INTRODUCTION

• Bal Gangadhar Tilak was born at Chikhali a village in Ratnagiri district of coastal Maharashtra, on July 23, 1856. This son of a school teacher, Gangadhar Pant, Tilak was destined to be a fearless nationalist who would radically change the course of our freedom movement. Througs journalism and unprecedentedly competent leadership, Tilak took on the might of the British Empire and almost succeeded in shaking its foundation. He launched the well designed programmes for national education and through various popular measures stirred the imagination of the masses.

• It is a historical fact that Tilak was the first mass leader of national stature. His contribution to transform the Indian National Congress into a broad-based people’s organization was extremely significant.

• He was a man of courage who would not mince words while attacking the unjust policies of the foreign rulers. He remained politically active for almost four decades from 1880 to 1920, (the year he passed away) and this period of his political struggle could be justifiably described as the period of nationalist resistance in the history of Western India. He was among the earliest leaders who actually chieseled the contours of Indian nationalism.
• Tilak had a well-disciplined upbringing as his educationist father and deeply religious mother saw to it that he should get proper education and also acquire a strong moral character deeply embedded in the ancient religious and moral values. He was also informed about the classical stories of bravery from ancient history and mythology which had a lasting impact on his personality.

Education, Important Writings and Works

• Tilak was exceptionally good in Mathematics and Sanskrit, the two disciplines he kept studying and doing research in, throughout his life. He passed his matriculation in 1872.
• He did his B.A. from Deccan College, Poona in 1876, securing first class and passed the L.L.B. examination in 1879. When he got married he was 15 year old. With the kind of education he had it was very easy for him to secure a cushy government job either in civil service or in judiciary.
• He, however, was made of different stuff. There were incidents that greatly influenced the mind of Tilak to opt for himself a course of educator, journalist and leader, all for the national regeneration and emancipation of his motherland.
• The first incident that influenced him greatly was a militant attempt to liberate India. The failure of the 1857 uprising had terribly demoralized the nationalist Indians. However, a revolutionary from Maharashtra, Vasudeo Balwant Phadke had led a revolt against the British colonial power in 1879 and Tilak was one of his many youthful followers and supporters in the city of Poona. Though the valiant effort was not successful, for Tilak it proved a lifelong inspirational source for fighting for the nation. The second event that left a mark on the mind of Tilak was the trial of Prince of Baroda state, Malhar Rao Gaikwad who was tried for the alleged crime of trying to poison the Resident of the state, Colonel Phayre.
• Tilak was incensed because Gaikwad was not guilty of the purported crime. The last incident that made an impact on Tilak’s personality was the terrible famine of 1877-78, that claimed more than 50 lakh lives. The British administration remained callous and did very little to offset the ill-effects of the famine. Tilak was naturally furious and that made him decide to devote himself for the service of the nation.
• The kind of childhood he had and his command over Sanskrit made him an ardent admirer of ancient Indian culture and the values projected by Hindu religion. As a political activist he consciously tried to revive the similar standards that once made India a great nation. The logical corollary of such an approach was the refutation of Western values, Western education and the condemnation of the leaders who advocated emulation of Western values and culture. It was because of this reason he was bitterly critical of the Moderates of the Indian National Congress and derided their brand of politics. His professional training in Law gave him an opportunity to study the ancient Indian sources of law, the legal manuscripts and the commentaries thereon. As a result, his mastery over Sanskrit, his extremely religious bend of mind and his systematic studies of ancient legal and philosophical tomes made him a committed admirer of the past glory of Indian civilization.

• Tilak also delved in the economic exploitation of India at the hands of the foreign rulers. He did a remarkable service during the difficult days of the famine of 1896 by educating people about their rights. It was because of his concerted efforts that Swadeshi became an all-India movement. Moreover, he forcefully advocated the boycott of foreign products without which the Swadeshi Movement would have remained a lopsided political agitation.

• In order to educate people about political affairs he decided to launch two weeklies, ‘Kesari’ in Marathi and Mahratta in English. In this endeavor Chiplunkar, Agarkar and Namjoshi were his colleagues in the beginning. Through these papers he made gallant efforts to instill the hearts and minds of his countrymen with the feeling of nationalism.
• Tilak first attended the session of the INC in 1889, and created uproar by openly attacking the misrule of the British and advocating a policy of militant nationalism. It was a totally new approach that was unknown to the Westernized and privileged leaders of the Congress. Tilak brought with him the uncomfortable ground realities of India in the session of the Congress and that was enough to upset the Moderate leadership of the organization. He moved some really significant resolutions in the sessions of the Congress that included the Permanent Settlement and decentralization of finance. Though he remained in a minority in the INC, his involvement in the activities of the organization ultimately helped it emerge as a truly all-India force to struggle for the aspirations of the people.
• Tilak’s novel, and for some scholars controversial, methods of political mobilization were the organization of the Ganesh Festival first in 1893, and Shivaji Jayanti in 1895. These events became permanent features of Maharashtra’s political calendar through which Tilak was endeavoring to infuse the feeling of militant nationalism in the hearts and minds of Indians. It is usually pointed out that Tilak’s penchant for ancient Hindu traditions was instrumental in launching the two events. Nonetheless, a scholar on Tilak, D. V. Tamhankar pointed out that Tilak was not inspired by the Indian sources when he started the two festivals. According to Tamhankar, his knowledge of Greek history and, in particular, the annual observance of the Olympic Games gave an idea to Tilak to start Ganesh festival. The inspiration to start the Shivaji Jayanti came from, as per the research of Tamhankar, Carlyle and Ruskin who dealt with the attitude of hero-worship.
• Tilak had to suffer because of his courageous political writings and actions. He was imprisoned for quite a few times. He was expelled from the Congress because of his Extremist ideas. His close colleagues who were with him when he had started his journalistic and educational activities left him when he needed them the most. During the last phase of his political activism, Tilak was exclusively striving to popularise the Home Rule League, a movement that aimed achieving Swaraj. At the very fag-end of his life he visited England (1918-19) and made sincere efforts to forge cordial relations between the then ruling Labour Party and the nationalist leaders of India.

• Tilak is also known for his scholarly writings that first appeared mostly in the columns of Kesari. Amongst his many significant works that appeared in his Marathi weekly, his essays on Spencer, Mahabharta and a research article to determine the date of birth of Shivaji were exceptional pieces of writing.

• He creatively used his mastery over Sanskrit and his discerning competence of Mathematics to produce a work , Orion: Studies in Antiquity of Vedas, that established that the Rigveda was written in 4500 BC.

• This particular book was appreciated by even Western Indologists. His other book dealing with the original home of the Aryans, Arctic Home of the Vedas, remains as one of the most original and scholarly works in Sanskrit.

• Tilak’s most popular and also profound work was Gita Rahasya, a reinterpretation of the most sacrosanct book of the Hindus. In view of Tilak, the Gita’s message was essentially Karmyoga, which according to him encompasses the entire human life. He cleverly juxtaposed the philosophy of Karmayoga with modern issues of political morality, social values and national honour.

• Drawing inspiration from the Gita, Tilak justified militant opposition to the foreign rule. These scholarly works make Tilak a unique freedom fighter who was equally comfortable in political action and serious scholastic pursuits.

ON NATIONALISM 

• Tilak’s idea of nationalism was deeply rooted in religion and in this respect he rejected the concept of nationalism of his predecessors who since the inception of the Congress were defining it in pure liberal- secular terms. Tilak was a devout Hindu having faith in the Advaita philosophy.

• He believed in the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, Supreme Being of the Rigveda and also had unflinching faith in the veracity of the Upanishads and Bhagwad Gita. He was also committed to the idea of a personal God (ishta-devata), however, for the masses whose spiritual consciousness was less developed, Tilak recommended that they should be provided with religious symbols. He had firm faith in the reincarnation theory of God as he maintained that Lord Krishna was indeed an incarnation of God.

• He also approved of the ritualistic aspect of Hinduism and was of the opinion that religious ceremonies kept changing with the passage of time and they should be observed so long as they were not altered consciously. He sought pride in being the follower of Sanatana Dharma (eternal faith). He considered the Vedas, Gita and the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharta as the common heritage of all Hindus. Tilak was aware of the sectarian differences among the Hindus but expected that by ignoring these differences all Hindus should be united to create a strong Hindu Rashtra.
• Tilak believed that the essential teachings of Hinduism underlined the importance of action. In that sense, for him, it was a very practical religion that believed in resorting right course of action to meet the challenges of a specific period of history. In the context he cites Bhagwad Gita as evidence wherein God promised to reincarnate himself as many times as the necessity demanded. Contrary to the liberal-secular political ideas that were much favoured by most of the Congress leaders in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tilak asserted that religion could not be separated from politics.

• He justified the unification of the two by arguing that to accomplish any task along with competence, discipline and determination, a firm conviction that the task we had undertaken was noble one, was absolutely required and only then God would help us to complete the task successfully. This was obviously a metaphysical, spiritual approach to socio-political issues that was obviously very popular among the teeming masses.

• Tilak would frequently refer to the immortality of soul by which he meant two things,

i) an individual’s soul (atma) that would strive to seek unity with God, and

ii) the collective spirit of a nation that would always seek to be liberated and free.

• His idea of nationalism was different from the Liberal nationalist of the Congress in another respect. The Liberal leaders mainly concentrated on finding solutions for economic grievances and getting political concessions. For Tilak nationalism was realizing an independent, self-governing existence that would create favourable conditions for the fruition of the soul of a culture. His nationalism, to put it plainly, was deification of the motherland.
• Tilak lamented that because of India’s enslavement for centuries, India’s cultural soul too got enslaved. It was Shivaji Maharaj who made a valiant effort to restore the spiritual-cultural soul by establishing an independent nation of the Marathas. Nevertheless, India once again lost its cultural soul because of the coming of the Europeans and the ultimate domination of the British.

• In the circumstances he was political active, he naturally had to strive for the emancipation of the cultural soul of India by overthrowing the foreign rule from the country. His entire approach in this regard was revivalist as he craved for reinventing the glorious past of the nation that was prevalent in the Vedic period. In order to unite all Hindus, Tilak devised a strategy to familiarize the people with certain symbols and popularize a few festival that would have a strong appeal to the Hindu psyche.

• He started the celebration of the Shivaji Jayanti in 1894 and the Ganesh Festival in 1896. His intention was to inspire the common man to be proud of their religious and historical heritage. However, the aggressive celebrations of these festivals resulted in quite a few Hindu-Muslim riots in the Bombay province. He was hoping that the two festivals would bring about unity and brotherhood between the Brahmins and non-Brahmin castes of Maharashtra. The animosity between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins, in particular the Maratha caste was too bitter and Tilak wanted to tone it down for creating a united force of the Hindus. He was planning a mass awakening for the cause of the nation.

• He found a powerful icon in Shivaji to inspire the masses to join the national struggle against the foreign oppressors. Inspired by Bhagwad Gita, Tilak believed that Shivaji was a vibhuti i.e. an incarnation of divine being or a man having exceptional powers bestowed on him by divinity. He placed Shivaji on such a high citadel where he assumed the attributes of a super-human being for Tilak declared that for such a man the principles of ordinary morality did not apply. Celebrating Shivaji Jayanti, in the opinion of Tilak would rejuvenate the nationalist spirit of the people of India.

• Tilak was not happy with the kind of curricula that was prescribed in the government sponsored school. In 1908, he emphatically stated that India needed the syllabi for National Education that would make provision for teaching the lives and achievements of national heroes such as Shivaji but would also teach the students the religious and cultural values of ancient India. He derided secular education because, in his opinion, it did not help a student sufficiently to build his character.

• The frequent Hindu-Muslim communal riots that would break out in the Bombay province at the time of Shivaji Jayanti celebrations made available an opportunity to the opponents of Tilak to portray him as an anti-Muslim leader.

• In respose Tilak clarified his stand in choosing Shivaji for the annual celebrations. He made it clear that his idea of spiritual nationalism was not an anti-Muslim concept. Secondly, his aim in popularising Shivaji Jayanti celebrations was also not an anti-Muslim programme. According to him he chose Shivaji because the great Maratha warrior represented the spirit of courage to challenge the rule of oppression and injustice. He Also clarified that the methods Shivaji Maharaj employed to fight against injustice were necessary for his times. Tilak made it plain that he was not advocating application of similar methods to fight against the foreign rule. He only sought to reinvent the basic spirit that made Shivaji Maharaj to stand up against the mighty Mughals. Shivaji fought the Muslims because during his times they were the oppressors.

• Tilak reasoned that when the country was under the control of the British there was no cause to fight against the Muslims. He hoped that the Hindus and Muslim would form a common front to fight against the foreign rulers.

• Though Tilak made use of Hindu symbols and idioms for political aims, he was not a communal or anti-Muslim leader. He had always advocated for extending similar social, cultural and religious rights for Hindus and Muslims. In his personal dealings he was quite close to some of the Muslim leaders who too had a high opinion about him.

• For instance, Hasrat Mohani, a totally selfless and sincere leader and Shaukat Ali, the brother of Muhammad Ali and one of the leading lights of the Khilafat Movement regarded Tilak as their political guru. Muhammad Ali Jinnah who ultimately became the ideologue of Muslim separatism, had at one time praised Tilak’s spirit of communal amity and his genuine nationalism. In matters of right in a just political set-up, Tilak was in favour of guaranteeing all sorts of rights to all irrespective of caste, creed or race. He valued national integration but he pointed out that the ideal would not be achieved by appeasing the minority communities but by making them realize that their rights were as valuable as the rights of the majority community.

• He was also critical of cow slaughter in a predominantly Hindu nation. On this count he did not want to enter into a controversy with the Muslims. His criticism in this context was directed against the British authorities who deliberately issue licenses for beef shops in localities that were predominantly Hindu. Tilak thought that it was a mischievous provocation to foster enmity between Hindus and Muslims. In this matter Tilak clarified that if a Muslim was found guilty of killing a cow in the Hindu locality he should be arrested and punished; similarly if a Hindu set free a cow from a Muslim house using force, he should also be tried and punished. These were very reasonable suggestions which should be followed in the contemporary India as well.
• It must also be pointed out that his nationalism that was rooted in religion did not blur his vision about the economic component of nationalist discourse. He was in total agreement of Dadabhai Naoroji’s Drain theory and more importantly he was the leading proponent of the Swadeshi and Boycott Movements. His religious propensity made him merge nationalism with what he believed as the Vedantic principle of human unity.

• He was of the opinion that nationalism was an offshoot of Vedantic wisdom and the two are not opposed to each other. His definition of nationalism as an integral part of dharma was an exercise to persuade common people in the national struggle as they were more familiar with idioms like dharma and religious symbols.

• He also believed that nationalism was not a tangible concept but it had linkages with sentiments of the people that were deeply embedded in the heroic tales of the history of India. The launching of the Shivaji Jayanti festival was precisely because of this reason, because, for Tilak, Shivaji represented a judicious ruler who was essentially concerned about the welfare of all people and on account of his remarkable achievements he could even be called a personification of the Divine Being.

ON EDUCATION 

The concept of making the facilities of education to each and every individual was without doubt an offshoot of the British rule in India. After the famous Minutes of Lord Macaulay in 1835, the authorities of the East India Company adopted a policy of providing modern education through English medium. The Bengalis were the first to lap up at the new opportunities that were made available to Indians. Thereafter, the British approved education became popular in Bombay Province.

The earliest leaders of the Indian National Congress were also among the earliest graduates of the Universities of Calcutta and Mumbai. Most of them, however, were in awe of the British and their intellectual heritage. Almost all of them also had an abiding faith in British Liberalism and were ingenuously convinced that ‘the British commitment to justice’ would ultimately help establish a responsible, democratic form of government in India.

Though the earliest graduates did succeed in organizing a national platform in the form of the Indian National Congress in 1885, for giving expression to the grievances of Indians, they could not make it a truly representative body of all Indians.

The INC, because of the class affiliations of its earliest leaders and the kind of education they were trained in had emerged as a body of secular-liberal-constitutionalists for whom the height of development for an Indian was to acquire a mirror image of a British man. Tilak and some of his colleagues who were collectively labeled as Extremists believed that the British mode of education would not help the growth of true nationalism in India.
Having realized this Tilak and others undertook the task of making available to the people the kind of educational institutions that would impart national education. So far as the Bombay Province, or to be precise the part that is currently known as Western Maharashtra, was concerned besides Tilak, V. K. Chiplunkar and A. G. Agarkar were also among the pioneers of a nationalist education movement. Their primary aim, according to N. C. Kelkar, was to make, “the nation to know itself and its past glories so that it may have confidence in its own strength and capacity to adapt itself wisely and well to the new surroundings without losing its individuality.” Having completed his Masters and the Law education, Tilak first devoted himself to give a nationalist feel to education. At the same time he had also made up his mind to make social service projects and political reforms relevant to Indian ground realities. In the field of education his first concrete action was the establishment of New English School at Poona in January 1880.

Like any constructive movement, the school too had a humble beginning with merely 19 students and the teachers, who included Tilak and some of his closest colleagues, were being paid nominal salaries. However, gradually the school acquired a very high reputation as an important educational institution and had also emerged a leading centre of public life in the city of Poona.

The logical corollary of the establishment of a school was to make plans to establish a college where Indian youths would have the right type of higher education with nationalist goals in their mind and after completion of graduation the graduates would spread education among the other youths of India. In order to institute a college to impart national education, the Deccan Education Society was established in 1884. The following year, Fergusson College became a reality where Tilak started teaching Mathematics and Sanskrit. He had taken on himself additional responsibilities of looking after the management affairs and raising funds for the college. It was unfortunate that Tilak could not go along with some members of the Deccan Education Society purely on the matters of principles and ultimately severed his connections with the Deccan Education Society in 1890. Thereafter, he devoted most of his time for political activism and journalism.

Tilak’s fundamental objection to British mode of education was its disregard for religious education. In the context he stated: “After twenty years, rotting in their system, one has to look elsewhere for religious study. Men who develop the idea that religion is a force all along their educational course are afterwards not found to be wanting in any conception of duty.”

Scheme of Education by Tilak

His scheme of national education included four important aspects i.e.

i) secular education,

ii) religious education,

iii) industrial education and

iv) political education.

Among the four components, Tilak attached prime importance to religious education because, in his opinion, religion was the source of high moral principles and students who got trained in religious education remained away from doing wrong things.

His concern about the industrial backwardness of the country resulted in his endeavour to popularise industrial education in India.

He recommended that political education should be an obligatory component of the national education as through, it a student might become aware of his rights and duties being a citizen of a state. Despite dissociating himself with the Deccan Education Society, Tilak did not cease to be an activist in the field of education. Immediately after the split in the Congress, Tilak undertook a tour of Maharashtra to deliver lectures mainly dealing with the issue of national education.

The spread of national educations was one of the three most significant political activities of Tilak. The other two were Swadeshi and Boycott of foreign products.

He was convinced from the beginning of his socio-political career that the type of education that Lord Macaulay recommended for India was not only inimical to the growth of real nationalism it was also harmful for the future of the country.

He was convinced that the British mode of education would not only render most of to Indian youths indifferent to religious and cultural heritage of our nation but it would also make them irrelevant to majority of Indian people. The Indian youths trained in Western style of education, Tilak emphasized, would be uprooted from their soil and would remain Indians only by their appearance. These were the major flaws of the type of education that was being imparted in government sponsored schools and colleges and because of these drawbacks Tilak and his colleagues supported the movement for national education.

They took concrete actions to popularise national education by opening schools and colleges throughout India and did a remarkable job in providing inexpensive education to most of the underprivileged youths. Besides, the institutions imparting nationalist education inculcated the respect for self-help and self-dependence in the hearts of the Indian youths that they would not have opportunity to gain in government sponsored schools and colleges.

Tilak’s contribution in popularising national education and taking concrete steps to build up the required educational infrastructure for it was certainly colossal.

ON SOCIAL REFORMS 

The Social Reform Movements that commenced in the early 19th century were mainly addressed for removal of social ills and evils from Hindu society. The significant aspect was that the British authorities who represented a commercial company then, too participated in bringing about reforms in Hindu socio-religious traditions. As a result of this policy, the evil practice of sati was prohibited in 1829 and remarriage of Hindu windows was legalized in 1829.

The negative aspect of the whole exercise was that subsequently the Company authorities slowly started linking up social reform actions with political convenience. This was obviously objected to by the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent. Consequently the Queen’s Proclamation that came after the suppression of Indian uprising of 1857 ended the Company’s rule from India and the country came to be ruled directly by the British government. In the Proclamation, Queen Victoria had promised that the British administrators in India would follow a policy of non-interference in the religious and cultural traditions of Indians. However, this policy was not welcomed by the Indian social reformers. The class of Indians who had the privilege of being trained in Western education and were also involved in social reform movements vociferously protested against the new policy of non-interference in religious issues enshrined in the Proclamation. They demanded that the government authorities should continue encouraging and implementing the reforms in Indian society.

In the meanwhile there had emerged quite influential reform groups in India such as Brahmo Samaj in Bengal, the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay and Jyotiba Phule’s Satya Shodak Samaj in Maharashtra. Almost all the people associated with these reform movements made appeals to the British government to take a proactive part in reforming the Hindu society.
Tilak did not approve of the interference of the government in religious affairs. As a result of it he was very upset when the Indian leaders themselves started requesting the British authorities to accelerate the process of reforms in Hindu society. He was opposed to the attitude of the reformers mainly for a couple of reasons.

• Firstly, he argued that a plea for reforms in Hindu religious and cultural traditions reflected the inferiority complex of the reformers about their religion and culture.
• Secondly, he could discern an acceptance and desire for the continuation of the foreign rule on the part of those who were soliciting the support of the reforms of Hindu society. Tilak’s opposition to the British rulers supporting for reforms was because they were foreigners, exploiters of Indian people and material resources and also belonged to a completely different socio-religious and cultural background.
• Thirdly, he was convinced that the reform movements such as the ones launched by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chandra Sen and Jyotiba Phule had a hidden agenda of anti-Brahminism.
• Fourthly, Tilak was of the opinion that most of the reformers were the blind followers of the Western religious and cultural values and consequently came to regard the values of ancient Indian civilisation as worthless.
• Fifthly, Tilak argued that those who had launched the reforms projects were not even aware of the ancient religious and philosophical scriptures for which they were not in a position to comprehend the true purpose of the ancient religious and cultural practices. Though Tilak had some valid points in criticizing government interference in social reform activities but he was less than fair to the sincerity and intention of the social reformers who were genuinely committed to put Hindu society on the way to modernity and progress.
• He was also unfair to make a sweeping observations that the reformers were not aware of the real worth of the ancient Hindu scriptures. The intellectuals giants such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Mahadeo Govind Ranade, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Bhandarkar were great scholars of the ancient scriptures; at the same time they were well-versed in modern education.
• Due to Tilak’s opposition to certain reform movements he is portrayed, by a few scholars, as a reactionary and orthodox Hindu. To be fair to Tilak we may argue that he was not opposed to reforms per se but was opposed to foreign rulers’ interference in ancient Indian religious and social traditions. He also objected to the Indian Liberals, who out of their inferiority complex about Indian culture and Hindu religion, had launched a campaign to goad the British authorities to bring about reforms.
• Moreover, for Tilak political freedom was the first priority because of which he did not wish the nationalist leaders to get entangled in contentious campaigns for reforms. His line of argument was that any reform in socio-religious traditions imposed by external agency such as government of foreign rulers would not have the real sanction of the people. He, therefore, advised the reformers to go to the people, convince them on the necessity of reforms and only with their consensus act upon any specific reform. He wanted the reformers to first bring upon the reforms in their families so that the people would change their attitude by observing the reformed practices of the families of reformers. He disliked the theoretical thrust and sermonizing about the evil practices of Hindu religion that was the usual approach of the reformers.

Nonetheless, the scholars have pointed out a few instances to prove the point that on the issue of reforms Tilak was a conservative Hindu who wished the continuation of Brahminical customs and traditions. A few examples are cited here in the context. The first one is the Rakhmabai-Dadaji case of 1886. The case pertained to the issue of child marriage that had been a widely prevalent practice in India until recently. In this particular instance, Rakhmabai was married to Dadaji when she was still a child. Obviously there was no question of obtaining her consent to the marriage. On attaining puberty she refused to live with her husband. As a result, Dadaji went to court with the plea for restitution of conjugal rights. Rakhmabai made a statement before the court that her consent was not obtained when she was married off to Dadaji because of which she should not be forced to stay with him. The lower court accepted her point of view and decided in her favour. The case went to the High Court where the judgement of the lower court was overruled and the conjugal rights were restituted to Dadaji. The Liberals such as M. G. Ranade got disappointed because of the High Court ruling while Tilak welcomed the verdict as the victory of those who wished to preserve Hindu law and traditions. In astringent series of arguments and counter-arguments, Tilak cited, in the columns of his Marathi weekly, Kesari, the Brahminical scriptures in support of the verdict of the High Court. The progressive social reformers were naturally dismayed with Tilak’s position on the issue because it showed that for him the triumph of the ancient scriptures was more important than the dignity and self-respect of a young woman. He had completely ignored the human angle that was at stake in the case.

The second illustration relates to the Age of Consent Bill. It was because of persistent striving by the social reformers that the Age of Consent Bill was finally moved in the Imperial Legislative Council on January 8, 1891. In a way the Bill was to offset the injustice that was done to a young woman as in the Rakhmabai-Dadaji case. It provided for raising the age of consent of a woman from 10 to 12 years for the consummation of her marriage and that in case of child marriage the bride on attaining puberty should have the right to decide whether she would like to live with her husband or not. It was a reasonable Bill from the point of human rights and the rights of women. Tilak, however, was deadly opposed to the Bill and fervently worked against those who were trying to make it a law. In this context Tilak’s argument was that it amounted to unnecessary interference of the Government in religious beliefs and ancient traditions of the Hindus. It was interesting to note that a renowned Sanskrit scholar and an authority on the ancient texts, Dr. Bhandarkar had repudiated Tilak’s argument and declared that a proper interpretation of the Sanskrit scriptures supported the intent of the Bill. Since Dr. Bhandarkar’s reputation as an eminent Sanskrit scholar was widely acknowledged in those days, the Government relied on his interpretation and passed the Bill. Tilak’s opposition to the Bill once again created an impression that he was a conservative Hindu so far as social reforms were concerned. However, Tilak had a valid point that the reforms intended to remove certain religious and cultural practices should come from within the community and the Government should not compel the Hindus to toe its line. In the context he had also enlisted certain reforms that the social reformers should practice before approaching the Government for support.
Another case in point was the Panchoud episode of 1891. The social reformers and their opponents including Tilak were invited for a tea party in a Christian Mission school by an acquaintance, Mr. Joshi. They all drank tea together. In the eyes of the orthodox Hindus it was a blasphemous act. They were particularly incensed because a person like Tilak, considered to be a protector of Hindu laws and customs, agreed to drink tea with the unclean Christians. They put extreme pressure on Tilak to do the prayaschita (atonement) for committing an irreligious act. Tilak surrendered before the pressure and agreed to do the prayaschita. In defence of his behavior Tilak stated that in order to live honourably in society one had to respect the expectations of that society and for that reason should sacrifice individualistic outlooks or wishes. This line of argument reveals that personally Tilak did not abhor the idea of having tea with Christians but he respected the sentiments of the orthodox members of the society more than his personal point of view.

One more example of Tilak’s orthodoxy was an incident related to Pandita Ramabai. A brilliant woman born in an orthodox Brahmin family, Pandita Ramabai embraced Christianity and thereafter launched a programme for education of young Hindu girls. In order to execute her objective, she established an educational institution, Sharda Sadan in the city of Poona. Tilak got suspicious about Ramabai’s activities. He doubted her intentions as an educator and conjectured that by creating a façade of educational programme for Hindu girls she might have a hidden agenda of spreading Christianity among Hindus. Tilak began a sustained campaign against Ramabai and even went to the extent of calling her an enemy of the Hindus. In this particular incident Tilak had to face the combined denigration of all the social reformers who labeled him as an opponent of women’s education. The charge was not totally unfounded because on the basis of a contemporary’s account Tilak favoured the education of boys more than that of girls. Mr. V. R. Shinde wrote in his memoires published in Marathi that when the issue of making primary education free came up for discussion in the Poona Municipality, Tilak opined that if the paucity of funds did not permit to provide free primary education to all then it should be provided only to the boys. In case of Ramabai, his suspicion was understandable because in those days the Christian missionaries with the covert backing of the government authorities were mostly engaged in proselytizing activities.
In yet another incident Tilak took the side of an orthodox Brahmin priest who had refused to perform Vedic rites involving non-Brahmin Hindus. The occurrence is known as the Vedkota episode of 190, which also involved the royal family of Kolhapur. The reigning Maharaja was a reformer who wanted the Brahmin priest to extend the Vedic rites to non-Brahmins as well. When the priest refused the ruler threatened to forfeit the inami properties of the priest. Tilak’s argument was that compelling a priest to perform the Vedic rites against his wishes was unfair. He further pointed out that the threat of forfeiture of Brahmin’s properties by the reigning Maharaja was also unjust because those properties were granted to the priest by the earlier ruler. In this particular instance too, Tilak tried to defend the orthodox Brahminical traditions.
Tilak was also opposed to inter-caste marriages. This came to light when in 1918, Vallabhbhai Patel moved a Bill in the Delhi Central Assembly to make a law permitting inter-caste marriages. Tilak put down the purpose of the Bill vehemently. In the process he also showed his upper caste bias when he wrote in Kesari that anuloma marriages (marriages between high caste men and low-caste women) could be permitted but the patriloma marriages (marriages between a low caste men and high caste women) could not be allowed. A comment of Tilak that invited the all around condemnation of the social reformers was his comparison of a marriage between Aryan and non- Aryan with that of a marriage between a White and Black. The remark not only reflected Tilak’s prejudice that he considered Aryans superior than non-Aryans but also showed that he deemed Blacks as inferior.

However, Tilak was a fearless crusader on the issue of abolition of untouchability from Hindu society. In this connection he made a bold statement that he would not recognize even God if He said that untouchability was ordained by Him. His reluctance to get involved in social reforms was primarily because for him the political freedom of the nation. A very significant point that should not be lost sight of while discussing Tilak’s view on social reforms is the observation by B. R. Sunthankar in his scholarly work, Maharashtra 1858 to 1920. According to him Tilak’s attitude towards social reform was not always conservative. He broadly divides Tilak’s career in four phases. The first phase followed the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1893 when Tilak came to the forefront as a representative of the orthodox Brahmins and leader of the Hindus. In the second phase, the partition of Bengal provided Tilak an opportunity to become a national leader. His scathing criticism of Lord Curzon’s administration led to his imprisonment in exile. During the third phase that commenced with his release from imprisonment, a much matured Tilak made to bring about unity between the Congress and the Muslim League in 1916. The fourth phase was a short one, as it began a little before his death in 1920, during which Tilak devoted himself mainly to the problems of the working class. According to Suthankar, the scholars and biographies had not taken proper notice of Tilak,s last phase probably because it was very brief. However, it was significant because Sunthankar quoted a speech of Tilak delivered in Madras in 1919 in which Tilak warned the people that if they continued to ignore the problems of the labourers, India would face dire consequences. Tilak declared that the Capitalists were entitled to pocket only a decent rate of interest while the rest should to the workers.
A point to remember is that Tilak was not a social reformer in the sense Jyotiba Phule or Raja Ram Mohan Roy are identified as social reformers. He opposed the aggressive reform movements of reformers like M. G. Ranade, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Prof. Bhandarkar, Byramji Malbari, Agarkar and others mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, Tilak believed these reformers seemed much eager to disown everything that belonged to their socio-religious heritage and reconstruct all the social and religious institutions as they were in the West. Tilak opposed social reformers over-enthusiasm in rejecting the past glory of India because he believed that the essence of India was not in tune with the ideas such as materialism, rationalism and utilitarianism that flourished in 19th century Europe. In this context he wrote in Kesari, “…a number of our educated men began to accept uncritically the materialistic doctrines of the Westerners. Thus, we have the pathetic situation of the new generation making their minds a carbon copy of the gross materialism of the West…Our present downfall is due not to the Hindu religion but to the fact that we have absolutely forsaken religion.” Secondly, Tilak was against most of the social reforms movements because they did not have the popular support. The social reformers instead of mobilizing people for their reforms were seeking the backing of the British administration to enforce reforms as laws.

THE CONCEPT OF SWARAJ 

Tilak’s concept of Swaraj was also rooted in Hindu religion. In his monumental work, Gita Rahasya, which he completed during his imprisonment in Mandalay, Burma, Tilak informed that the philosophy of Advaitism enlightened him about the supremacy of freedom. The Absolute, as per Tilak’s interpretation of Advaitism, was one Absolute and all the men were only parts of it. Since the Absolute had an autonomous spiritual potentiality, all men too had similar autonomous spiritual potentiality. Deriving from this basic belief Tilak observed that the individual soul could not be separated from the Absolute (God) and because of that reason an individual soul had a divine right to freedom. His deep study of Bhagwad Gita made him realize that in the absence of freedom no moral or spiritual life could exist. The India in which Tilak was born and lived was in chains of British imperialism that had not only crushed the freedom of the people but had also killed the soul of the nation.

Thus, Tilak believed that to restore the divine right of freedom to the people and revive the spirit of the nation, the British rule had to be expelled from the soil of the motherland.
For Tilak, Swaraj represented both a right of the individual and his dharma.

In political discourse Tilak would define it as Home Rule while in moral terms he would equate it with spiritual freedom.

He advocated that Swaraj would not be realized merely by achieving political freedom but spiritual freedom was also equally important. He asserted that political and spiritual freedoms were inseparable from each other. Achieving self rule was a political as well as moral obligation on each Indian while observance of dharma was a divine duty imposed by the Absolute.

According to Tilak, Swaraj had a two-fold meaning; a) self- rule of the individual and, b) self-rule of the political community. For Tilak, Swaraj epitomizes the philosophy of life as well as the philosophy of politics. Swaraj, in relation to an individual implied morally controlling all his action as per the precepts of his personal belief (Swadharma), while for the political community, explained Tilak, it meant regulating all the affairs of the community within a moral framework as per political obligation (dharmarajya). He further clarified that Swaraj denoted self-rule within the extent of dhamarajya.

Tilak was of the opinion that in the absence of dharma and Swaraj, the life would lose all its meanings. According to a scholar Tilak’s concept of Swaraj was in fact an assertion of a kind of democracy that guaranteed spiritual freedom to all people.
It was not enough to get rid of foreign rule to accomplish the goal of Swaraj, it would be really achieved when the nation would be in a position to give shape to its own future.

In other words, for Tilak, Swaraj was the rule of a judicious ruler over a populace that knew it political obligations and would not allow the ruler to suppress their rights. Tilak emphasized in no uncertain terms that mere political independence did not imply Swaraj; a politically independent nation could be called a Swaraj in the true sense when it had judicious rulers and morally and politically conscious people capable enough of protecting their political freedoms and dharma. Tilak further enlightened that in the immediate sense Swaraj could be defined as the rule of the people and not the rule of the bureaucracy. He emphatically declared that Swaraj preceded the campaigns for social reforms or achieving economic justice.

Tilak advocated that the nationalist leaders should spend their energies in demanding Swaraj first because it served as the foundation of our nation on which we would build the nationalist edifice. In order to realize the ideal of Swaraj, Tilak recommended a four-fold programme of action that was, of course, relative to the political conditions prevalent in those days.
The programme included Swadeshi, Boycott of foreign products, National Education and Passive Resistance.

Swadeshi was obviously an important political as well as economic strategy. As a political weapon it was designed to put pressure on the British raj to respect the sentiments and aspirations of the people particularly, in the then circumstances, to rescind the decision of partition of Bengal. As an economic strategy, Swadeshi was an attempt to strengthen and promote the indigenous industries. Boycott was linked to the strategy of Swadeshi.

Tilak made a fervent appeal to Indians that they should discontinue using foreign products and switch over to using Indian products. This would, as per Tilak’s estimation, severely damage the economic interests of the British manufacturers who were looting the material resources of India. Tilak also advised the countrymen to use not only the indigenous products but also purge all videshi (foreign) thoughts from their minds and hearts.

The programme of National Education was designed to infuse the hearts and minds of the youths of the country with national fervour and sense of discipline. The kind of education that was made available to Indians in Government aided schools and colleges, was not creating young Indians loyal to their motherland. It was churning out graduates who were Indians by their physical appearance but Westerners by their thoughts and deeds. In order to provide National Education, Tilak urged Indian elite to open schools and colleges that should provide modern education along with the courses designed to focus on ancient philosophy, religion and culture. So far as the strategy of Passive Resistance was concerned, Tilak first spoke of it in the Benaras session of the Congress and thereafter, provided more details about it in the Calcutta session.

Though some Moderate leaders of the Congress also claimed to be the practitioners of the method of Passive Resistance, their major concern was to make petitions to the British authorities to get a grievance redressed. Tilak recommended that Indian nationalist leaders should give up the practice of petitions and prayers and should demand protection of Indian interests as a matter of political right. Thus, Tilak made the strategy of Passive Resistance more effective.
Tilak remained a vociferous supporter of his four-fold programme to realize the objective of Swaraj until 1916. Subsequently, he joined hands with Mrs. Annie Besant and some other activists and made certain modifications in his political strategy against the foreign rulers. The new political programme that he launched in April 1916, came to be known as Home Rule Movement.

The most striking alteration which he made in the concept of Swaraj was the accommodation of the British Emperor as the head of Indian Home rule as well. Here, again he justified his change of heart by using Hindu religious set phrases. He explained that it was not necessary to remove the deity of the temple but the priests should be changed. Here deity symbolizes the Emperor while priests represent bureaucracy. With the launching of the Home Rule Movement, the concept underwent a radical transformation.

Now it came to mean as self-rule within the Empire. He started lobbying for the granting of British citizenship to Indians. Since 1907 he was not a part of the Congress. After 1916, however, he said that if the Congress agreed to adopt the Home Rule programme he would again work with the Congress. Tilak also agreed to work together with the British to implement the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919.

He explained that co-operation was a mutual concept and if the British authorities were willing to co-operate with the Indian leaders then Indians would also lend a helping hand to the Government. This approach came to be known as “responsive co- operation”.

The Home Rule became extremely popular. It alarmed the authorities who resorted to suppress it. He made an appeal to the leaders of the British Labour Party to introduce a Bill in the Parliament about the Home Rule in India. In the new mode of the Home Rule, Swaraj’s objective became the formation of an American kind of federal government in India wherein the Government of India was to exercise through its Imperial Council the kind of powers that the American Congress was invested with.

The last major political act of Tilak was launching of a political party viz. the Congress Democratic Party with the intention of contesting elections that were to be held under the Reforms Act of 1919. In this connection he had also issued a manifesto of the Party that promised to spread education widely and extend the suffrage to more people. It also accommodated the concept of religious tolerance and extended support to the Muslims’ demand of restoration of Khilafat in Turkey.

In those days Khilafat agitation was a major political issue in India because of Gandhi’s involvement in it. The manifesto emphasized that the new Party would help the Government to carry out the Reforms Act. It also pledged to work for the realization of a complete responsible government and for this purpose the Party would extend a helping hand to the Government if it sincerely made efforts to accomplish it or would resort to constitutional agitation if the authorities
refused to work towards it. The manifest encapsulated the declared actions of the party as to “educate, agitate and organize” in relation to rectify the flaws of the Act of 1919.

Tilak was undoubtedly one of the greatest freedom fighters who gave a definite direction to India’s freedom struggle in the last two decades of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth centuries. He was the first important leader of the Indian National Congress who insisted on dealing with the British on equal footing. He exhorted the so-called Moderate and Liberal leaders to get rid of their inferiority complex.

He criticized the Moderate faction of the Congress as it seemed to be ashamed of ancient socio-religious legacy of India. He presented an aggressive idea of nationalism that was rooted in spirituality and ancient Hindu traditions. It was not only his nationalism that had linkages with Hindu religion but most of his political ideas were embedded in dharma.

He had a vision that the future Indian state would be firmly based on the sanatana dharma (the eternal faith) as propounded in the Vedas. His argument was that though the concept of Vedic dharma belonged to the Hindu faith, it was beneficial and relevant to the entire humanity. It was because of this reason he tried to merge the idea of nationalism with the Vedantic concept of harmony of humankind. For him the two notions were the two sides of the same coin.

He strived to popularise the teachings of the Vedas and Bhagwad Gita with an aim to revitalize people with spiritual and moral energies that could be used for national struggle. At the expense of being labeled as revivalist, he went ahead to revive the positive and constructive traditions and practices of ancient Indian culture and creed.
Though his over-emphasis on interlocking Hindu beliefs with political issues may be debatable, his exhortation to seek pride in the philosophical and religious sources of ancient India inspired the nationalist leaders to give a truly nationalist orientation to our freedom struggle. The most striking contribution of Tilak was to convert the Indian National Congress from a debating club of the Westernized privileged class of Indians into a broad-based mass movement. He was also the first mass leader of national stature. It was because of his firm belief that no national movement could succeed unless it was backed by the power of the people, made him adopt a new political strategy to which the common people could relate to. It explains his programmes such as organizing Ganesh Festival and Shivaji Jayanti as vehicles to promote political agenda. Though the Moderate leadership of the Congress did not approve of these strategies, Tilak could take his message to the common people and instill them with patriotic fervour.

Tilak’s point of view that the British would never protect or promote the economic and socio-political interests of the people was vindicated when Lord Curzon’s administration adopted a ruthless anti-Indian approach in governance that was culminated in the partition of Bengal. This was the time when Tilak launched a sustained campaign against the British through his Marathi and English weeklies, his speeches and his actions.

He exhorted his Liberal colleagues in the Congress to see the real face of British imperialism and give up their favoured strategies of prayers, petitions and constitutional methods. Though the Moderate leaders too were upset with the partition of Bengal, they refused to openly clash with the British.

The concept of Swaraj that Tilak was talking about since 1895, became the most popular political slogan of the nationalists in the aftermath of the partition of Bengal. Simultaneously, Tilak too became a household name across the country. This was the peak of Tilak’s popularity as all the militant nationalists who were dubbed as Extremists and even some of the revolutionaries, who had a dream to expel the British from India through an armed struggle, regarded Tilak as their leader.

In this sense Tilak was the first and only leader of national standing, before Gandhi, who posed a real threat to the continuation of the foreign rule in India. Tough he did not openly support the ‘bomb culture’, he blamed the anti-people policies of the British for the rise of political violence in Bengal, Bombay, Punjab and other parts of India.

It was because of such views that he had to pay a heavy price of solitary imprisonment in the inhospitable Mandalay prison in Burma. For Tilak, however, it was the highest sacrifice for the sake of the motherland.
Tilak’s political ideas suffer from certain contradictions. In the earlier phase he appeared to be championing the cause of the Hindus in the aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots that broke out in Bombay Province in the closing years of nineteenth century. Nevertheless, in the last phase of his political career Tilak made sincere attempts to unify Hindus and Muslims to create a strong front of all Indians against the British. His Home Rule Movement was a watered down version of the earlier concept of Swaraj. Earlier he wanted political independence for India but in the Home Rule concept he had revised his intense anti- British stance and agreed to accommodate the King Emperor as the head of the British Empire of which India was to be a part.

There are some problems to prescribe his excessively dharmic ideas in a heterogeneous country like India. The Indian National Congress had reiterated on many occasions during the course of freedom struggle that an independent India will be a secular one. It made sense because of Indian plurality of race, religion, language and culture. Tilak’s attitude to define nationalism as a concept derived from the Vedas and Bagwad Gita was not only unsuitable for a secular movement like the Congress but was also historically incorrect. Nationalism, like democracy, is a product of European history. What Tilak was trying to pass on as nationalism was more akin to Hindu unity against the foreigners. The introduction of Ganesh Festivals as part of the political struggle was also undesirable because it was obviously unification of religion and politics while a secular democracy must separate the two.
Tilak was definitely a prominent freedom fighter and his contribution in the political field can be hardly exaggerated. Nonetheless, on the issue of social reforms he was rigidly conservative. He opposed many progressive reforms that were endorsed by the liberals of the Congress. His argument that political emancipation should get primacy and social reforms should be deferred was not exactly a correct approach. For instance, a reprehensible practice like sati was banned by the intervention of the Company rule and the entire Hindu society welcomed the reform.

Similarly, the Age of Consent Bill was a positive move to discourage the practice of child marriage. Tilak should not have opposed it. In this context, his argument that the sentiments and emotions of the people should be respected is in fact a line of reasoning against the very concept of reforms. Most people, either out of ignorance or orthodoxy, tend to oppose status quo in socio-religious matters. The leaders of a society have to educate them and make them see reason to make the reform movement successful Instead if the leaders themselves give in because of the orthodoxy of the people then there can never be reforms in society.

SUMMARY

Tilak was undoubtedly a fearless nationalist and the first mass leader among the freedom fighters in the true sense of the term. His nationalism was deeply rooted in religion. He was convinced that the true teachings of Hinduism underlined the importance of action against injustice and in support of his conviction he would often cite the message of Bhagvad Gita. He emphatically declared that religion could not be separated from politics. In order to unite Hindus, he started celebrating Shivaji Jayanti and Ganesh Festival. He always used Hindu symbols and idioms for achieving political aims. Despite basing his politics in Hinduism, his concept of nationalism was not anti-Muslim because he favoured extending all sorts of rights to all the people of India. He also emphasised the economic component of nationalist discourse. He fully endorsed ‘economic drain theory’ and wholeheartedly supported Swadeshi and Boycott Movement.
Popularising the concept of ‘national education’ was one of the three most important public activities of Tilak—the other two being Swadeshi and the Boycott Movement. When the British introduced modern, scientific education after 1835, the Bengalis were the first group of Indians who enthusiastically welcomed the new system of education. Tilak was, however, had reservations about exposing Indians completely to the kind of education the British introduced in India. Therefore, in order to make national education available to Indian students, Tilak in collaboration with his colleagues such as Chiplunkar and Agarkar got engaged in establishing education institutions for the purpose. The primary purpose of his project of national education was to make Indian youths aware of the past glories of their nation so that they could develop self-confidence. He was the major force in establishing New English School at Poona in 1880. Thereafter, with an aim of establishing institutions of higher learning he incepted Deccan Education Society in 1884 under which Fergusson College was started the following year. Tilak’s fundamental objection to British mode of education was that it ignored religious education. Moreover, to remove industrial backwardness of India he also started institution to impart industrial education. He recommended that the component of political education should be made obligatory in the scheme of national education.
Tilak was not very passionate about social reform movement. He was opposed to state intervention in religious and social affairs of the Hindus. His resistance to social reformers was because of a number of reasons such as: 

i) a plea to the state for reforms reflected inferiority complex on the part of reformers

 ii) British were foreigners, exploiters and belonged to an altogether socio-religious background

 iii) he was convinced that most reformers had a hidden agenda of anti- Brahminism

 iv) most reformers were blind followers of Western religious and cultural values 

v) most reformers were ignorant about Hindu philosophical and religious legacy.

 Many critics call him a reactionary Hindu. However, his opposition to the reform movement was mainly because he did not want the foreign rulers interfering in Hindu religious and social affairs. For him political freedom was the first priority. His contention was that reforms imposed by the foreign rulers did not have the real sanction of the people. There is no doubt that his position on certain issues makes him appear like a conservative Hindu who is interested only in maintaining the old Brahminical order. Though he was in favour of abolition of untouchability, he was not a social reformer in the tradition of Roy or Phule. He had absolute faith in the worth of Hindu philosophy and religion.
Tilak’s major contribution to political thought was his concept of Swaraj. Like many of his other ideas, his concept of Swaraj was also embedded in Hindu religion. In his monumental work Geeta Rahasya—a commentary on Bhagvad Gita in Marathi—Tilak pointed out that his study of philosophy of Advaitism enlightened him about the worth of freedom. Tilak’s concept of Swaraj included both the political rights of the individual and his dharma. He defined Home Rule as political as well as spiritual freedom. He declared that Swaraj would not be realized merely by achieving political freedom but spiritual freedom was equally important. For him Swaraj meant a politically independent nation ruled over by judicious rulers and morally and politically conscious people who could protect their dharma and political freedom. He also pointed out that in the immediate sense Swaraj could be defined as people’s rule for which he recommended a four-fold course of action comprising Swadeshi, Boycott of foreign goods, National Education and Passive Resistance.