Clashing Radicals

This book examines retired Indian Civil Service officer Allan Octavian Hume’s relationship with Theosophical Society leaders prior to organizing India’s first National Congress (1885). It rejects the possibility that Theosophical Society leaders inspired Hume to organize a Congress given ideological differences gleaned from correspondence and Hume’s biography. While both Hume and his Theosophical correspondents agreed on the need to improve India’s economic and political conditions they differed on the course to do so. Theosophical leaders sought to revolutionize mindsets rejecting primarily a materialist outlook in Western thought and promoting Asian “psychology” instead. Hume remained trustful in Britain’s ability to accommodate autonomous yet interdependent relationships with its colonies. Following his instinct Hume breaks away from the Society and helps like-minded associates to organize a political structure to mediate affairs between India and Britain.