Frankenstein’s monster to British: How Surendranath Banerjee transformed Congress into a nationalist organisation

This is how R.C. Majumadar described Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee: The selection of W.C. Bonnerjee as President…gives a fair idea of the political outlook of the founders of the Congress. Mr. Bonnerjee lived the life of an Englishman and not only kept aloof from, but ridiculed all sorts of political agitation. (Emphasis added) It is also a fact that W.C. Bonnerjee later defended Surendranath Banerjee in court in a contempt case but our assessment in this context should stand on the principles of the spirit. The right thing that Bonnerjee should have done was to refuse the presidency of the Indian National Congress and offer it to Surendranath Banerjee. Eventually, Bonnerjee decided that India was not the correct country for him. He migrated to England where he contested on a Liberal Party ticket in 1892 and lost.     But why was Surendranath Banerjee kept out of the founding of the INC? Because, according to Hume, he was an… extremist. In which case, who did he regard as the moderates? Shrewd political gambit The initial phase is its aforementioned founding by Allan Octavian Hume. To wit, it was a shrewd political gambit to preemptively diffuse the probable threat of a repeat of 1857. Its quick success was assured because it was a stealthy bomb from the blue flung by the British, who clothed it in the finery of benevolence. But the success was short-lived because the British did not anticipate that the INC was the proverbial genie waiting to be unbottled. In an alarmingly short span, it careened out of Hume’s — i.e., British — control. However, one observation that Hume had made remained true for some years: The Congress was the outcome of “the labours of a body of cultured men mostly born natives of India.”   In this initial period, according to R.C. Majumdar, “The Indian National Congress…. was brought into existence as an instrument to safeguard the British rule in India.” Indian supporters of this infant Congress included prominent businessmen, lawyers, journalists and activists of various hues that included Dadabhai Naoroji, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, and K.T. Telang.   A common trait that they all shared was a naïve and almost childish faith that the British were a truly moral people who just needed to be convinced of the legitimacy of our demands, and they would pack up and leave immediately. At this distance in time, one could attribute this naiveté to three major factors:   (1) The inherited, ancient Dharmic DNA of this land, which actually made them detect an element of virtue even in their oppressors. (2) Their worldview, which had by then been shaped by the ascendant English education system as well as their regular interactions with the British ruling class   (3) A more common sense factor: These privileged and educated classes didn’t have the stomach for an all-out bloody war akin to 1857. Western historians and writers examining this period express incredulity when they notice this attitude of the aforementioned class of Indians. As insiders, they unerringly understood what British rule really was: an imperial justification for unfettered exploitation of Indians and a ruthless bleeding and plunder of India. And so, they were stunned that Indians, the victims, thought the British were actually benevolent. Much later, Mohandas Gandhi not only stuck to this attitudinal template he also repurposed it. A Frankenstein’s monster for the British  However, the Congress that A.O. Hume had created, and was quickly beginning to transform into a Frankenstein’s monster right after the second session of the INC. This session initiated a decisive metamorphosis under the leadership of Surendranath Banerjee, the same leader he had kept out.   Banerjee’s efforts were so successful that Viceroy Dufferin left India thoroughly upset and disappointed, and wheezed out his hypocritical contempt against an organisation he had himself helped create because it was no longer under his control. This second session, held in 1886 in Calcutta also heralded what can arguably be called the Surendranath – Tilak era. This was the second phase of the pre-independence history of the INC. For those attuned to Bharatavarsha’s civilizational ethos, it was truly the most glorious period of the Congress before Gandhi enfeebled the body by first enfeebling the spirit by inflicting an untested experiment of non-violence. A foreign journalist noted how the “Congress became…truly national, not in 1885…but in 1886, the year in which Surendranath Banerji joined it.” It was a truly heady period. It was the making of an epoch that slowly bombinated throughout the country. A slow but huge wave of ineffable nationalism that was inspired by and riding on countless droplets of fused cultural renaissance was surging. In the same year, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had merged into eternity and Swami Vivekananda began to meditate at Cossipore on the method of continuing his Guru’s work. Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s Arya Samaj had already become a great Sanatana spiritual, cultural and martial force.   Mahadev Govind Ranade and Lokmanya Tilak were blazing a fiery trail in Maharashtra while Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya was searing the British with his acidic literature. One can reel out the names of any number of such giants but these are biographies that should ideally be written in pages of gold. And it was this iridescent legacy that Mohandas Gandhi destroyed in ways that we’re yet to fully comprehend… notwithstanding the fact that he respected them. But that’s a story for another day. The other face-staring theme of this second phase of the INC’s history was reported by the London-based newspaper, The Times, which noted how not a single Muslim member had joined the Congress. The practical dimension of this story begins in 1887. ‘ On the threshold of the third Congress session at Madras. An elite Muslim leader made a premonitory speech to his community members: If you accept that the country should groan under the yoke of Bengali rule and its people lick the Bengali shoes, then, in the name of God! Jump into the train and…be off to Madras! His name: Syed Ahmad Khan. To be continued The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed are personal Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .