RAS question
The Indian National Congress was founded in which year?
Correct answer: (B) 1885.
The Indian National Congress was founded in December 1885 at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay.
Explanation
The Indian National Congress belongs to the formative phase of modern Indian political organisation. The cited IGNOU unit states that, on 28 December 1885, delegates met in the hall of Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay for the inaugural session of the Indian National Congress. This directly fixes the founding year as 1885, not as an approximate late-nineteenth-century date. The same account also supports the standard examination detail that W.C. Bonnerjee of Bengal presided over the first session. For RAS purposes, the date matters because the INC became the central all-India political platform around which later nationalist politics is usually organised in the syllabus.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) 1880 is too early; the INC had not yet held its inaugural session, which took place in December 1885.
- (C) 1890 is too late; by then the Indian National Congress had already existed for five years.
- (D) 1895 is a decade after the founding year, so it cannot be the year of establishment.
Concept
This tests the early institutional history of the Indian national movement, especially the formation of all-India political associations. RAS repeats such founding-year facts because they anchor larger questions on moderate nationalism and Congress politics.