RAS question
The Indian Association was founded in 1876 by:
Correct answer: (B) Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose.
The Indian Association was founded in 1876 by Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose.
Explanation
Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose founded the Indian Association in 1876 at Calcutta. Encyclopaedia Britannica identifies it as a Bengal-based nationalist political group that favoured local self-government and became a forerunner of the Indian National Congress. The founders matter because the association was not just a provincial debating body, but one of the earliest organisations trying to build wider nationalist opinion before the Congress became the main all-India platform. It organised the Indian National Conference in 1883, later worked into the Congress orbit, and gradually lost its separate identity as leaders such as Banerjee and Bose joined Congress politics.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) A.O. Hume is associated with the founding of the Indian National Congress, not with the 1876 Indian Association founded by Banerjee and Bose.
- (C) W.C. Bonnerjee was an Indian National Congress president, whereas the earlier Indian Association was founded by Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose.
- (D) Dadabhai Naoroji is linked to the London Indian Society, not to the founding of the Indian Association in 1876.
Concept
Early nationalist organisations before the Indian National Congress are a recurring RAS theme because these bodies show how political mobilisation developed before 1885. The trap is confusing later Congress figures with pre-Congress associations.