Early nationalist leadership believed that a direct struggle for the political emancipation of the country was not yet on the agenda of history.
What was on the agenda was the arousal of national feeling, consolidation of this feeling, the bringing of a large number of the Indian people into the vortex of nationalist politics, and their training in politics and political agitation.
The first important task in this respect was the creation of public interest in political questions and the organisation of public opinion in the country. Second, popular demands had to be formulated on a country-wide basis so that the emerging public opinion might have an all-India focus.
Most important of all, national unity had to be created, in the first instance, among the politically conscious Indians and political workers and leaders lie early national leaders were fully aware of the fact that India had just entered the process of becoming a nation in other words; India was a nation-in-the-making.
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Indian nationhood had to carefully promote. Indians had to be carefully welded into a nation. Politically conscious Indians had to constantly work for the elopement and consolidation of the feeling of national unity irrespective of region, caste or religion.
The economic and political demands of the early nationalists were formulated with a view to unifying the Indian people on the basis of a common economic and political programme.