The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume. The first session of the Indian National Congress was held in December in Bombay with seventy two delegates. It wasn’t just a political party...it was a group of politically-minded individuals who were interested in reform. In its first twenty years, known as a 'moderate phase', Congress was not interested in campaigning for independence or self-rule but for greater political autonomy within empire. However, after the Partition of Bengal in 1905, Congress became more vocal and active in demanding substantial political reform, and eventually voiced demands for full independence from Britain.
The majority its founding members had been educated or lived in Britain, including of course Allan Octavian Hume. Badruddin Tyabji, W. C. Bannerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Firoz Shah Mehta, and the brothers Manmohan and Lalmohan Ghosh had all studied in London, and had all fallen under the influence of Dadabhai Naoroji.
The Congress was supposedly created as a safety valve to let off steam and protect the empire. The proof of this was in 7 secret volumes that came to AO Hume's attention in 1878; these convinced him of the seething discontent and the possibility of violence against the British.
As Congress came under the influence of M. K. Gandhi in the 1920s, further former-students from Britain became prominent within the party such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose. This brought a major change...making this moment a cornerstone for what later be known as the movement for India’s freedom. Congress was transformed from an assembly dominated by Western-educated elites to a mass organization that appealed to diverse sections of the Indian public in these decades. Representatives of Congress would meet with British politicians to negotiate policies on their own terms, often at odds with the British. They also found it hard to appease their many constituents and their rivals, the Muslim League. On 15 August 1947, with the independence of India and Pakistan, Congress became the ruling party of India with Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister.
