To the History of the Formation of the Indian Parliamentary Committee in the British House of Commons

The aim of this article is to study the history of the formation of the Indian Parliamentary Committee (IPC) in the British House of Commons in 1893. To achieve this aim, the following objectives are envisaged: determination of reasons for establishing the IPC; analysis of the activities of the Indian National Congress and British liberals; analysis of the election campaign of Dadabhai Naoroji, which enabled him to get a seat in the House of Commons in 1892. The sources of the study are the pamphlets of the Indian National Congress members, which explain the need for Indian representatives to participate in the British Parliament; records of parliamentary hearings on the Indian issue; materials of the press describing the course of the election campaign of 1892 and the tasks of the Indian Committee in Parliament. In the course of the study, the author came to the following conclusions. The moderate branch in the Indian liberation movement considered the British Rule in India to be a progressive phenomenon in the Indian life. The defects of the British administration were due to the fact that the English people and Parliament did not understand the problems that the Indian population faced under the British Rule. The Parliamentary Committee dealing exclusively with the Indian issue could contribute to solving this problem. The main conductor of this idea in India was the National Congress, which, since its inception, began work on the formation of the IPC. In the late 1880s, an Indian political agency, which intensified attempts to organize an Indian committee in Parliament, was established in London. The interests of the Indians in the House of Commons at that time were defended by the Liberal MP Charles Bradlaugh. On the basis of the proposals of the National Congress, he prepared a bill on Indian councils, which came into force in 1892. Nevertheless, the creation of the Indian Parliamentary Committee became possible only in 1893, when Dadabhai Naoroji and William Wadderburn (founders of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress) were elected to the House of Commons as Liberal MPs. In general, the creation of the IPC was a progressive step in the development of the Indian liberation movement because the IPC gave the moderate nationalists and their British liberal supporters new tools of fighting for the rights of Indian subjects of the British Empire. The appearance of supporters of Indian reforms in Parliament was the evidence of the success of the IPC's course of expanding political agitation in England, although it did not guarantee significant achievements in solving of the Indian question.

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