EPIC BLUNDERS OF INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS With this post I am beginning a new series on the above title. A Curtain Raiser : The Indian National Congress or shortly ‘The Congress’ was founded in 1885 by Sir A. O. Hume, a retired ICS officer and a group of 72 people, to form a platform for civic and political dialogue of educated Indians with the British Raj. After the first war of independence of 1857 and the transfer of power to rule India from the East India Company to the British Empire (the Raj), it was the goal of the Raj to support and justify its governance with the aid of English-educated Indians, who would be familiar and friendly to British culture and political thinking, so as to eliminate possibility of another such ‘rebellion’. The founder group, mostly the alumni on Calcutta University consisted of loyalist men decorated with western education. It had 54 Hindus, 2 Muslims 3 British civil serv...