ABSTRACT
The initial meeting of the Indian National Congress, founded by Allan Octavian Hume and several prominent Indian public figures, took place in Bombay in 1885. The leadership of the early Congress was drawn from among the new, western-educated, Indian middle class. A western-educated Bengali Brahman, Bankim Chandra served in a modest capacity in the subordinate ranks of the government in Calcutta. Many a militant nationalist avowed his indebtedness to Bankim Chandra's inspiration; Sri Aurobindo edited his revolutionary, extremist newspaper Bande Mataram in the heroic days of the intense, militant struggle against the white bureaucracy between 1905 and 1908. The vital issue of how Indian nationalists and the National Congress should respond to the swadeshi campaign, mounted by Bengali militants, that produced the split of 1907 at Surat. Colonial exploitation, racism and bitter frustration had bred a transformation of the nationalist movement. In 1909 and 1910, however, the militant campaign and the swadeshi movement failed.
