Tilak, Bal Gangadhar
TILAK, BAL GANGADHAR (1856–1920), was an Indian political leader. Known by his followers as Lokamanya, "revered by the people, " but as the "father of Indian unrest" by the British authorities in India, Tilak had a crucial role in defining Indian nationalism by an appeal to Hindu religious and cultural symbols. He was born on July 23, 1856, in the Ratnagiri district of the Bombay Presidency. His family belonged to the Citpāvan subcaste of Brahmans, members of which had been influential as both religious and secular functionaries under the Marathas, the last indigenous rulers of the region, and Tilak had a proud consciousness of the greatness of Hindu civilization. He began his career in the recently established Fergusson College in Poona, where in 1881 he and his friend G. G. Agarkar established two newspapers: Kesari, in Marathi, and Maratha, in English. The papers criticized many aspects of British rule and called for a rejuvenation of India's national life.
Tilak's rise to prominence as a nationalist leader must be seen in the context of movements for social and religious reform that had attracted many intellectuals in the Poona region and elsewhere. Many reformers believed, however, in working with the British to bring about gradual political change and in seeking to reform deeply embedded social practices that seemed to have Hindu religious sanction. Tilak did not condone such practices but insisted that freedom from British rule was the first priority, not social or religious reform.
Sometimes Tilak supported, but he also opposed, the Indian National Congress, the organization founded in 1885 that became the chief agent in winning Indian independence. Two characteristics often alienated him from other nationalist leaders: one was his use of Hindu religious symbols as expressions of Indian nationalism, and the other was his acceptance of violence as a legitimate political tool sanctioned by the Hindu tradition.
In two of Tilak's books, Orion (1893) and The Arctic Home of the Vedas (1903), he argued that the mythic Hindu stories could be interpreted as actual history, thus giving Indians pride in the antiquity of their nationalist narrative. In Gītā Rahasya (1915), a commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, written while he was imprisoned for sedition, Tilak argued that it was not, as many commentators had interpreted it, a text that encouraged passive devotion to a deity, but, on the contrary, it was a revolutionary call to use violence against oppression. Mahatma Gandhi was later to argue, with Tilak in mind, that the message of the Bhagavadgītā was one of nonviolence and love of one's enemies.
Tilak's appeal to the Hindu tradition as a basis for a renewal of Indian greatness and opposition to the British was dramatized in numerous initiatives. One of these was starting festivals to celebrate Śivājī (1621–1680), the great warrior who fought the Mughal emperors, defending Hinduism against the invading Muslims. The implication of the message was not lost on either the Muslim minorities or the British rulers. More directly identified with Hinduism were festivals supported by Tilak in honor of the popular deity Gaṇapati, or Gaṇeśa. These had been in existence as family or local celebrations, but Tilak saw them as a chance for widespread group support for the project for political freedom, for Gaṇapati is the god of new beginnings, a help in overcoming obstacles, and the son of Śiva, the most powerful and potent of the great gods, often pictured as a warrior smiting his enemies. Tilak also joined in the campaign against cow slaughter, arguing that Hindus venerated the cow as a religious symbol. Since Muslims and the British were beef eaters, the campaign had a potent social and political message.
Some of the causes that Tilak supported in the name of Hindu cultural nationalism seemed, not only to the British but also to other Indian intellectuals, reactionary. One was his denunciation of the government when, in 1890, it introduced legislation to raise the permissible age of marriage for girls from ten to twelve. Orthodox Muslim leaders, as well as Hindus, argued that the government was interfering with a practice sanctioned by religion. Then, in 1897, there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Poona, and the government ordered a house-to-house search under a military officer, W. C. Rand, which Tilak said violated the sanctity of the Hindu home; he also argued that, following the example of Śivājī, violence was justified to protest it. When Rand was assassinated, Tilak was charged with incitement to murder because of his writings, and he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
Such activities made Tilak the leading figure in the group within the Indian National Congress that he proudly called the "Extremists," in contrast to the "Moderates," whom he denounced for begging favors from their British overlords when they should be taking by force what was rightfully theirs. He popularized the slogan, "Swarāj [self-rule] is my birthright and I will have it." In 1907 he and his group tried to gain control of the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress in Surat, but failed, leading to a split in the organization. In 1908 Tilak was arrested on charges of incitement to violence and sentenced to six years of imprisonment in the unhealthy Andaman Islands, but he survived the ordeal and in 1916 he rejoined the Congress.
At this time, Gandhi arrived on the Indian political scene with a message of nonviolence that rejected Tilak's reading of the Bhagavadgītā. Tilak's death in August 1920, just before the Indian National Congress adopted Gandhi's platform of nonviolence, prevented Tilak from questioning the new direction that the nationalist movement was taking. Gandhi's success in subsequent years in persuading Indian nationalists to accept his version of Hinduism as a religion of nonviolence and love overshadowed for many years Tilak's insistence that Hinduism could be the basis for a militant nationalism that would fight to win India's independence. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, Tilak's version of militant Hinduism, not Gandhi's pacifism, was dominant in India's political life.
Bhagavadgītā; Brahman; Gandhi, Mohandas; Gaṇeśa; Marathi Religions.
Bibliography
There is no good biography that comprehensively examines Tilak's personal life, political activities, and religious views, and assesses his role in the nationalist narrative. Richard I. Cashman, The Myth of the Lokamanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (Berkeley, 1975), is a scholarly study of aspects of his political activities. Stanley A. Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (Berkeley, 1962), contrasts his positions with those of his great liberal contemporary and rival, G. K. Gokhale. D. V. Tahmankar, Lokamanya Tilak: Father of Indian Unrest and Maker of Modern India (London, 1956), is an authorized biography but gives a fuller picture of Tilak's life and times. G. P. Pradhan, Lokamanya Tilak (New Delhi, 1994), is intended to show Tilak as a great patriot and thinker. Examples of Tilak's combination of religious and political thought can be found in B. G. Tilak, Tilak: His Writings and Speeches (Madras, India, 1922). An English translation of his Marathi work is available in Srimad-Bhagavadgītā-Rahasya, edited by B. S. Sukthanankar (Poona, India, 1965).
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