Indian National Congress and the Struggle for Freedom, 1885 - 1947

The book presents an impartial and perceptive assessment of the role of the Indian National Congress in India’s struggle for freedom. The author, an eminent historian, has used extensive statistical data to demonstrate the impact of prevailing domestic and international conditions on the evolution of the politics of the Congress party and the Muslim League, as well as of other political and social groups.

His in-depth analysis covers the interplay of power politics between the Centre, the provinces and the various grass-roots organizations on the one hand and of the push and pull of Hindu–Muslim communal politics on the other. The book addresses with clarity why and how different classes and communities came to raise their voice against the imperial rule, the circumstances in which different groups and parties either joined or left the Congress platform, and the quality of leadership needed to mobilize the support of both the affluent and the deprived class in the pan-India struggle.

The author’s use of psychological insights to interpret the different phases and the eventual outcome of the clash of the British, Hindu, and Muslim protagonists makes the work a unique addition to the corpus of modern Indian history. This is the first English translation of the Bengali classic Swadhinata Sangrame Bharatiya Jatiya Congress: 1885–1947 (first published in 1990). This translation also carries a foreword by Dr Rudrangshu Mukherjee.