Political Science · Political Institutions in India
UGC NET July 2018 Political Science
If Hume and other English liberals hoped to use Congress as a safety-valve, the Congress leaders hoped to use Hume as a lightning-conductor. Who said this?
AS.R. Mehrotra
BSumit Sarkar
CBipin Chandra ✓ Correct
DTapan Raychaudhuri
Correct answer: (C) Bipin Chandra — The statement was made by Bipin Chandra, which is option (3).
Explanation
★The statement was made by Bipin Chandra, which is option (3).
★He made it in his well known work India's Struggle for Independence, published in 1988.
★The line reframes the old safety valve theory about the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.
★The safety valve theory held that A.O. Hume founded the Congress as a safety valve to release growing Indian discontent and prevent a violent revolt against British rule.
★Bipin Chandra turned this around with the lightning conductor idea, that nationalist leaders used Hume's involvement as a cover to organise safely at an early and vulnerable stage of the movement.
★In this reading the Congress leaders consciously used Hume to shield their political activity from immediate colonial repression.
★Allan Octavian Hume was a retired British civil servant who played a key role in convening the first session of the Congress at Bombay in 1885.
★The first session was presided over by Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, with seventy two delegates attending.
★Bipin Chandra was a Marxist historian and a leading figure of the nationalist school of Indian historiography.
★The option S.R. Mehrotra is wrong, since he wrote on the emergence of the Congress, but the specific lightning conductor formulation is associated with Bipin Chandra.
★The option Sumit Sarkar is wrong, since he is known for Modern India 1885 to 1947, a different major survey of the national movement.
★The option Tapan Raychaudhuri is wrong, since he was an eminent economic and intellectual historian, not the source of this particular line.
★The safety valve theory itself is often traced to writings around Hume and was later given wide currency by Lala Lajpat Rai in a critical sense.
★Bipin Chandra and his co authors located the founding of the Congress within a broader awakening of political awareness among Indian leaders.
★For NET, connect the dots: the Indian National Congress founded in 1885 with A.O. Hume, the safety valve theory, and Bipin Chandra's lightning conductor reinterpretation in India's Struggle for Independence of 1988.
Want more like this? Create a free account to practise a full test, track your progress, and get spaced-repetition review.
Shared by Mcqkart · via Mcqkart.in