Safety Valve Thesis Relating to the Birth of Congress

2020-04-27 15:14:17

The Thesis

myth is that the Indian National Congress was started by A.O. Hume and others under the official direction, guidance of Lord Dufferin to provide a safe, mild, peaceful, and constitutional outlet or safety valve for the rising discontent among the masses.
Core was that violent revolution was on the cards and could be avoided only by the Congress.
Lala Lajpat Rai used it to attack the Moderates within the Congress through its Young India book that he published in 1916 this was later published by Mahatma Gandhi.
R Palme Dutt’s work India Today he wrote that it was secretly organised through a plan by the Viceroy. A/c to him Congress lead the masses in the national struggle but betrayed them when they moved towards a revolutionary path.
RSS chief Golwalkar has criticised using this that INC has stifled true nationalism.
Liberals CF Andrews and Girija Mukherji accepted the this theory because it helped avoid useless bloodshed.
was 1st mentioned in William Wedderburn’s biography of AO Hume in 1913 who sourced it from undated memorandum in Hume’s paper dealing with the foundation of INC.
memorandum slowly became government reports, secret report from the CID, he received in his official capacity but the reports were nowhere to be found in the National Archives.

Hume worked in Do Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce. How could he get Home Dept files or CID reports.
was in Shimla and the files were kept in Delhi.
Some have said that 30,000 reporters had said that there was discontent among the peasants. But state employed only more than a few hundred.
meeting was held in 1878 b/w Hume and Dufferin. Why did they wait for 7 years to found INC.
Wedderburn writes that Hume got that the warning was received from various religious leaders who got this information from their Chelas.
The impression given by him was that these Gurus had supernatural occult powers.
Dufferin was critical of Hume and his organisation of a Political party on the line of Irish one to bring the opinions of the Natives to the fray.

The Safety-valve thesis relating to the birth of the Congress;

Discuss ‘the safety valve’ theory. Does it satisfactorily explain the foundation of the Indian National Congress? [1991, 60m]
To what extent was the emergence of the Congress in 1885 the culmination of a process of political awakening that had its beginning in the 1870s? [2000, 60m]
“The ‘safety-valve thesis’ does not adequately explain the birth of the Indian National Congress in 1885.” Critically examine. [2014, 10m]