The agitation in England bore fruit. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., attended the fifth session of the Congress in Bombay in 1889, and in consultation with Indian leaders drafted a Bill for the reform and the expansion of the Legislative Councils. This he moved in the House of Commons in 1890. To counteract it, the Government introduced a Bill of their own which was passed in 1892. The India Councils Act of 1892, is thus indirectly an achievement of the Congress.
As regards the other proposals of the Congress, little was done by the Government. Year after year the Congress passed nearly the same resolutions but without much effect on the Government. This brought about a feeling of despondency, and gradually a spirit of opposition against the Government gained ground. A section of the Congress even began to lose faith in the efficacy of the Congress programme. They ridiculed the idea of sending humble petitions year after year to the Government, only to be most unceremoniously rejected by them. They believed that reforms would not be secured by talk, but action. The leader of this section was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Maratha Brahmana of the class to which belonged the famous Peshwas.
Among the people of different parts of India the Marathas, who had lost their independence so recently, had special reasons to join a movement for national regeneration. No wonder, therefore, that the Maratha country proved a congenial soil for fostering the new spirit. Tilak tried to create a strong national feeling among the Indians by an appeal to their historic past. He led the opposition against official interference in social matters. He organised annual festivals in commemoration of Shivaji. Through his paper Kesari, he preached his new political ideals of self-help and national revival among the masses. The speeches and articles of Tilak are generally held to have been responsible for the growth of a Radical section, which soon became a powerful wing of the Congress.
All sections and communities of the Indian population did not at first show an equal enthusiasm for the Congress movement. Some notable Muslim leaders took part in its annual deliberations, and on a few occasions it had a Muslim President. Nevertheless, it is an undeniable fact that a strong section of the Muslims, from the very beginning, adopted an unsympathetic attitude towards the Congress, though Muslims in general were indifferent, rather than hostile to it. Mr. Sayani, who presided over the Congress in 1896, observed with truth: “It is imagined by some persons that all, or almost all, the Muslims of India are against the Congress movement; this is not true. Indeed by far the largest part do not know what the Congress movement is.”
There were deep-seated causes for this difference. The Muslim did not show the same zeal and fervour for Western education and culture as the Hindu community led by Rammohan Roy, Rajnarayan Bose, Haris Mukherji, Telang, Ranade, and others. They still showed a preference for the classical studies to which they had so long been accustomed. Their reaction to the British rule was also different. They still brooded over their erstwhile political dominance over the greater part of India, and felt a sullen resentment against the British. They therefore naturally supported, or felt sympathy for, the revolutionary Wahhabi Movement and the Revolt of 1857-59. It is interesting to note that even at an early stage the British sought to take advantage of this position by means of the policy of ” Divide and Rule”. “I cannot,” wrote Lord Ellenborough in 1843, “close my eyes to the belief that that race (Muslims) is fundamentally hostile to us, and our true policy is to reconcile the Hindus”. This policy was successfully followed for sometime till the growth of national consciousness among the Hindus gradually alienated the British, and made them favourably disposed to the Muslims.
This change in the attitude of the British rulers, synchronisod with the rise of Sir Syed Ahmed as the leader of the Muslims, and the entirely new turn he gave to their policy and activities. He was deeply impressed by the fact that the Muslims were far behind the Hindus in respect of Western learning, and consequently the Hindus practically monopolised the higher offices of the state. He therefore devoted himself to the promotion of English education among the Muslims, and in 1875 founded a school, which soon developed into the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh. His efforts were crowned with success. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that no single institution has done so much for any community as this college has done for the promotion of higher education and modern culture among the Muslims. Sir Syed Ahmad was an ardent patriot and nationalist. He supported the IIbert Bill and the agitation in favour of holding simultaneous examinations for the Civil Service. He held that the Hindus and Muslims in India formed one nation. “They are,” he said, “two eyes of India. Injure the one and you injure the other. We should try to become one in heart and soul and act in unison; if united, we can support each other, if not, the effect of one against the other will tend to the destruction and downfall of both.” He further expressed the view that “no nation can acquire honour and respect so long as it does not attain equality with the ruling race and does not participate in the government of its own country”. But in spite of these liberal views Sir Syed was definitely opposed to the Congress movement from the very beginning. He urged the Muslim community to keep aloof from it and denounced its objectives, including the simultaneous examinations for the Civil Service, which he had once advocated. In 1886 he set up an Educational Congress as a rival organisation on the ground that the Muslims would not benefit by the discussion of political matters, and education was the only means of ensuring their progress. He also established two other Associations in order to oppose the Congress. The first, the United Indian Patriotic Association, founded in 1888, had both Hindu and Muslim members, but the second, founded in 1893 and known as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India, confined its membership to Muslims and Englishmen.
