This study has tried to establish the most important historical facts about the Indian National Congress and the politicians who led it between 1885 and 1915. The main thrust of the argument has been that, from the later nineteenth century, a new kind of political activity emerged in India which can properly be designated national in scope. This development was driven on by alterations in the ways in which India was governed, and it reflected changes both within India and within the larger empire of which India was a part. The Indian National Congress was formed to present Indian demands at the centres of policy-making within the imperial government. It worked within the political framework of the raj; its activities were appropriate for only certain types of politics; it had an open, flexible and pragmatic organisation; and its successful assumption of the role of national spokesman gave it an authority of its own and allowed it to exert an independent influence on the course of political change in modern India.

Although all-India politics grew stronger as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, they did not constantly dominate the minds of Indian politicians. Policy-makers and national leaders were not directly concerned with the day-to-day administration of the government, or with the detailed distribution of power and patronage in the localities.