The credit for the birth of the Congress is often given to Allan Octavian Hume, who with the blessings of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin successfully organized the prominent political leaders of the period and founded the Indian National Congress, whose inaugural session was held at Bombay in 1885.
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Although, the British are said to be the foster parents of the Indian Nationalism, but it is an established fact that the Congress was the natural and inevitable product of various political, economic and social forces of the 19th century.
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Hume favoured an organization that could undertake constitutional agitation and help in redressal of political demands of the people.
He was of the view that the emergence of the educated class in India should be accepted as a political reality and that timely steps should be taken to provide legitimate outlets to the grievances of this class and efforts be made to satisfy its ambitions.
In 1884, at the annual convention of the Theosophical Society at Adyar in Madras, Allan Octavian Hume disclosed his plan to organize an all India Political Organization.
The programme of political action to be adopted by the educated Indians was acceptable to Indian leaders.
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In March 1885, it was decided that a conference of the Indian National Union (initially it was this name that was adopted) would be convened at Poona during the Christmas week.
Subsequently, a committee was formed to make the necessary preparations for the first session of the organization.
The committee consisted of Hume, Surendranath Banerja, Narendranath Sen, S. Subramania Iyer, P. Ananda Charlu, V.N. Mandalik, K.T. Telang, Sardar Dayal Singh, Lala Sri Ram.