Exhuming Hume

There may be no signs of a Congress presence today in Etawah district and neighbouring constituencies – currently regarded as pocket boroughs of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav– but  it was here that the blue print for the Indian National Congress (INC) in the 19th century was laid.

On February 4, 1856, a mercurial young English civil servant from the ICS, Allan Octavian Hume, was appointed as its district collector (DC). The move proved to be fortuitous. Between 1854 and 1867, Hume as DC Etawah saw the 1857 mutiny and the first signs of Indian nationalism, public activism and the idea of a political party began to take shape. It should therefore be considered a bit ironic that when the Congress is preparing to commemorate the 125th year of its founding on December 28, 1885, there is no sign of Hume anywhere – neither in Delhi nor Etawah.

No one is quite ready to give credit to the devil who in doing what he did by laying the seeds of the Congress, actually contributed to the growth and subsequent development of one of the oldest political parties in the world.

But local Congress leaders are not afraid of owning up Hume as their own. “AO Hume is deeply connected to Etawah. Everyone knows the blueprint of the Congress party was laid by him  here. While the town is today regarded as a Mulayam Singh Yadav stronghold, it goes to the credit of Hume of bringing Etawah on the map. Before him, the district as a dusty little bowl existed only on paper. When he saw the 1857 stir in the city, peoples' latent anger convinced him that power will ultimately have to be given to the Indians,” says Etawah Congress spokesperson Vachaspati Dwivedi.

Hume may have been a Britisher, but what he did over a century ago in the town was a tribute to what British administrators did in upcoming towns and cities like Etawah through the rest of the country.

Not much is in evidence now. The old landmarks have been replaced by new ones, the landscape has changed as can be expected after a century and there is very little to suggest that one of the more important servants of the British crown once strode this west UP town flanked by the Yamuna and Chambal rivers.

According to the district gazetteer, on June 18, 1856 Hume oversaw the construction of a government hospital to beef up medical services which were abysmal. He personally supervised the opening up of 35 schools, including separate schools for girls.

Etawah's most flourishing trade centre  still exists as Homganj, named Humeganj a century ago by the man himself. Pursuing it strongly with the British government, Hume was responsible for setting up a model agriculture farm on the Agra road at Jonai village. The DC set up the Hume Education school which today goes under the name of Hindu Educational Society Sanatan Dharma Inter College. Says Atul Sharma, secretary of the society, “The Hindu Education Society is extremely pleased to be associated with the founder of the Congress party. He sold the school to us and we have carried the flame since then.”

To host guests and other travellers, Hume set up the Etawah Club, which caved in to heavy rains in 1944 and has been rebuilt.

He, like many other British civil servants, may have been opposed to democracy for the natives, but that did not prevent him from setting up the Etawah Press in 1858. The result were three publications: Urdu newspaper Muhin-e-Riyaya in 1859, Hindi newspaper Prajahit and English daily Peoples' Friend in 1861.

Though not many records are available of the papers now, modern historians believe that the first seeds of the Congress Party were laid down in their columns where Hume actively, and for the first time, propagated the idea of self-rule for Indians and setting up a political party of moderate English educated Indians to achieve their aim.

To be sure there are also those who oppose Hume, particularly from the Congress party. Says Etawah Congress leader Fazal Yusuf, “AO Hume is a name that reflects India's enslaved past which is why he is a hated figure. Why should the Congress party remember him? In the 1857 revolt, Hume came across as a dictator who used strong arm tactics to put down the rebellion.” Clearly, in a Congress party that does not remember Hume, it is rare, if not downright impossible, for anyone to even pronounce his name right.