimed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind Sarkar) in Singapore, of which he became head of state. His rallying cry was "Give me blood and I shall give you freedom".
The INA advanced with Japanese forces into the north-east and hoisted its flag at Moirang in Manipur in 1944, though the campaign collapsed with Japan's wartime reverses. The decisive nationalist impact came afterwards: the Red Fort (INA) trials of November 1945 onwards, in which officers Prem Sahgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Shah Nawaz Khan were court-martialled for treason, ignited extraordinary public sympathy across communal lines, with the Congress defending the accused. Combined with the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of February 1946, the trials convinced Britain that the loyalty of the Indian armed forces could no longer be relied upon - a powerful accelerant to the decision to quit India.
Note the contrast the examiner often invites: Bose's faith in armed struggle and external alliance stood directly opposed to Gandhi's insistence on non-violence and internal moral force. Yet the two currents proved complementary in effect. Gandhian mass mobilisation drained the legitimacy of British rule from within, while the spectre of disaffection in the army - dramatised by the INA trials and the naval mutiny - removed the coercive foundation on which that rule ultimately rested.
The Road to Independence (1946-1947)
The endgame unfolded rapidly. The Cabinet Mission of 1946 proposed a united India with a three-tier federal structure and a weak Centre, grouping of provinces, and a Constituent Assembly - the last serious attempt to avoid partition. Its ambiguity over the compulsory grouping of provinces and the right to opt out caused both Congress and League to interpret it differently, and the consensus broke down. The League withdrew its acceptance and called Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946, which triggered the Great Calcutta Killings and a spiral of communal violence.
With agreement impossible, Viceroy Lord Mountbatten announced the 3 June Plan of 1947, accepting partition. It was given statutory effect by the Indian Independence Act, 1947, which received royal assent on 18 July 1947 and created the two independent dominions of India and Pakistan on 15 August 1947, ending British paramountcy and lapsing it over the princely states. The freedom won at midnight on 15 August 1947 was thus the culmination of sixty-two years of agitation - but it came at the cost of partition and one of the largest, bloodiest migrations in human history. For the constitutional thread that runs from 1935 into the Republic, see also the Delhi Sultanate and Gupta and post-Gupta chapters for the longer institutional backdrop.
Frequently asked questions
When and where was the Indian National Congress founded, and who was its first president?
The Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885, its first session opening on 28 December 1885 at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay with seventy-two delegates. Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee was the first President, and the retired civilian Allan Octavian Hume was the prime mover behind its formation.
What was the difference between the Moderates and the Extremists?
The Moderates (Naoroji, Gokhale, Mehta, Surendranath Banerjee) believed in constitutional agitation - prayer, petition and protest - trusting British justice and seeking gradual reform. The Extremists (Lal-Bal-Pal) demanded swaraj through boycott, swadeshi and passive resistance, distrusting British intentions. The clash culminated in the Surat Split of December 1907; the two wings reunited at the Lucknow session of 1916.
Why was the Partition of Bengal (1905) significant?
Announced by Lord Curzon on 20 July 1905 and effective from 16 October 1905, it split Bengal along communal lines, ostensibly for administrative convenience but in effect to weaken Bengali nationalism. It triggered the Swadeshi Movement - the first organised mass agitation - and was annulled in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar, when the capital was also moved to Delhi.
Why did Gandhi call off the Non-Cooperation Movement?
Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement on 12 February 1922 following the Chauri Chaura incident of 5 February 1922, in which a mob in the Gorakhpur district set fire to a police station and killed its occupants. Holding non-violence to be an absolute condition of satyagraha, he refused to continue a movement that had turned violent, even at the height of its mass appeal.
What was the importance of the Dandi Salt March?
The Dandi March (12 March to 6 April 1930) launched the Civil Disobedience Movement. Gandhi marched roughly 240 miles from Sabarmati to Dandi and broke the salt law by producing salt from sea-water. By targeting the salt tax - a levy on a universal necessity - it drew peasants, women and the poor into mass civil disobedience and dramatised the demand for Purna Swaraj adopted at Lahore in 1929.
How did the Government of India Act, 1935 shape the path to independence?
The Act abolished provincial dyarchy and introduced provincial autonomy, proposed an all-India federation (never realised), and extended the franchise. It was the most important statutory ancestor of the Indian Constitution. The 1936-37 elections held under it brought Congress ministries to power in most provinces; their 1939 resignation over India's wartime commitment precipitated the Pakistan demand and the Quit India Movement.