Indian National Congress

Noon in a college hall

At noon on 28 December 1885, the first Indian National Congress convened in the hall of Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, above Gowalia Tank in Bombay.

Seventy-two recognised delegates attended, with other observers also present, so 72 counts delegates rather than everyone in the room. The delegates elected Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee of Bengal as the first president, and he described the gathering as a national assembly.

The organisers had planned to meet in Poona, but reported cholera cases forced an eleventh-hour transfer; the replacement hall was ready by 27 December.

Nine resolutions in three days

The session continued through 30 December and adopted nine resolutions, covering administrative inquiry, legislative representation, civil-service examinations, military expenditure, taxation, Upper Burma, circulation of the resolutions and the next Congress.

G. Subramania Iyer proposed the first, calling for a Royal Commission to investigate Indian administration with Indian representation. Dadabhai Naoroji proposed simultaneous civil-service examinations in India and England.

What the listing gets wrong

The 72 were delegates, not 72 Indian lawyers, academics and journalists. Their occupations were broader, and the organiser and general secretary A.O. Hume was British.

The Congress opened with limited constitutional-reform demands and professions of loyalty. Bonnerjee acknowledged that the delegates had not been elected as members of the House of Commons were, but argued that political associations had selected them to voice shared concerns.

The Moderate–Extremist split came in 1907, and complete independence became the Congress's official goal in 1929.