Great movements are like great rivers—they start as small streams, but if the cause is great, they draw to themselves many streams, joining together to achieve and reach their destination. And so it was with the Indian National Congress, which met for the first time with a 'microscopic minority' of seventy-two people in Bombay on the 28th December, 1885. It went on to challenge the mightiest empire of the time, using the slogan of peace and the method of non-violence. Led by men and women of extraordinary intellect, courage and commitment, it shaped the destiny of modern India in the twentieth century, and leads India as a global power in the twenty-first century.

Commemorating 125 years of the Indian National Congress, this volume unfolds, page after page, the saga of struggle, sacrifice and nation-building. A lucid commentary, enlivened further by rare photographs and archival material, it offers the reader a pictorial glimpse of the epic journey that began in 1885. This is indeed, the journey of a nation...