Reforms After The Indian National Congress 1885

1.    Constitutional Reforms

2.    Economic Reforms

3.    Administrative Reforms 

4.    Methods of Political Work

 

•    From 1885 to 1892, nationalist leaders demanded that the Legislative Councils be expanded and reformed. They demanded that elected representatives of the people be admitted to the councils, as well as an increase in the councils' powers.

 

•    Their agitation compelled the British government to pass the Indian Councils Act of 1892. The number of members of the Imperial Legislative Council and provincial councils was increased as a result of this Act. While some members of Councils could be elected indirectly by Indians, the majority of officials remained the same. 

 

•    The Councils were also given the authority to discuss but not vote on the annual budgets. 

 

•    The Act of 1892 was deemed a hoax by nationalists who were completely dissatisfied with it. They demanded a bigger role for Indians in the councils, as well as more power. They specifically demanded Indian control over the public purse and chanted the slogan "No taxation without representation," which had previously become the national anthem of the American people during their War of Independence.

 

•    By the turn of the century, nationalist leaders had advanced even further, arguing for Swarajya, or self-government, within the British Empire, modelled after self-governing colonies such as Australia and Canada. This demand was made by Gokhale in 1905 and Dadabhai Naoroji in 1906 from the Congress platform.

 

•    As early as 1881, Dadabhai Naoroji declared British rule to be "an everlasting, increasing, and every day increasing foreign invasion" that was "utterly, though gradually, destroying the country."

 

•    The destruction of India's indigenous industries was blamed on the British, according to nationalists. They advocated for the rapid development of modern industries as the primary solution to India's poverty. 

 

•    The Indian people worked hard to popularise the concept of swadeshi, or using Indian goods and boycotting British goods as a means of promoting Indian industries. 

 

•    In 1896, students in Poona and other Maharashtra towns publicly burned foreign clothing as part of a larger swadeshi campaign. 

 

•    Indians campaigned for better working conditions for plantation labourers. 

 

•    Nationalists claimed that one of the causes of India's poverty was high taxation, and demanded the repeal of the salt tax and a reduction in land revenue. 

 

•    Nationalists slammed India's government's high military spending and demanded that it be reduced.

 

•    At the time, the most important administrative reform desired by Indians was the Indenisation of higher-level administrative positions. They made this demand based on economic, political, and moral considerations. 

 

•    The European monopoly on higher services was economically harmful for two reasons 

 

a.    Europeans were paid very well, which made Indian administration very expensive— Indians with similar qualifications could be hired for much less

 

b.    Europeans who were sent out of India received a large portion of their salaries and pensions in England. This contributed to India's wealth drain. 

 

From a political standpoint, nationalists hoped that indianizing these (civil) services would make the administration more responsive to Indian needs, so they demanded the separation of the judiciary and executive powers.

 

a.    Objected to the juries' powers being curtailed

 

b.    Opposed the government's disarmament policy

 

c.    Requested that the government place faith in the people by granting them the right to bear arms, allowing them to defend themselves and their country in times of need.

 

d.    Urged the government to take on and expand the state's welfare activities

 

e.    Demanded more technical and higher education facilities

 

f.    Promoted the establishment of agricultural banks to help peasants escape the clutches of moneylenders

 

g.    Demanded that medical and health facilities be expanded, as well as that the police system be improved to make it more honest, efficient, and popular.

 

•    Up until 1905, the Indian national movement was dominated by leaders who were commonly referred to as moderate nationalists or Moderates.

 

•    The Moderates' political tactics can be summed up in two words: constitutional agitation within the confines of the law and slow, orderly political progress.

 

•    Moderates believed that if public opinion was formed and organised, and popular demands were presented to the authorities in the form of petitions, meetings, resolutions, and speeches, the authorities would gradually and step by step give in to these demands.

 

•    Moderates genuinely believed that maintaining India's political ties with the United Kingdom was in India's best interests at the time. As a result, instead of expelling the British, they planned to transform British rule into something more akin to national rule. 

 

•    Later, when Moderates realised the evils of British rule and the government's refusal to accept nationalist demands for reform, many of them stopped talking about loyalty to the British and began demanding India's independence. 

 

•    Many nationalist leaders had doubts about the British's good intentions from the start. They believed in relying on the Indian people's political strength and political action. 

 

•    Tilak, along with a slew of other leaders and newspaper editors, represented a movement that would later be dubbed "extremists" or "radical nationalists."

 

•    The British authorities had been hostile to the growing nationalist movement from the start and had developed suspicions about the National Congress.

 

•    The nationalist leaders were referred to as "disloyal babus," "seditious brahmins," and "violent villains" by British officials. As it became clear to the British that the National Congress would not become merely a tool in the hands of the authorities, but would instead become a focal point of Indian nationalism. Officials in the United Kingdom began to openly criticise and condemn the National Congress and other Rationalist speakers. 

 

•    In a public speech in 1887, Dufferin attacked the National Congress, mocking it as representing only a "microscopic minority of the people." 

 

•    Lord Curzon told the Secretary of State in 1900 that “the Congress is teetering on the brink of collapse, and one of my great ambitions, while in India, is to assist it in a peaceful demise.” 

 

•    The British government also pushed the policy of "divide and rule" even further. They incited Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Raja Shiva Prasad of Benaras, and other pro-British figures to launch an anti-Congress movement. 

 

•    While some critics argue that the nationalist movement and the National Congress did not have much success in their early stages, they did establish the political truth that India must be governed in the interests of Indians and made nationalism a dominant issue in Indian life.