page_title: Madras Presidency
section_title: Indian Independence Movement
hierarchical_section_title: Madras Presidency / History / Indian Independence Movement
caption_attribution_description: Annie Besant (1847-1933) in Sydney, Australien 1922
context_page_description: The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the whole of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and the union territory of Lakshadweep. The city of Madras was the winter capital of the Presidency and Ootacamund or Ooty, the summer capital. The Island of Ceylon was a part of Madras Presidency from 1793 to 1798 when it was created a Crown colony. Madras Presidency was neighboured by the Kingdom of Mysore on the northwest, Kingdom of Kochi on the southwest, and the Kingdom of Hyderabad on the north. Some parts of the presidency were also flanked by Bombay Presidency and Madhya Pradesh.
  In 1639, the English East India Company purchased the village of Madraspatnam and one year later it established the Agency of Fort St George, precursor of the Madras Presidency, although there had been Company factories at Machilipatnam and Armagon since the very early 1600s.
context_section_description: A strong sense of national awakening emerged in the Madras Presidency in the later half of the 19th century. The first political organisation in the province, the Madras Native Association, was established by Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty on 26 February 1852. However, the organisation did not last long. The Madras Native Association was followed by the Madras Mahajana Sabha which was started on 16 May 1884.  Of the 72 delegates who participated in the first session of the Indian National Congress at Bombay in December 1885, 22 hailed from the Madras Presidency. Most of the delegates were members of the Madras Mahajana Sabha. The third session of the Indian National Congress was held in Madras in December 1887 and was a huge success attended by 362 delegates from the province. Subsequent sessions of the Indian National Congress took place in Madras in 1894, 1898, 1903 1908, 1914 and 1927.
  Madam Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott moved the headquarters of the Theosophical Society to Adyar in 1882. The society's most prominent figure was Annie Besant, who founded the Home Rule League in 1916. The Home Rule Movement was organised from Madras and found extensive support in the Province. Nationalistic newspapers such as The Hindu, the Swadesamitran and the Mathrubhumi actively endorsed the campaign for independence. India's first trade union was established in Madras in 1918 by V. Kalyanasundaram and B. P. Wadia.
caption: Annie Besant in 1922
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