Founded in 1885, the Congress party led India's long road to independence
When 72 years of struggle ended with independence in 1947, one organisation had led much of the way. The Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, was the first modern nationalist movement anywhere in Britain's Asian and African empire, and under Mahatma Gandhi it became the driving force behind India's break from British rule.
The party's first session met in Bombay in 1885, with W. C. Bannerjee presiding, on a founding date of 28 December. From the late nineteenth century, and especially after 1920 when Gandhi took the lead, it directed the independence movement, and its example influenced anti-colonial campaigns elsewhere in the empire. It remains India's oldest existing party and one of the longest continuously active anywhere outside Europe and North America.
Independence made it the natural party of government. Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister from 1947 to 1964, set up the Planning Commission, launched Five-Year Plans and built a mixed economy within a secular state. The party broadly dominated national politics for about half a century, winning outright majorities in seven of 17 general elections and leading coalitions three more times, for more than 54 years in office altogether across six prime ministers.
Its history also contains ruptures. In 1969 Indira Gandhi's faction broke away as Congress (R) and swept the 1971 election; her declared emergency from 1975 to 1977 brought widespread oppression and abuse of power. A further split in 1979 produced Congress (I), recognised as the official party in 1981. Rajiv Gandhi won a landslide in 1984 but lost in 1989, and P. V. Narasimha Rao later steered policy toward economic liberalism, a clear departure from earlier leaders.
After a record eight years in opposition, a Congress-led alliance returned in 2004 under Manmohan Singh, who in 2009 won a second term after serving a full five years, something no prime minister had managed since Indira Gandhi in 1971. Since the 1990s the Bharatiya Janata Party has been its main rival. Congress fell to 44 seats in 2014 and 52 in 2019, then recovered to 99 in 2024.
Source: Indian National Congress
