Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was considered the first popular leader of the freedom movement.
He was born on 23 July 1856 in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra.
A nationalist to the core, he was a great scholar, mathematician and a philosopher.
He was conferred upon the title, “Lokmanya” (beloved leader) by his followers.
Mahatma Gandhi called him “The maker of modern India” while Jawaharlal Nehru described Tilak as “The father of the Indian revolution”.

Tilak founded the Deccan Education Society (1884), aimed at educating the masses through the English language, which he considered as a conveyor of liberal and democratic ideals.
Tilak popularised Maratha icon Shivaji and organised the first Shivaji festival in 1886.
In 1883 Tilak organised “Ganesh Utsav” that mobilized people from different castes and communities to spread nationalism.
Despite being perennially against early marriage, he opposed the 1891 Age of Consent Bill which proposed to raise the minimum age for a girl to get married from 10 to 12 years. Tilak saw the bill as interfering with Hinduism.

Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in 1890 and opposed the moderate nationalists within the party.
Following the partition of Bengal in 1905, Tilak supported the Swadeshi movement and said that once British goods were boycotted, there will be a gap which will be filled by the Indian goods.
Tilak quit the Congress in the 1907 Surat Session along with other extremist nationalists due to his differences with moderates.
He founded the Indian Home Rule League in 1914, setting the stage for the freedom movement.
He gave the slogan of “Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it”.
Tilak also concluded the “Lucknow Pact” with Mohammed Ali Jinnah which helped create a “Hindu-Muslim” unity during the Khilafat movement (1919) and the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920).
Tilak died of pneumonia on 1 August, 1920 in Mumbai.

Tilak owned and edited two weekly newspapers — Kesari (Marathi) and The Mahratta (English).
The papers criticized many aspects of British rule and called for a rejuvenation of India’s national life.
Tilak’s editorial in Kesari titled “The misfortune of the country” in 1908 slammed the brutal bureaucracy under the British rule, leading to his imprisonment.
He was sent to jail in Mandalay, Myanmar, from 1908 to 1914 where he wrote an original commentary on the Bhagavadgita, Bhagawadgita-Rahasya (Secret of the Bhagavadgita) or Gita Rahasya in Marathi.
In 1893, he published The Orion; or, Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas, and, in 1903, The Arctic Home in the Vedas.

Cultural and Literary programmes have been planned in Maharashtra to commemorate Tilak’s death centenary on 1 August, 2020.

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