by A K Bhagwat
Tilak had always interested himself in the spread of indigenous goods and industry. One such idea of his was the starting of the Paisa Fund. Tilak first wrote an article on this subject in the Kesari in 1900. The idea of each person subscribing only a Paisa (the lowest coin in India) to make up a fund for starting indigenous industry attracted the imagination of people and an enthusiastic young man, Antaji Damodar Kale, was inspired by it. He voluntarily moved from village to village and collected donations to the Paisa Fund. Tilak who was always quick in giving recognition to the work done by enthusiastic workers called Kale the originator of the Paisa Fund. Kale, however, wrote an article in the Kesari of the 2nd August 1902, stating that the inspiration came to him from Tilak. Owing to the support from all sections of society the fund soon swelled to Rs. 53,000.
Crystallisation of Views, 1900-1905
The period from 1900 to 1905 in Tilak’s thoughts on political, social and religious matters can be described as a period of crystallisation of views. This crystallisation was the result of a number of factors. Men, matters, travel and books are the main factors that mould a person’s mind. During this period, we have seen that Tilak travelled to Madras, Ceylon and Burma and what he noted about the social, religious and political state of these places confirmed some of his earlier beliefs. In men and matters he learnt a great deal from mature experience of life and of political work. The emergence of a new Asia through the Russo-Japanese conflict gave a wider basis to Indian nationalism. A cultural and religious basis was provided along with political and economic justification by the books that he read. At this time he again came to be acknowledged as the “most respected leader of the people” and was known henceforth by the title ‘Lokmanya’. The exact origin of the title is unknown. According to the famous historian Rajwade, the title was used for the first time in 1900 in an address presented to Tilak at Kolhapur. Datto Appaji Tuljapurkar, pleader and author, however gives the year 1905 as the time when the title was used for the first time in a Sanskrit address, drafted by Mahadeoshastri Oka, a renowned teacher of Sanskrit in the New English School. Whatever be its origin, the title is appropriate, for Tilak was the first leader who in public life set up a new standard of greatness. Before him a leader had to be Rajamanya—acknowledged or respected by the King. He turned the public gaze from the King to the people and earned a title by renouncing the honours which would easily have been his had he chosen the old and trodden path of Kingly favour. Rajamanya Rajashri (shortened to Ra. Ra.) also happen to be traditional honorific prefixes in Maradii as Mr. is in English. The title may, therefore, have a humorous origin—as Tilak was obviously not acknowledged by the King (Rajamanya) the prefix could no longer be used for him and hence in contrast he became an ‘acknowledged leader of the people’ (Lokmanya).
But to turn to his influences, first the influence of books. The books which seem to have affected Tilak most profoundly seem to be the “Sacred Books of the East” Max Müller, had sent to him his newly edited copy of the Rigveda and it was in the course of his reading it in jail that Tilak was struck by the Vedic riks that suggested to him the idea about the original home of the Aryans. He appears to have progressed in the study of the Gita and come to realise that in it are to be found answers to many of the questions on life, religion and philosophy which had perplexed him. He came more and more to believe that religion can act as a cementing and integrating force, holding together the diverse elements in Indian society and resolving all conflicts into a higher synthesis and integration. These views of his he clarified in his lecture at Benares; but in his reading during this period he seems to be travelling in that direction. He says in his lecture delivered under the auspices of the Bharat Dharma Mandal in the holy city of Benares:
“Hindu religion as a whole is made up of different parts connected with each other as many sons and daughters of one great religion. If this idea is kept in view, and if we try to unite the various sections, it will be consolidated in a mighty force. So long as you are divided amongst yourself, so long as one section does not recognise its affinity with another, you cannot hope to rise as Hindus. The word Dharma means a tie and comes from the root ‘dhri’ to bear or hold. What is there to hold together? To connect the soul with God and man with man. Dharma means our duty towards God and duty towards man. Hindu religion as such provides for a moral as well as a social tie.”
During this period again he contributes detailed reviews of new editions of the Mahabharat and Ramayana and gives his own theories about their dates, origin and several important textual and interpretative problems connected with them. Apart from these religious or philosophical works two books of a political nature have been reviewed in detail by him. These two, again, were to affect the extremist party profoundly by providing a concrete theoretical basis for their extreme views. These two books published in 1901 were: Dadabhai Naoroji’s Poverty and Un-British Rule in India and William Digby’s Prosperous British India. In the Kesari of the 10th December 1901, Tilak writes under the caption “Two Good Books” and says that these two books show the result of the agitation carried on for the last quarter of a century in India. Dadabhai had made it his life’s work to show why under such a prosperous and mighty Empire as that of the British, India should be reduced to poverty. Dadabhai with his ceaseless toil in the cause of the country was thus not merely a leader of the people but also deserved the title ‘Maharshi’ the great sage. It was he who dispelled the illusion that under the British, India would get the heaven of happiness and prosperity. Dadabhai was the first not to be dazzled by the tinsel and show of British rule and knew that with all its shine it was a step leading to beggary. He was, therefore, as important as the helmsman who, while the atmosphere is calm and the sky cloudless, prognosticates the coming of the storm and steers the ship of state clear of it. The agitation carried on by the Congress and the terrible famines of recent years had clearly shown the real state of things. Dadabhai and Digby had supported this by a wealth of facts and figures. To Dadabhai the poverty of India was unbecoming to the character of the British and hence it was ‘Un-British.’
To Digby, there was something ironical in speaking of the prosperity of British India. He displayed prominently in letters of gold, on the frontispiece of his book, that the non-official estimated income of India in 1850 was 2 pence per head per day. It was officially estimated in 1882 to be 1½ pence per head per day. Analytical examination of all sources of income in 1900 showed that it was less than 3/4 pence per head per day. Into brackes Digby also added: “An analysis shows that during his period of service at the India office the present Secretary of State has drawn as salary a sum which represents one year’s average income of ninety-thousand Indian people!” According to Tilak, the purpose of both these books was to make the people of Britain realise the real state of affairs in India and thus press home the need of better government of India.
The crystallisation of his views is nowhere more clear than in his analysis of the past. The occasion was the death anniversary of Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, which was utilised by Tilak for passing into review the condition of Maharashtra at the time of Vishnushastri. This review was not merely of academic interest, for Vishnushastri was a senior colleague and a fellow-pioneer of the Kesari and the New English School. In the two papers that he read on this occasion, Tilak is, therefore, painting a realistic picture of the forces at work when the Kesari was born.
In the introductory paragraph Tilak takes a rapid survey of educational activity in Maharashtra after the downfall of the Maratha power in 1818. Upto 1874, he says, there had not been more than 50 or 60 graduates and yet the results of English education, started in 1836, had been far-reaching and important.
The chief defect of English education, according to Tilak, was that it divorced academic education from religious and ethical teaching. During the time of the first generation of English-educated persons, ill-digested half-knowledge of English had a pernicious effect on the people. In p
rivate life they showed a sad lack of ordinary morality. They can be said “to have made vice fashionable in “Poona.”
The leaders of the Prarthana Samaj did not pay attention to traditional religious ideas. They imitated the missionaries in the externals of worship. Others who attacked missionaries took a logical stand only, with the result that their attempts to put life into Hinduism were fruitless. Tilak is of the opinion that: “English education was thus responsible for destroying that essential bond of relationship between learning, ethics, religious faith, conduct and family life. In the absence of this binding principle, no nation can hope to prosper. The people of the first generation were dazzled by English education. In the first generation the leaders ran counter to the wishes of the people. They forgot that to lead a people, qualities like upright behaviour, faith in religion and sacrifice are more necessary than mere learning. It was natural that these people who talked of shattering a traditional, social and religious system within no time should deserve the ridicule of all.”
By 1875, Tilak continues, people learnt to discuss and distinguish between the good and the bad effects of British rule. They began to consider such questions as whether the British rule really did any good to the people of India, whether Indians were losing many of their means of subsistence, whether the sense of unity and cooperation was being lost and whether there was any scope for the talent, enterprise or intelligence of the people. Such things were not even considered, much less discussed, in the first generation and so they insisted on social and religious reform; but as they lacked all the qualities that influence a community they failed.
With this background it is easy to understand, according to Tilak, the great work of Vishnushastri. He showed discrimination in taking only that part of the English education which was conducive to our welfare. He knew that pride in one’s own language and love for one’s own religion are essential qualities for the leader of a nation. He attacked the newfangled, half-baked reformers, but always upheld genuine efforts at social reform. Deeply read in Indian and European history, he knew more than anyone before him what qualities were necessary for the advancement of a nation. Even with this knowledge he would have deteriorated as the elder generation but he went much further than mere analysis or criticism. He stepped forward boldly in the arena of public work and on the basis of self-sacrifice started institutions to bring about social and political regeneration. He knew that every society requires certain bonds or ties, and these could be forged or kept intact by being proud of our ancient institutions. In the absence of this consciousness all efforts at reform would be futile.
Evaluation of the Great Contemporaries
From 1900 to 1905, there were also a number of deaths of prominent persons, in Maharashtra and outside of it. Some of these were close associates of Tilak, others were eminent persons who had inspired him in many ways. In the Kesari Tilak has contributed obituary articles on their deaths. These articles are not mere eulogies or formal newspaper sketches of the life histories of the departed. Through them Tilak analyses the causes of the greatness of these people, evaluates their contribution to their own sphere of work, and thus in general tells us what he thinks to be important indication of what he himself picked up from these great contemporaries.
In 1895, at the time of Agarkar’s death, Tilak had written an article on him when he was deeply stirred by personal emotions. In evaluating the secret of Agarkar’s greatness, he had said that it was the spirit of self-sacrifice and a complete dedication to the good of others that had made Agarkar great. It was a new idea of public work, in fact, and a new standard of greatness, not based on considerations of birth, wealth or social status. In the following year Madhav Ballal Namjoshi died and Tilak paid tribute to his capacity for inventing ideas, his sense of organisation and his assiduous industry. Here again he makes a pointed reference to the fact that Namjoshi showed how even a person without any financial support of his own can carve out for himself a name in the public life of a city like Poona. Both these deaths, being premature, had also given Tilak a feeling that his days too were numbered. An indication of this fear is found in his letter accepting the services of N. C. Kelkar to which a reference has been made earlier.
Max Müller
In November 1900, Prof, Max Müller, the world-famous Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, died. Max Müller had come to admire Tilak for the latter’s scholarship and had praised him for his Vedic researches. When Tilak was in jail, undergoing a sentence for sedition, Prof. Max Müller had taken a leading part in signing a memorial to Parliament and had also sent Tilak copies of the Rigveda, edited by him. Tilak recognised Max Müller as mainly instrumental in revealing to the Western world the glories of Hindu religion and philosophy. Throughout the articles he insists that true learning and genuine scholarship transcend the limits of caste, creed or country. Tilak particularly refers to the single-minded devotion with which Max Müller acquired knowledge and deplores the fact that such people were rare in India. “Therefore, the lesson to be learnt from Max Müller’s life is that though politically we may not get all the opportunities to show our talents, at least in the field of scholarship, we can use our talents and thereby contribute to the welfare of the nation.” Tilak also pays a glowing tribute to the liberalism of Max Müller which made him see the good points in other religions besides Christianity in which he was born and in which he died. He was one of those persons who regard the whole world as their family. He showed that even if the greatness of other religions was acknowledged and the beauty of other languages realised, that in no way lessens one’s faith in and love of one’s own religion or language.
Queen Victoria
On the 22nd January 1901, Queen Victoria died and Tilak wrote an article on her death in the Kesari of the 29th January 1901, under the title “Regime of Her Majesty the Queen”. Of all the obituary articles written by Tilak this one appears to be the most formal but he also pays a tribute to the personal character of the Queen and expresses the opinion that had she lived longer she certainly would have given effect to the proclamation of 1858. He refers to the fact which he had already mentioned in his article on the occasion of the Jubilee, that the clause regarding non-interference in religious and social customs of the Indian people was inserted mainly at the instance of the Queen. He pays a handsome tribute to her personal qualities.
Mahadeo Govind Remade
A week before the death of Queen Victoria there occurred a death in India which was deeply mourned. Mr. Justice Mahadeo Govind Ranade died at the age of 59 on the 16th January 1901. D. K. Wacha in his Presidential Address at the Seventeenth Congress at Calcutta in 1901 declared: “Mr. Ranade,-the erudite judge, the profound scholar, the keen student of Indian economics, the philosopher cast in the Hellenic mould, reminding us of Socratic intellect and Socratic simplicity, the pure patriot of glowing zeal and, above all, the spotless citizen of boundless faith and hope, is no more.” Like all persons of his generation, Tilak had come under the spell of Ranade’s genius. Ranade with his foresight had started a network of institutions for an all-sided regeneration of Maharashtra. Anyone who wished to devote himself to public work had to look either to Ranade himself or to an institution started or guided by him. Tilak no doubt differed from Ranade, particularly on the question of religious reform; yet he had great respect for Ranade’s sterling qualities of patriotism, the breadth of his outlook and his ceaseless toil for the regeneration of his people. Tilak’s tribute to Ranade’s greatness, is, therefore, an intensely personal and moving one. It is with feeling that he says that in the death of Ranade every family in Maharashtra would feel that a leading member from its own household had departed. His real greatness did not lie in the fact that he was a man of learning, or that he was a High Court Judge, or that he was a social or religious reformer, or a prominent leader of the Prarthana Samaj. According to Tilak, the real measure of Ranade’s greatness would be found, when the condition of Maharashtra was taken into account. Wh
en Ranade came to Poona, the city seemed to have lost all its life, the old aristocracy had become ineffective, the first products of the University did not know what to do. “Maharashtra, therefore, had turned into a cold lifeless mass. How to bring warmth into this lifeless clod so that it might show signs of life, was Ranade’s thought night and day. He not only undertook this difficult task but also performed it by toiling ceaselessly. This then is the real measure of his greatness.”
Tilak goes on to say: “It was particularly when Ranade came to Poona that he had greater scope to show his uncommon talents, for Poona was more compact than Bombay. Ranade was not, like other reformers, a person with a single-track mind. He did not confine his attention to only one field of activity, he could think and act for a regeneration in all directions. He was fortunate in being endowed with an all-comprehensive intellect. Ranade’s activity, according to Tilak, was not without its risks. The government had come to know that the people of Poona were being trained in public work and agitation by Ranade and they saw to it that he was removed from Poona.”
“The greatest quality of Ranade,” according to Tilak, “was his fervent faith that the condition of his country would surely improve and he believed, therefore, in making a ceaseless and unsparing effort. He was thus a true guru of the people. It was by his efforts that the Bombay Presidency in general and the city of Poona in particular achieved a position of central importance in the whole of India.”
Vivekananda
On the 4th July 1902, Vivekananda’s great soul sought eternal rest. Tilak did not know Vivekananda intimately; but his dynamic personality and his teaching of the Vedantic Hindu doctrine, acclaimed even by the western world, could not fail to impress Tilak. Along with Prof. Max Müller, Vivekanand was another powerful influence in turning the thoughts of Tilak from western to eastern philosophy. “No Hindu,” he says, “who has the interests of Hinduism at his heart, could help feeling grieved over Vivekananda’s samadhi.” The nineteenth century, says Tilak, is spoken of as a century of the material sciences, and yet, in the last decade of this century, to bring home to the learned people of the western world the greatness of the spiritual sciences which have originated in the East thousands of years ago, was no mean task. The title of western material sciences was advancing so rapidly with English education that it required a person of uncommon ability to stem it. Theosophy no doubt had been doing this before Vivekananda, but a real Hindu slant was given to their work by Vivekananda. The education that is given in our schools today is merely logical and analytical, so that far from fostering into the student’s mind a love of religion it breeds hate and engenders a tendency to mock at religion and at those who practise it.