Abstract
India National Congress, the torchbearer of the concept of territorial nationalism in India, emerged as a cross-communal political body. Though the party was organized by the Parsi leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Phelozeshah Mehta and Dinshaw E. Wacha and was joined by Hindus including Womesh Chandra Banerjee, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Ananda Charlu, Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose. One must not ignore that Badruddin Tyabji, his brother Camuddin and Rahimtulla M. Sayani, belonging to the Muslim community, were also amongst its pioneer. Tyabji, in fact, presided over the third annual session of the Congress, which was held at Madras in 1887. The Calcutta session of the party held in 1896 was presided over by Sayani. The Muslims of South Asia launched their separate political party, All India Muslim League, in 1906. But in spite of it, the interest of the important individuals belonging to the Muslim community, to participate in the Congress activities did not decrease. Mohammad Ali Jinnah joined the Congress in 1906 and remained an active member of the party for the next fifteen years. Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur presided over the Karachi session of the party in 1913 and Syed Hassan Imam was the president of the special session of Congress held at Bombay in 1918. In fact from 1913 onwards, effort were made by the League leadership to work in collaboration with the Congress, which eventually resulted in the presentation of same demands before the British by both the parties in their annual sessions held at Lakhnow in 1916.