Congress' Timeline

  • Dadabhai Naoroji becomes the first Asian to be elected to the British Parliament
    07-Jul-0892

    Dadabhai Naoroji becomes the first Asian to be elected to the British Parliament

    In the 1892 Parliamentary Elections in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji was elected from the Finsbury Central seat as a candidate of the Liberal Party. He won despite a leading British politician chastising the public for "stooping so low as to vote for a brown man".

  • First Session of the Congress: The Journey Begins
    28-Dec-1885

    First Session of the Congress: The Journey Begins

    On 28 December 1885, 72 social reformers, journalists and lawyers congregated for the first session of Indian National Congress at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay.

  • Second Session of the Congress
    27-Dec-1886

    Second Session of the Congress

    The second session of the Congress took place under the leadership of Dadabhai Naoroji in Calcutta. The number of delegates had increased to 434. Towards the end of the session, the Congress decided to set up Provincial Congress Committees across the country.

  • Sixth Session
    26-Dec-1890

    Sixth Session

    In his presidential address, Pherozeshah Mehta said 'To my mind, a Parsi is a better and a truer Parsi, as a Mohammedan or a Hindu is a better and truer Mohammedan or Hindu, the more he is attached to the land which gave him birth, the more he is bound in brotherly relations and affection to all the children of the soil, the more he recognises the fraternity of all the native communities of the country".

  • Eighth Session
    28-Dec-1892

    Eighth Session

    At its Allahabad Session in 1892, the Congress criticised the Indian Councils Act of 1892, which had just been put into operation by the colonial government. They said that the Act did not give the Indian people the right to elect their own representatives.