The British Committee of the Indian National Congress was founded in

Correct — A, 1889. The British Committee of the Indian National Congress was set up in London in 1889 to carry the Congress case to the British public and Parliament, on the Moderate reasoning that British opinion was ignorant of Indian conditions rather than hostile to them. The committee's weekly journal, India, began publication the following year and ran for decades as the movement's voice in Britain. Sir William Wedderburn, a retired civil servant who had twice presided over the Congress, chaired it, and Dadabhai Naoroji worked through it — he went on to win the Central Finsbury seat in the House of Commons in 1892, the first Indian to sit there. The Congress spent a substantial share of its funds on this British work, which is one reason the Extremists later attacked the whole strategy as petitioning.

• (b)1892 — This is the year Dadabhai Naoroji was elected to the British House of Commons, and the year of the Indian Councils Act. Both are associated with the same British campaign, which is why the date is offered.
• (c)1898 — A decade too late. By 1898 the committee's journal had been running for years and the campaign in Britain was already an established part of Congress work.
• (d)1901 — Later still, and well into the phase when Moderate disappointment with the British response was hardening into the Extremist critique.

The early Congress worked by what its critics called the three Ps — petition, prayer and protest — and its method rested on an assumption about Britain: that the British public, once informed, would insist on justice for India. The British Committee was the machinery of that assumption. It lobbied members of Parliament, briefed sympathetic newspapers, and organised deputations, and its journal India carried Indian grievances into British political conversation.

Dates in the founding decade of the Congress cluster tightly and the options are built to exploit that. The Congress itself was founded in 1885; the British Committee in 1889; its journal India in 1890; Naoroji's Commons victory in 1892; the Indian Councils Act, also 1892. Learning them as one short sequence rather than as loose facts is what makes this item quick. The strategy behind the committee matters too, because the Extremists' case after 1905 was aimed squarely at it — that money spent on English opinion was money not spent on Indian mobilisation.

• The British Committee of the Indian National Congress was founded in London in 1889.
• Its journal, India, began publication in 1890 and became the Congress voice in Britain.
• Sir William Wedderburn, twice Congress President, chaired the committee.
• Dadabhai Naoroji was elected to the House of Commons from Central Finsbury in 1892, the first Indian to sit there.
• The Indian National Congress itself was founded in December 1885 at Bombay.

• Answering 1892 because that is the year of Naoroji's election and of the Indian Councils Act.
• Confusing the founding of the committee with the launch of its journal India in 1890.
• Placing the committee after the Moderate-Extremist split rather than well before it.

Asked as a bare year recall with three neighbouring dates from the same campaign supplied as distractors — the standard shape for early-Congress chronology.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The journal India, published from London as the organ of the Congress campaign in Britain, was started in

  • (a)1885
  • (b)1890
  • (c)1896
  • (d)1905

  Answer(b) 1890 — a year after the British Committee itself was set up.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who was the first Indian to be elected to the British House of Commons?

  • (a)W. C. Bonnerjee
  • (b)Dadabhai Naoroji
  • (c)Mancherjee Bhownagree
  • (d)Surendranath Banerjea

  Answer(b) Dadabhai Naoroji — elected from Central Finsbury in 1892.