Chronologically arrange the formation of the following political associations, beginning from the earliest: 1. Poona Sarvajanik Sabha 2. Indian Association 3. Madras Mahajan Sabha 4. Bombay Presidency Association Select the answer using the code given below:

Correct — A, 1, 2, 3, 4. The four associations came in the order the question lists them, and the order tells a story rather than merely a set of dates. The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha was the earliest, founded in 1870 in the Deccan and associated with Mahadev Govind Ranade and Ganesh Vasudev Joshi; it worked as a bridge between government and people, sending petitions to the British Parliament and later giving the national movement Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale. The Indian Association followed in 1876 at Calcutta, founded by Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose as the first avowedly nationalist organisation of British India, with the frankly political aim of advancing the people by every legitimate means; it took up the civil-service age limit, organised across provinces and convened the Indian National Conference. Then came the two presidency bodies of 1884 and 1885. The Madras Mahajana Sabha was formed in 1884, and the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885, the year of the first Congress session — Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta and K. T. Telang were the three men chiefly responsible for it, and the body hosted that first Congress meeting at Bombay at the end of the year. Read the sequence as a movement outward: a regional sabha in the Deccan, a self-consciously all-India association in Bengal, and then two presidency associations founded on the very eve of the Congress, whose leaders walked straight into it.

• (b)4, 3, 2, 1 — The exact reverse. It makes the Bombay Presidency Association of 1885 the oldest and the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha of 1870 the youngest, which inverts fifteen years of history.
• (c)1, 2, 4, 3 — Right for the first two and then swaps the two presidency bodies. Madras came first, in 1884; Bombay followed in 1885, in the same year as the founding of the Congress.
• (d)3, 4, 1, 2 — Puts the two 1880s bodies before the two older ones, which reverses the whole shape of the period — the Deccan and Bengal organisations came first and helped create the climate in which the presidency associations formed.

Between 1870 and 1885 educated Indians built a network of political associations that the Indian National Congress would inherit. The earlier bodies of the 1830s and 1850s — the Landholders' Society, the British Indian Association, the Madras Native Association — had spoken largely for landed and mercantile interests. The associations in this question are the next generation: professional, largely lawyer-led, provincial in base but national in argument, and increasingly willing to organise rather than merely petition. All four are treated as predecessors of the Congress, and their leaders became its first generation.

The item can be solved without recalling all four years. Two anchors do most of the work: the Indian Association is 1876, one of the best-remembered dates in the syllabus, and the Bombay Presidency Association is 1885, tied to the first Congress session that it hosted. That immediately places the Indian Association second-earliest at the latest and Bombay last, which leaves only option (a) among the four codes. Working by anchor and elimination is faster and safer than trying to recall 1884 for Madras. Keep three cautions in mind. First, some accounts give 1867 rather than 1870 for the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, but the order is unaffected. Second, do not confuse the Indian Association with the older British Indian Association of 1851 or with the Indian National Conference it convened. Third, Madras had an earlier body too, the Madras Native Association of 1852, which is not the Mahajana Sabha of 1884.

• Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, 1870 — associated with M. G. Ranade and Ganesh Vasudev Joshi, who became known as Sarvajanik Kaka; it later produced Tilak and Gokhale.
• Indian Association, 1876 — founded at Calcutta by Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose, the first avowedly nationalist organisation in British India.
• Madras Mahajana Sabha, 1884 — the Madras Presidency's counterpart, and like the others a recognised predecessor of the Congress.
• Bombay Presidency Association, 1885 — formed by Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta and K. T. Telang, and it hosted the first session of the Indian National Congress at Bombay at the end of that year.
• The Indian Association organised the Indian National Conference, which met before the Congress and was later merged into it.

• Confusing the Indian Association of 1876 with the British Indian Association of 1851, or with the Indian National Conference it organised.
• Assuming the presidency associations of Bombay and Madras came first because their cities were larger; the Deccan and Bengal bodies are older.
• Being thrown by the 1867 dating sometimes given for the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha — it is still the earliest of the four.

As a chronology like this one, as a founder-to-organisation match, or as a single-line question on the year or founder of one association.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Indian Association, founded in 1876 at Calcutta, was established by

  • (a)Dadabhai Naoroji and Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee
  • (b)Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose
  • (c)M. G. Ranade and G. V. Joshi
  • (d)Badruddin Tyabji and K. T. Telang

  Answer(b) Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose — the Indian Association was the first avowedly nationalist organisation in British India and later convened the Indian National Conference.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The first session of the Indian National Congress, held at Bombay in December 1885, was hosted by which organisation formed earlier that year?

  • (a)Poona Sarvajanik Sabha
  • (b)Madras Mahajana Sabha
  • (c)Bombay Presidency Association
  • (d)British Indian Association

  Answer(c) Bombay Presidency Association — formed in 1885 by Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta and K. T. Telang, and it hosted the Congress's first meeting at the end of that year.