Bal
Gangadhar Tilak, a man of an indomitable energy and a
new vision, was born in
Tilak
had an English education, but he was far less denationalised
than most students of his generation, for he specialized in Mathematics and
Sanskrit, and, if anything, his education brought him closer to the sources of
his heritage. When he studied law, he concentrated on classical Indian Law,
reading nearly all the great books of law and legal commentaries in Sanskrit.
His study of Sanskrit was a life-long occupation and he was recognised
as one of
Soon
after the completion of his university education, Tilak embarked upon his
mission in life. As he was deeply interested in education and public service
from his young age, he resolved to dedicate his life to the cause of
reorientation of Indian education and drastic social and political reforms. In
these ventures he was joined by his best friends, G. G. Agarkar
and Chiplunkar. All of them wanted, as N. C. Kelkar has written, ‘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’. 2 Hence, Tilak, assisted by his friends, started the
But
soon a sharp difference arose between Tilak and his friends over the question
of social reform. As a result, Tilak could not remain for long associated with
the Deccan Education Society, and he, ultimately
parted with his co-workers. It was finally decided at the end of 1890 that
Tilak should purchase the Kesari and The
Mahratta and devote himself to journalism, while Agarkar and other social workers would have a free hand in
the Deccan Education Society.
As
an editor, Tilak was unsurpassed. The Kesari
and The Mahratta, under his guidance, were
always tremendously influential and came to be financially successful. His
sincerity and unflinching sense of dedication led him to champion the causes of
his people against any and all who would be unjust, autocratic or
opportunistic. As editor of the Kesari, Tilak
became the awakener of
Tilak’s first reaction was to
the Western civilization’s system of values. He rejected the ideology of those
intellectuals who based their programme of social and political action almost
entirely on the philosophy of life of nineteenth century
His
first task was to look behind the atrophied forms of religious orthodoxy and
custom, to find the values that had built the Indian civilization. Tilak recognised that ‘the edifice of Hindu religion was not
based on a fragile ground like custom. Had it been so, it would have been levelled to the ground very long ago. It has lasted so long
because it is founded on everlasting Truth, and
eternal and pure doctrines relating to the Supreme Being’. 4 This
truth was not recognised by the Westernized
intellectuals, in their obsession with the remaking of
From
the idea of spiritual rediscovery Tilak, like Aurobindo Ghose
and others, developed a personal philosophy of life, firmly based on the
knowledge that ‘the individual and the Supreme Soul are one’, and that the
‘ultimate goal of the soul is liberation’. He explored the wisdom of the Real
and the relative worlds, the meaning of creation, and the moral working out of
the cosmic evolution towards liberation. From this foundation he understood the
purpose of life, to live in accord with dharma, the integrating
principle of the cosmic order. As Aurobindo Ghose
wrote of the Indian philosophy of life, ‘The idea of dharma is, next to
the idea of the Infinite, its major chord; dharma, next to spirit, is
its foundation of life’.6 Once these principles
were accepted, Western rationalism and scepticism,
materialism and utilitarianism could hold little appeal. It was from this basic
understanding that he began his criticism of the Westernizers
who would destroy this wisdom and these values. It taught them to love and
respect, not the forms of atrophied orthodoxy, but rather the spirit of the
total Indian philosophy, the way of life and wisdom of life of the Indian
civilization.
It
was with this perspective and this inspiration that Tilak and other genuine
nationalists began their battles for the creation of a new
Tilak
believed in Aryadharma, but he was
never a blind follower of orthodoxy. He did not ignore the obvious evils of the
atrophied social system which were repellent to the social reformers and instigated
them to take action. But he became the foremost of those in India who opposed
the extremist measures of these social reformers. But the very fact that he was
educated and that he refrained from joining the reformers indicted him as a
defender of orthodoxy in the eyes of the extremists. He was condemned by the
extremists as a reactionary, as the spokesman for backwardness. Nothing could
be farther from the truth. He earnestly hoped to see of the evils of the Indian
social system removed, the entire system reformed, and to this end he brought
forward his own concrete proposals for improving social conditions. He was a
staunch advocate of progress. At the same time, he relentlessly fought against
the grandiose schemes of the Westernizing reformers. Instead of schemes he
wanted concrete programmes for the he alleviation of real and pressing needs of
the people. His reform work was direct, as
in the case of the famine relief programme, the textile
workers’ assistance, the plague prevention work. Tilak was not an arm-chair
reformer; he was a worker with and for the people.
His
objection to the social reformism of men like Mr. Justice Ranade
and his disciple, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Professor Bhandarkar, Byramji Malbari, Agarkar and the others,
was two fold. First, without a full appreciation of the values that had been
preserved and transmitted by the social system, these men were willing to
discard virtually everything, to remake India almost totally in the image of
the West, and to base Indian social forms on the values they had learned from
their Western education. To Tilak, it was folly, it was criminal,
to banish everything created by India’s civilization because Indian values and
Indian religion did not coincide with the nineteenth century European notions
of materialism, rationalism and utilitarianism. He knew their obsession was
contrary to common sense and good practice. He once wrote: ‘….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 on
their minds a carbon copy of the gross materialism of the West’. 7
And
he went on to remind the social reformers that ‘our present downfall is due not
to Hindu religion but to the fact that we have absolutely forsaken religion.’
Second, since the reformers could not inspire mass popular support for their
imitative social reform programme, they sought to enforce reform
through administrative fiat, to rely upon the coercive power of
the state, the alien state of the British rule, to effect social change. From Tilak’s viewpoint, to remake India in the image of the West
would mean to destroy her greatness; and to use the force of an alien rule to
impose any kind of reform would be to make that reform itself immoral.
Reforms,
to Tilak’s mind, must grow from within the people.
Since he accepted this proposition as true, it logically followed that attempts
to coerce the community to accept them were absurd. Reform, according to him,
would have to be based upon the value system of the people and not on the
values taught to the Westernized few in an alien system of education. The
answer lay, he believed, in popular education which must be initiated with an
understanding of the classical values and must proceed to recreate the vitality
of those values in the forms of social order. Since the classical values were
thoroughly intermixed with popular religion, he believed that ‘religious
education will first and foremost engage our attention.’ In this way a new spirit
will be born in India. India need not copy from some other civilization when
the can rely on the spirit of her past greatness. As D. V. Athalye
has written ‘The difference was this, that while Ranade
was prepared, if convenient, to coquette with religious sanction to social
order, Tilak insisted that there should be no divorce between the two’. 8
proceeded to take action in accordance with his conviction.
Because
he wanted genuine reform and not simple imitation of Western life and manners,
and because he believed that such reform must come from the people themselves
and not from a foreign government, Tilak was led to advocate two causes which
were to become his life’s work. First, he fought to reawaken India to her past
and to base her future greatness on her past glories. Second, knowing well that
real progress can only be made by a self-governing people, knowing that moral
progress can only be made through moral and democratic decisions, knowing,
therefore, that Swaraj or self-rule was the prerequisite of real social,
political, economic, cultural and spiritual progress, Tilak began to think in
terms of the restoration of Swaraj. The social reformers were prepared
to criticise almost everything Indian, to imitate the
West in the name of improvement, and to rely upon the power of a foreign
government to bring about this improvement. They were convinced that only by
social reform would they earn political reform; that, therefore, social reform
must precede political reform. Tilak argued just the contrary way, that
political reform must precede social reform; for it is only popular
self-government that is moral government, that it is only moral government that
can create moral social change; and, therefore, self-rule is necessary, and
the first object which must be pursued is the awakening of the people to their
heritage of self-rule.
Tilak’s approach being
more realistic and founded on solid moral values, he could perceive more
clearly the root causes of the Indian social evils than did his social reform
opponents. He felt that it was not simply the forms and practices of Indian
society which had to be changed if meaningful social reforms were to be brought
about. He sensed that abusive social practices were the direct outgrowth of the
‘spirit of orthodoxy’ which filled the forms of social order and inertly
resisted change. This spirit had resulted from a thousand years of instability,
defeat, foreign overlordship, defensiveness and
inflexibility. Therefore, effective reform, Tilak believed, must ultimately
depend upon a reawakening of the true, vital, life-affirming spirit of the
Indian people and civilization. Instead of criticising
social form as the great evil, he began his battle with the atrophied spirit of
orthodoxy while still engaged in his battle with the Westernized reformers. He
wrote: ‘…..just as old and orthodox opinions (and their holders the Pandits etc.,) are one-sided, so the new English educated
reformers’ are also and dogmatic. The old Sastries
and Pandits do not know the new circumstances whereas
the newly educated class of reformers are ignorant of the traditions and the
traditional philosophy of Hinduism. Therefore, a proper knowledge of the old
traditions and philosophies must be imparted to the newly educated classes, and
the Pandits and Sastries
must be given information about the newly changed and changing circumstances.’
9
His
battle was not characterized by abhorrence for the old spirit because he
understood it and the role it had played. The spirit was locked up in forms,
rituals, and customs, that had become virtually dead things. The orthodox
spirit had served its purpose because it has transmitted classical values to a
new generation who could understand them and bring about the necessary rebirth
and reapplication of those values.
The
degraded aspects of the spirit of orthodoxy were lethargy, indolence,
exclusiveness and inaction. They had fed on disunity and divisiveness, born of
defensiveness and rigidity, and from this had arisen casteism
in all its worst manifestations, defeatism and fatalism, the loss of the ideal
of harmonious social cooperation, of courage and of self-respect–in a word, the
dynamics of the classical philosophy of life had been perverted into negation
and passivity. This spirit, Tilak believed, was harmful to India’s progress,
and it was with this spirit that he did battle. Atrophied orthodoxy had no
religious justification. Its spirit was in part the perversion and negation of
the world and of the classical concept of the fulfilment
of the purpose of life, the union of man with his Creator.
But
Tilak also realized that mere philosophical disputation was not enough for the
re-awakening of India, and it required change in the hearts of people and not,
as the reformers believed, change in the forms of institutions. As an editor
who had always dedicated himself to popular education, he first reached the
people. As his chief colleague, N. C. Kelkar, wrote,
‘Through his paper, the Kesari, he
exercised an immense influence over the masses, and it is this influence that
is mainly responsible for the infusion of a new spirit among the people’.
10 He was a sincere, forceful speaker, and he taught from both the
classroom and the public platform his new message of awakening India. Perhaps,
the most effective way in which he reached the people was
through the celebration of national festivals. He was
instrumental in popularizing two great festivals, one to Ganapati,
the Hindu deity of learning and propitiousness, and
the other, a festival to revive the memory and glory of Shivaji, the liberator
of Maharashtra, and the restorer of Swaraj through his fight with the
Mogul Empire. He especially emphasised the dynamic
spirit of Shivaji. He wrote, ‘It is the spirit which actuated Shivaji in his
doings that is held forth as the proper ideal to be kept constantly in the view
of the rising generation’. To keep this spirit in constant view, Tilak worked
ceaselessly to reach the people and to educate them through the festivals.
Throughout Maharashtra, he carried his doctrine,
he waged his battle. Education through religion
and history, through the association in the popular mind with gods and heroes,
through recreating an appreciation of the heritage of the past as a guide to
the future–this was the way he conducted his battle. He soon became the first
articulate spokesman for the no-longer silent, tradition-directed, masses of
India. He became the defender and the awakener of India’s philosophy of life.
He
taught first the dharma of action. This philosophy of action he drew from
the Gita. He reminded the people that India had not become a great
nation through negativism and indolence, but rather through a dynamic
willingness to meet the problems of the day and to solve them morally. This was
the greatest need of the present day. He often said such things as, ‘No one can
expect Providence to protect one who sits with folded arms and throws his
burden on others. God does not help the indolent. You must be doing all that
you can to lift yourself up, and then only you may rely on the Almighty to help
you’. 11
Along
with the dharma of action, Tilak taught the dharma of unity
to the people of India. The unity of India, the unity of the Indian
civilization, is Bharatdharma, the
spiritually-based and spiritually-dedicated way of life. The spirit of
orthodoxy had done injustice to that way of life. It had compartmentalised
society, it had placed men in segregated and exclusive caste communities that
were inimical to the feeling of common heritage and common cause. The true
spirit of Varnashrama-dharma was
harmony and cooperation and unity, and this spirit Tilak sought to reawaken
through religious education. He wrote, ‘It is possible to unite
the followers of Hinduism by the revival and growth of the Hindu religion’, for
‘the Hindu religion does not lie in caste, eating and drinking’.
The
Ganapati and Shivaji festivals served the purpose of
bringing people together. People who worship a common deity, people who recognise a common historical tradition will, in his mind,
be able to stand together, to overcome the disunity of social form and to work
together for the common good. Tilak envisaged a unity of all the people of
India, united among themselves and united with their traditions, united to face
the future by the common ideals they held. In this way, through common, united
effort, social evils could be corrected by the people themselves, and,
moreover, the spirit of national revival, the restoration of national
self-respect, essential for gaining self-rule, depended upon the restoration of
national unity and mutual respect.
Thus
through his messages of action and unity and as editor of the Kesari and The Mahratta,
Tilak became the acknowledged ‘awakener of India’. As editor of his
newspapers, he also became active in political affairs. After he left the Deccan Education Society in 1889, he joined the Indian
National Congress, hoping that it would be instrumental in further uniting the
nation and in securing political reforms. He held a post in the Congress as
early as 1892, as secretary of the Bombay Provincial Conference. At the same
time, he actively participated in public affairs, holding public office on
several occasions. In 1894, he was elected a Fellow of the Bombay University,
and next year he held a post in the Poona Municipality. For two years he was a
member of the Bombay Legislative Council, but, he called the completely
circumscribed powers and the work of this body a ‘huge joke’. He did not seek
public office because he desired a political or governmental career but rather because
it was one means, among several, which he chose to utilize to further the
causes in which he strongly believed. But he soon realized that holding public
office was one of the least effective ways of promoting his ends, and, more
important, he Soon realized public office under the alien raj
was self-defeating. About this time he also began to become disillusioned
with the programme and policies of the Moderate-dominated Congress. His
fighting spirit was antagonised by the predominant
Congress attitude of pleading for reform and passing mild resolutions of
protest against the abuses of the administration. The Congress was not
coming to grips with the real problems of the people. In 1896, he publicly
announced his disagreement with the policies of the Congress in writing, ‘For
the last twelve years we have been shouting hoarse, desiring that the
government should hear us. But our shouting has no more affected the government
than the sound of a gnat. Our rulers disbelieve our statements, or profess to
do so. Let us now try to force our grievances into their ears by strong
constitutional means. We must give the best political education possible to the
ignorant villagers. We must meet them on terms of equality, teach them their
rights and show how to fight constitutionally. Then only will the government
realize that to despise the Congress is to despise the Indian Nation. Then only
will the efforts of the Congress leaders be crowned with success. Such a work
will require a large body of able and single-minded workers, to whom politics
would not mean some holiday recreation but an every-day duty to be performed
with the strictest regularity and utmost capacity.’
12
As
he had relied on democratic social action through religious education, Tilak
now relied on political education to rally the people behind the cause of
political reform. He, therefore, began, through the pages of the Kesari and through an organisation of volunteer famine
relief workers, to inform the poverty stricken peasants of their legal rights.
He urged the people to protest against governmental inaction. He sent out
volunteers to collect detailed information on the devastation in rural areas
which he then forwarded to the government to support his case. He printed and
distributed a leaflet explaining the provisions of the Famine Relief Code to
the people and urged them to take their case to the government. His efforts
informed and aroused the people and alienated the bureaucracy. On the heels of
the famine Poona was stricken by an epidemic of plague. The city was in a
panic. Tragically, many of the educated, many of the leading social reformers,
fled the city; Tilak did not. He offered his services to the government and
went through the plague infested districts of the city with the Government Sanitation
Teams. He opened and managed a hospital for plague victims when government
facilities proved inadequate. He established a free kitchen, and did everything
within his power to alleviate the tragic condition of the people. If social
reform meant anything, it meant tireless work on behalf of the people in the
time of their greatest need. His famine and plague work marked Tilak as the
greatest social reformer and national hero of the country. He was acclaimed the
Lokmanya, the honoured and
respected of the people.
The
British bureaucracy and the Anglo-Indian press recognised
that Tilak was an emerging leader of the people and of a new spirit in India.
Those who lacked foresight began to fear him. When, in the tense atmosphere of
famine and plague-racked Poona, a young man assassinated Rand, the British
official in charge of plague relief, many of those who feared him were quick to
blame Tilak for the death, although he had no knowledge of the incident.
Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. This
was not to be Tilak’s last imprisonment. For two
decades he was persecuted by the British Indian Government because they saw in
him the greatest challenge to their rule over the Indian Empire.
But
Tilak was not an ordinary man who could be cowed down by such threats and
persecutions. He remained undaunted throughout. He had fought against
injustice, he had argued against the placating policies of the Moderates, and
he now began to put forward a positive political programme centred
round the concept of Swaraj, self-rule for India. As early as 1895, he
had begun to preach the necessity for Swaraj. He came to realize that
self-rule must precede meaningful social reform, that the only enduring basis
for national unity and national self-respect must be national self-rule, In
1895, he had reminded the people that Shivaji had recreated Swaraj as
the necessary foundation of social and political freedom and progress and
morality. His historical and philosophic frame of reference is clearly set out
in his writing, ‘One who is a wee bit introduced to history knows what is Swarajya
(people’s own government) and Swadharma
(people’s own religion), knows the extraordinary qualities that are needed
for the founder to establish Swarajya and Swadharma
when both of them are in a state of ruin for hundreds of years, knows the valour, courage, guts and brains of Shivaji Maharaj by the dint of which he saved the whole nation from
bitter ruin’. 13
His
insistence on Swaraj was completely consistent with his personal, social
and political philosophy. He approached all issues as
a realist. He had the example of his own Maharashtrian history and the
categorical imperative of his nation’s philosophy. As Aurobindo Ghose has written, ‘To found the greatness of the future on
the greatness of the past, to infuse Indian politics with Indian religious fervour and spirituality, are the indispensable conditions
for a great and powerful political awakening in India. Others, writers,
thinkers, spiritual leaders, had seen this truth. Mr. Tilak was the first to
bring it into the actual field of practical politics’.14
Tilak
examined the political problems of his day in the light of ‘the God-given
Inspiration’ of India’s civilization. And with the urgency of the situation
arising out of the partition of Bengal and the need for an effective programme
of political action, he joined the group of the Nationalists and presented a
programme and a line of action to the nation.
The
Nationalists initiated mass political education in terms understandable to the
people. Tilak sounded the keynote in saying, ‘To spread our dharma in
our people is one of the aspects of the national form of our religion’,
because, in his opinion, ‘Politics cannot be separated from religion’. Exactly
the same opinion was expressed later on by Mahatma Gandhi. The reason for
political education and political action was not merely the injustice of
foreign rule, not
merely the arbitrary partitioning of Bengal. Self-rule was a moral necessity,
the achievement of self-rule was the dharma of all self-respecting men.
As he later wrote in the Gita-rahasya, ‘The
blessed Lord had to show the importance and the necessity of performing at all
costs the duties enjoined by one’s dharma while life lasts’. And, for
Tilak and the Nationalists, ‘Swaraj is our dharma’. Political
action would alone accomplish the national dharma. In order that India
solve her own destiny, the first essential, as in the case of the awakening of
India, was the call for action, for a new spirit of courage and self-sacrifice.
Only a pride in history and the values of India’s own civilization could
inspire men to the task ahead. Tilak movingly wrote, ‘To succeed in any
business with full self-control and determination, does not generally happen in
spite of our valour, unless a firm conviction is
engendered in our minds, that we are doing good work and God is helping us and
that the religious instinct and the blessings of the saints are at our back’.15
It was with this firm conviction that Tilak and the Nationalists set out
to arouse the nation to political action for the creation of its own destiny.
Tilak
and the Nationalists presented the nation with a three-fold programme for
effective, practical, political action. The three principles were boycott, Swadeshi and national education. Originally,
they were designed for use in Bengal, as the most effective way to bring the
British administrators to their senses over the issue of the partition. But it
was soon decided, however, that the entire nation could well cooperate with
Bengal in following this threefold programme and thus increase tremendously the
pressure on the British. And it was further taught that the great wrong, the
significant evil, was not alone that an alien raj
had partitioned the province of Bengal, but actually that Bengal was only a
symbol, that an alien raj ruled
autocratically over the whole nation of India, and that it was to alleviate
this wrong that the programme was to be employed.
Boycott
initially involved the refusal of the people to purchase British-manufactured
goods. It was started as a measure designed to bring economic pressure on the
British business interests both in India and abroad. If British business could
be moved, then the business could be counted on to move the British raj. But soon the boycott movement took on
far more significant aspects than merely economic pressure. The Nationalists
saw that the whole superstructure of the British Indian administration, that
the British system of rule over India, was based upon the willing, or at least
unthinking, cooperation of the Indian people. Tilak was one of the first to
discern this, and he realized that boycott could be expanded to the point of
jeopardizing the foundation of the whole British administrative machinery in
India. In a speech at Poona, as early as 1902, he urged, ‘You must realize that
you are a great factor in the power with which the administration in India is
conducted. You are yourselves the useful lubricants which enable the gigantic
machinery to work so smoothly. Though downtrodden and neglected, you must be
conscious of your power of making the administration impossible if you but
choose to make it so. It is you who manage the railroad and the telegraph, it
is you who make settlements and collect revenues, it is in fact you who do
everything for the administration though in a subordinate capacity.
You must consider whether you cannot turn your hand to better use for your
nation than drudging on in this fashion.
Boycott gradually moved from the economic into the political sphere; it moved from the arena of Bengal to all-India. Boycott as an all-India political weapon was the first principle of the programme of Tilak and the Nationalist leaders. Boycott fore-shadowed non-cooperation.
Swadeshi initially
began as a primary economic counterpart to the programme of economic boycott. Swadeshi meant self-help, to rely upon Indian-made goods
rather than to patronize the retail outlets of the manufactured produce of
Birmingham and Manchester. Beginning in Bengal, bonfires of European clothing
lit the night sky, and the people turned to local Indian production of Swadeshi goods. Swadeshi was the
first great impetus to industrial development in India. Local Indian production
was given the stimulus for its natural growth. But like boycott, Swadeshi soon came to mean a great deal more than simple
economic self-sufficiency. If there could be self-help in the economic sphere,
then there most certainly could be self-help in all spheres of life. The dharma
of action had taught self-respect and self-reliance, and Swadeshi extended self-reliance to self-help in all things.
Swadeshi
was a tangible way in which to demonstrate the new spirit,
Tilak and the Nationalists had been teaching the people.
The
Swadeshi movement quickly became a movement of
national regeneration. Swadeshi was a practical
application of love of country. As Tilak said, ‘To recognise
the land of the Aryans as mother-earth is the Swadeshi
movement’. It was an economic, political and spiritual weapon. Swadeshi was Vande Mataram in action.
The
third element in the threefold programme for effective political action was
national education. Tilak had long before realized that the Western education
started by Lord Macaulay and pursued in all the
Government-supported schools was ruinous to the future health and well-being of
the nation. The younger generations were being educated away from not only
their families and the great majority of the Indian people, but also away from
the value system of India’s civilization. Government-supported Western
education uprooted the youths from their ties to the past and made them Indians
in name only. Hence such a system of Western education was repulsive to Tilak
and the Nationalists. They pleaded for the establishment of national schools
and colleges throughout the country to provide inexpensive and wholesome
education emphasising the new spirit of self-help and
self-reliance which young people could not expect to receive in the
Government-supported institutions. And national education became an integral
part of the nationalist programme for the India of the twentieth century.
This
threefold programme of boycott, Swadehsi and national
education was presented to the country by Tilak and the Nationalists and was
also presented to the Indian National Congress for its approval and adoption.
The programme began primarily as an economic weapon but quickly its political
importance was realized and became predominant. The impetus behind the
programme was initially a reaction to the partitioning of Bengal, but it soon
developed an all-India momentum. The first reason for its use was to induce the
government to reunify Bengal, but it soon became a programme for national
reawakening and national liberation–Swaraj. Thus, an economic programme became
a political programme; a locally centred agitation
became a national issue; the cause of altering a specific British policy
evolved into the cause of gaining India’s self-determination.
Swaraj
became the reason and justification for the entire programme
and movement led by Tilak and the Nationalists. Tilak realized that Swaraj, the
goal of all efforts, was a moral national necessity. He held that the
attainment of Swaraj would be a great victory for Indian nationalism. He
gave to Indians the mantra: Swaraj is the birth-right of Indians (at the
Lucknow Congress of 1916). He defined Swaraj as
‘people’s rule instead of that of bureaucracy’. This was the essence of Tilak’s argument with the social reformers when they sought
to have the British Government legislate and enforce social reform measures.
Tilak held that unless the people supported the reforms, in effect, unless the
people exercised self-rule to legislate and enforce the reforms, the reforms
were not only meaningless but also undemocratic and without moral significance.
And for pushing his ideal of Swaraj forward, he started Home Rule
Leagues in 1916 with the cooperation of Mrs. Annie Besant,
which soon became so popular that the Government had to adopt severe repressive
measures. But he went on undeterred with the propaganda of Home Rule throughout
the country. He intended that a bill should be introduced in the British
Parliament for Indian Home Rule, by the good offices of the
Labour leaders, although he could not be successful in the attempt. However,
the fact that Tilak began his Home Rule agitation in the year 1916 is an
eloquent testimony to his keen perception of political realities.
Tilak
contemplated a federal type of political structure under Swaraj. He
referred to the example of the American Congress and said that the Government
of India should keep in its hands similar powers to exercise them through an
impartial council. Although in his speeches and writings Tilak mostly stated
that Swaraj did not imply the negation and severance of ultimate British
sovereignty, we have every reason to believe that in his heart of hearts he
always wanted complete independence. He once said that ‘there could be no such
thing as partial Swaraj’. Self-rule under Dharmarajya
either existed fully or did not exist at all. Partial Swaraj was a
contradiction in terms. Only the Westernized few who could not understand this
could talk in such contradictory terms, could agree to settle for
administrative reforms, could not see that ‘Swaraj is India’s birth-right’.
Through Swaraj, the revolutionary change in the theory of government,
and through Swaraj; alone, could the destiny of India be fulfilled! This
is Tilak’s real meaning when he wrote, ‘Swaraj is
our dharma’. Before the people of the nation he set this goal. Next he
set about to make it a political reality, to implement the programme to bring
about the goal.
For
the correct implementation of his programme, Tilak urged the method of
non-violent passive resistance. Here it must be made clear that many foreign
critics regard Tilak as a revolutionary. Chirol,
16 John S. Hoyland17,
and several others, think that Tilak believed in armed revolution, that he was
responsible for many political murders and that his speeches and articles
contained “a covert threat of mutiny.” But it is not true. Undoubtedly, he
supported the action of Shivaji in killing Afzal
Khan. He appreciated the daring and skill of Chafekar,
as also the patriotic fervour of the Bengal
revolutionaries. But, as a moralist he put the highest premium on the
purification of intentions. The external action could never be regarded as the
criterion of moral worth. Hence if Arjuna
or Shivaji or any other ardent patriot did commit or would commit some violent
action, being impelled by higher altruistic motives, Tilak would not condemn
such persons. But in spite of his metaphysical defence
of altruistic violence, Tilak never preached political murder; nor did he ever
incite anybody to commit murder as a political means. A realist in politics
though he was, he never taught the omnicompetence of
force as Machiavelli or Treitschke
did. His realism taught him to act in the political universe in such a way,
that his opponents could not take advantage of him. Only by passive resistance
and democratic means, he taught, could the united action of the people prove
powerful enough to bring about the non-violent revolution that was Swaraj. Boycott
and Swadeshi were, in effect, the precursors of the
later non-cooperation movement. The passive resistance taught by him and the
Nationalists was the precursor to non-violent civil disobedience. Tilak clearly
foresaw that violence would be wasteful, and that it would ultimately be
ineffectual. Being a realist, he recognised that ‘the
military strength of the Government is enormous and a single machinegun
showering hundreds of bullets per minute will quite suffice for our largest
public meetings’.18 Action must be
direct, but, realistically appraising the power of the Government, he urged
that it be passive as well. He continually taught, ‘As our fight is going to be
constitutional and legal, our death also must, as of necessity, be
constitutional and legal. We have not to use any violence’.
19
Thus
Tilak’s method of action was democratic and
constitutional. He had stirred the popular imagination and taught the people
the necessity for united action. He had constructed a practical programme for
the achievement of his political objective. He had defined for all time the
purpose of the Indian movement for self-rule–Swaraj–and he had begun to develop
the techniques that would be used in the popular movement to realize that goal
effectively.
Tilak
left a monumental legacy to the independence movement. Gandhiji and those who
came after Tilak could build upon the work and the victories which he had won.
In his battles against orthodoxy, lethargy and bureaucracy he was largely
successful. The independence movement, largely through his work, had been
victorious, over stagnation, the spirit of orthodoxy that was negative, that compartmentalised rather than unified, and that could not
rise to accept the challenges of the twentieth century. Tilak freed the nation
from lethargy and stagnation, and in awakening the people, inspired them with a
promise of awakening India, an India united, strong and capable of action,
self-reliant and on the road to victory.
1 Kesari,
june 1, 1897.
2 N.
C. Kelkar, Pleasures and Privileges of the Pen, BK.
I, p. 121.
3 A.
Ghose, The Foundations of Indian Culture, pp.
8–9.
4 S.
V. Bapat (ed.), Gleanings from Tilak’s
Writings and Speeches, p. 346.
5 Kesari,
Spt. 19, 1905.
6 A.
Ghose, The foundations of Indian Culture, p
63.
7 Kesari, September 19,1905.
8 D. V. Athalye, The Life of Lokamanya Tilak, p. 54.
9 Kesari, Jan 21, 1904.
10 N. C. Kelkar, Landmarks in Lokamanya Life, p. 10.
11
B. G. Tilak, His Writings and Speeches, p. 277.
12
Kesari,
January 12, 1896.
13 Kesari,
July 2, 1895.
14
A. Ghose, in Introductory Appreciation to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, His
Writings and Speeches, p. 7.
15
Gleanings from Tilak’s Writings and Speeches, p.
121.
16
V. Chirol, India, pp. 121-22.
17
John S. Hoyland, Gokhale, pp. 24-25.
18 B.
G. Tilak, His Writings and Speeches, p. 64 and 69.
19
Ibid., p. 229-30.