Among the many important notes of modern India's history that has now turned into a bit of trivia that is usually turned into a taunt. Didn't you know that the Indian National Congress, the country's oldest political party which helped India achieve independence, was in fact founded by a British man? Few remember AO Hume today, with the Congress looking more and more like a family business. But the influence of the Scottish civil servant and ornithologist remains all around us.
Hume, whose father had been leader of the Benthamite Radical Party in England, is said to have made his first move towards the creation of the Congress in a letter to the graduates of the University of Calcutta in 1883, which was also seen as an address to the educated people of India.
A year later, Hume along with the Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society issued a notice convening the first Indian National Union, which would meet in 1885. "Indirectly this Conference will form the gem of a Native Parliament and, if properly conducted, will constitute in a few years an unanswerable reply to the assertion that India is still wholly unfit for any form of representative institutions," said the manifesto that was circulated in the run up to that meeting.
The next year Hume made the point a little more directly, in a poem that was addressed to the people of India and titled, Old Man's Hope.
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Hume, whose father had been leader of the Benthamite Radical Party in England, is said to have made his first move towards the creation of the Congress in a letter to the graduates of the University of Calcutta in 1883, which was also seen as an address to the educated people of India.
"If you the picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, cannot, scorning personal ease and selfish objects, make a resolute struggle to secure greater freedom for yourselves and your country, a more impartial administration, a larger share in the management of your own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong and our adversaries right; then are Lord Ripon's noble aspirations for your good fruitless and visionary, then, at present at any rate all hopes of progress are at an end and India truly neither desires nor deserves any better Government than she enjoys."
A year later, Hume along with the Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society issued a notice convening the first Indian National Union, which would meet in 1885. "Indirectly this Conference will form the gem of a Native Parliament and, if properly conducted, will constitute in a few years an unanswerable reply to the assertion that India is still wholly unfit for any form of representative institutions," said the manifesto that was circulated in the run up to that meeting.
The next year Hume made the point a little more directly, in a poem that was addressed to the people of India and titled, Old Man's Hope.
Sons of Ind, why sit ye idle,
Wait ye for some Deva's aid?
Buckle to, be up and doing!
Nations by themselves are made!
Yours the land, lives, all, at stake, tho'
Not by you the cards are played;
Are ye dumb? Speak up and claim them!
By themselves are nations made!
What avail your wealth, your learning,
Empty titles, sordid trade?
True self-rule were worth them all!
Nations by themselves are made!
Whispered murmurs darkly creeping,
Hidden worms beneath the glade,
Not by such shall wrong be righted!
Nations by themselves are made!
Are ye Serfs or are ye Freemen,
Ye that grovel in the shade?
In your own hands rest the issues!
By themselves are nations made!
Sons of Ind, be up and doing,
Let your course by none be stayed;
Lo! the Dawn is in the East;
By themselves are nations made!