| | 1 | Plague in Bombay and Pune; national famine until 1897. |
| | 2 | |
| | 3 | E. B. Havell, one of the figureheads of the Bengal School of Painting, is appointed Superintendent of the Government School of Art, Calcutta. |
| | 4 | |
| | 5 | Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram (Hail to the Mother), one of India’s national anthems later appropriated by Hindu chauvinists, is recited for the very first time at the Indian National Congress. |
| | 6 | |
| | 7 | Bal Gangadhar Tilak inaugurates a festival around the figure of the 17th C. Maratha emperor Shivaji to generate nationalist sentiment. |
| | 8 | |
| | 9 | B. R. Rajam Aiyer publishes the social reform novel, Kamalampal Charitram, in Tamil. |
| | 10 | |
| | 11 | The singer Vishnu Digambar Paluskar leaves the Miraj court to popularise classical music. |
| | 12 | |
| | 13 | First film screening at Watson’s Hotel, Bombay, on 7 July, by the Lumière cameraman Marius Sestier. The Madras Photographic Stores advertises imported ‘animated photographs’, reviewed in the Journal of the Amateur Photographic Society of Madras. |
| | 14 | |