Bal Gangadhar Tilak (or
Lokmanya Tilak,
pronunciation (help·info); 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), born as
Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, was an
Indian nationalist,
teacher,
social reformer,
lawyer and an independence activist. He was the first leader of the
Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities called him "Father of the Indian unrest." He was also conferred with the honorary title of "Lokmanya", which literally means "accepted by the people (as their leader)".
Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of
Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in
Marathi, "स्वराज्य हा माझा जन्मसिद्ध हक्क आहे आणि तो मी मिळवणारच" ("Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!") in India. He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders including
Bipin Chandra Pal,
Lala Lajpat Rai,
Aurobindo Ghose,
V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. As a strong advocate of Swaraj, he was against
Gandhi's policy of Total-
ahimsa (non-violence), satyagraha and advocated the use of force where necessary.
Early life
Tilak was born in a
Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin family in
Ratnagiri as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, as mentioned above. in headquarters of the eponymous district of present-day
Maharashtra (then British India) on 23 July 1856. His ancestral village was
Chikhali. His father, Gangadhar Tilak was a school teacher and a
Sanskrit scholar who died when Tilak was sixteen. Tilak graduated from
Deccan College,
Pune in 1877. Tilak was amongst one of the first generation of Indians to receive a college education.
[citation needed] In 1871 Tilak was married to Tapibai (a woman belonging to Bal family) when he was sixteen, a few months before his father's death. After marriage, her name was changed to Satyabhamabai. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts in first class in Mathematics from
Deccan College of Pune in 1877. He left his M.A. course of study midway to join the L.L.B course instead, and in 1879 he obtained his L.L.B degree from
Government Law College .
[3] After graduating, Tilak started teaching mathematics at a private school in Pune. Later, due to ideological differences with the colleagues in the new school, he withdrew and became a journalist. Tilak actively participated in public affairs. He stated:
"Religion and practical life are not different. To take Sanyas (renunciation) is not to abandon life. The real spirit is to make the country your family work together instead of working only for your own. The step beyond is to serve humanity and the next step is to serve God."
He organised the
Deccan Education Society with a few of his college friends, including
Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Mahadev Ballal Namjoshi and
Vishnushastri Chiplunkar. Their goal was to improve the quality of education for India's youth. The
Deccan Education Society was set up to create a new system that taught young Indians nationalist ideas through an emphasis on Indian culture.
[5] The Society established the New English School for secondary education and
Fergusson College in 1885 for post-secondary studies. Tilak taught mathematics at
Fergusson College. He began a mass movement towards independence by an emphasis on a religious and cultural revival.
Political career
Tilak had a long political career agitating for Indian autonomy from the British rule. Before Gandhi, he was the most widely known Indian political leader. Unlike his fellow Maharashtrian contemporary,
Gokhale, Tilak was considered a radical leader and was imprisoned on a number of occasions that included a long stint at Mandalay. At one stage in his political life he was called "the father of Indian unrest" by the British authorities.
Indian National Congress
Tilak joined the
Indian National Congress in 1890. He opposed its moderate attitude, especially towards the fight for self-government. He was one of the most-eminent radicals at the time.
[7]
Despite being personally opposed to early marriage, Tilak was against the 1891
Age of Consent bill, seeing it as interference with Hinduism and a dangerous precedent. The act raised the age at which a girl could get married from 10 to 12 years.
During late 1896, a bubonic
plague spread from
Bombay to
Pune, and by January 1897, it reached epidemic proportions. British troops were brought in to deal with the emergency and harsh measures were employed including forced entry into private houses, examination of occupants, evacuation to hospitals and segregation camps, removing and destroying personal possessions, and preventing patients from entering or leaving the city. By the end of May, the epidemic was under control. Though the British authorities' measures were well-meant, they were widely regarded as acts of tyranny and oppression. Tilak took up this issue by publishing inflammatory articles in his paper
Kesari (
Kesari was written in
Marathi, and
Mahratta was written in English), quoting the Hindu scripture, the
Bhagavad Gita, to say that no blame could be attached to anyone who killed an oppressor without any thought of reward. Following this, on 22 June 1897, Commissioner Rand and another British officer, Lt. Ayerst were shot and killed by the
Chapekar brothers and their other associates. According to
Barbara and
Thomas R. Metcalf, Tilak "almost surely concealed the identities of the perpetrators".
[8]:154 Tilak was charged with incitement to murder and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. When he emerged from prison in present-day Mumbai, he was revered as a martyr and a national hero.
[citation needed] He adopted a new slogan coined by his associate
Kaka Baptista, "
Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it."
Following the
Partition of Bengal, which was a strategy set out by
Lord Curzon to weaken the nationalist movement, Tilak encouraged the
Swadeshi movement and the Boycott movement.
[10] The movement consisted of the boycott of foreign goods and also the social boycott of any Indian who used foreign goods. The Swadeshi movement consisted of the usage of natively produced goods. Once foreign goods were boycotted, there was a gap which had to be filled by the production of those goods in India itself. Tilak said that the Swadeshi and Boycott movements are two sides of the same coin.
Sedition Charges[edit]
During his lifetime among other political cases, Bala Gangadhar Tilak had been tried for Sedition Charges in three times by British India Government—in 1897,
[12] 1909,
[13] and 1916.
[14]
Imprisonment in Mandalay[edit]
On 30 April 1908, two Bengali youths,
Prafulla Chaki and
Khudiram Bose, threw a bomb on a carriage at
Muzzafarpur, to kill the Chief Presidency Magistrate Douglas Kingsford of Calcutta fame, but erroneously killed two women traveling in it. While Chaki committed suicide when caught, Bose was hanged. Tilak, in his paper
Kesari, defended the revolutionaries and called for immediate Swaraj or self-rule. The Government swiftly charged him with
sedition. At the conclusion of the trial, a special jury convicted him by 7:2 majority. The judge, Dinshaw D. Davar
[15] gave him a six years jail sentence to be served in
Mandalay, Burma and a fine of Rs 1,000. On being asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Tilak said:
All that I wish to say is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I still maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destinies of men and nations; and I think, it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may be benefited more by my suffering than by my pen and tongue.
In passing sentence, the judge indulged in some scathing strictures against Tilak's conduct. He threw off the judicial restraint which, to some extent, was observable in his charge to the jury. He condemned the articles as "seething with sedition", as preaching violence, speaking of murders with approval. "You hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something had come to India for its good. I say, such journalism is a curse to the country". Tilak was sent to Mandalay from 1908 to 1914.
[16] While imprisoned, he continued to read and write, further developing his ideas on the Indian nationalist movement. While in the prison he wrote the
Gita Rahasya. Many copies of which were sold, and the money was donated for the Indian Independence movement.
[citation needed].
Life after Mandalay[edit]
Tilak developed
diabetes during his sentence in Mandalay prison. This and the general ordeal of prison life had mellowed him at his release on 16 June 1914. When
World War Istarted in August of that year, Tilak cabled the King-Emperor
George V of his support and turned his oratory to find new recruits for war efforts. He welcomed The Indian Councils Act, popularly known as
Minto-Morley Reforms, which had been passed by British Parliament in May 1909, terming it as "a marked increase of confidence between the Rulers and the Ruled". It was his conviction that acts of violence actually diminished, rather than hastening, the pace of political reforms. He was eager for reconciliation with Congress and had abandoned his demand for direct action and settled for agitations "strictly by constitutional means" – a line advocated by his rival Gokhale.
Tilak tried to convince
Mohandas Gandhi to leave the idea of Total non-violence ("Total Ahimsa") and try to get self-rule ("Swarajya") by all means. Gandhi, though he respected Tilak as his
guru, did not change his mind.
[citation needed]
All India Home Rule League[edit]
Later, Tilak re-united with his fellow nationalists and re-joined the Indian National Congress in 1916. He also helped found the
All India Home Rule League in 1916–18, with
G. S. Khaparde and
Annie Besant. After years of trying to reunite the moderate and radical factions, he gave up and focused on the Home Rule League, which sought self-rule. Tilak travelled from village to village for support from farmers and locals to join the movement towards self-rule.
[16] Tilak was impressed by the
Russian Revolution, and expressed his admiration for
Vladimir Lenin.
[17] The league had 1400 members in April 1916, and by 1917 membership had grown to approximately 32,000. Tilak started his Home Rule League in
Maharashtra,
Central Provinces, and
Karnataka and Berar region. Besant's League was active in the rest part of India.
[18]
Tilak, progressed into a prominent nationalist after his close association with Indian nationalists following the partition of Bengal. When asked in Calcutta whether he envisioned a Maratha-type of government for independent India, Tilak replied that the Maratha-dominated governments of 17th and 18th centuries were outmoded in the 20th century, and he wanted a genuine federal system for Free India where every religion and race was an equal partner.
[citation needed] He added that only such a form of government would be able to safeguard India's freedom. He was the first Congress leader to suggest that Hindi written in the
Devanagari script be accepted as the sole national language of India.
[19]
Social contributions and legacy[edit]
Tilak started two weeklies,
Kesari ("The Lion") in Marathi and
Mahratta in English
[20] in 1880–81 with
Gopal Ganesh Agarkar as the first editor. By this he was recognized as 'awakener of India'. As Kesari later became a daily and continues publication to this day.
In 1894, Tilak transformed the household worshipping of
Ganesha into a grand public event (
Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav). The celebrations consisted of several days of processions, music and food. They were organized by the means of subscriptions by neighbourhood, caste, or occupation. Students often would celebrate Hindu and national glory and address political issues; including patronage of
Swadeshi goods.
In 1895, Tilak founded the Shri Shivaji Fund Committee for celebration of "
Shiv Jayanti", the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati
Shivaji, the founder of the
Maratha Empire. The project also had the objective of funding the reconstruction of the tomb (
Samadhi) of Shivaji at
Raigad Fort. For this second objective, Tilak established the Shri Shivaji Raigad Smarak Mandal along with Senapati Khanderao Dabhade II of
Talegaon Dabhade, who became the founder President of the Mandal.
The events like the Ganapati festival and
Shiv Jayanti were used by Tilak to build a national spirit beyond the circle of educated elite in opposition to colonial rule. But it also exacerbated Hindu-Muslim differences. The festival organizers would urge Hindus to protect cows and boycott the
Muharram celebrations organized by
Shi'a Muslims, in which Hindus had formerly often participated. Thus, although the celebrations were meant to be a way to oppose colonial rule, they also contributed to religious tensions.
:Contemporary Marathi Hindu nationalist parties like the
Shivsena took up his reverence for Shivaji.
The
Swadeshi movement started by Tilak at the beginning of the 20th century became part of the Independence movement until that goal was achieved in 1947. One can even say Swadeshi remained part of Indian Government policy until the 1990s when the Congress Government liberalised the economy.
Tilak said, "I regard India as my Motherland and my Goddess, the people in India are my kith and kin, and loyal and steadfast work for their political and social emancipation is my highest religion and duty".
[24]
Swami Vivekananda reached Pune by train during September 1892. Tilak happened to be his fellow passenger. Vivekananda stayed in his house "Vinchurkar Wada" in Pune.
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