Lokmanya Tilak

by A K Bhagwat

  “When we leave the word ‘constitutional’, the question only remains whether our efforts are legal or illegal. At present it is not within our power to make laws. Therefore even though our efforts are in keeping with history, formal tradition and with the natural rights of the people, it is entirely in the hands of our rulers to decide whether they are legal or illegal. Our legitimate efforts may perhaps become illegal according to their laws. In such a case instead of calling our efforts illegal, it would be necessary to say that the law is unjust (and tyrannical). Under these circumstances we need not bother whether the word ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ is applied to our movement and efforts. We must only take care to see that they are in conformity with justice, morality, historical tradition and progress. And when our efforts are based on these we must not care whether our efforts fit in the legal framework or transgress it. It is true that if anyone breaks the law, he would be punished. But if the law is unjust we must resist it even at the risk of suffering this punishment. Such things are inevitable when law is divorced from morality.”

  From the Immediate to the Ultimate

  This is one of the instances of the fact that Tilak, while discussing the immediate, soared into the realm of ultimate reality. Here in this article we first of all meet a thinker who displayed a rare analytical power and who discussed a theoretical proposition in a perfectly detached way. The logic of his argument is flawless and the exposition of ideas is lucid. In the last paragraph, however, the discussion is lifted to an altogether different plane, and here we meet the philosopher. Tilak always maintained that India’s political struggle had a moral basis and he was very proud of the Indian tradition wherein ethics was the cornerstone of individual as well as social life. Tilak would not, therefore, accept the superiority of the temporal laws over the moral values. He advised people not to lose sight of the ethical principles on which they had based their political struggle, and insisted that these principles should not be compromised so as to suit the laws of the British. Tilak was of the opinion that whenever there was a conflict between law and moral principles, people should strive to stand by these principles and be prepared for all the consequences of their action. In this respect Tilak regarded the breaking of the law as a moral act, that the morality consisted in the breach rather than in the observance of law. A person, who is morally convinced about the justice of his own actions is prepared to face whatever material consequences the conviction might bring in its train. And since any punishment given to a person who has the courage of his convictions is given out of a wilful display of might based on injustice, it is no moral stigma and should not be considered to be in any way degrading, Here then is a revolutionary idea, the truth of which had already dawned upon Agarkar and Tilak in the Dongri prison as early as in 1882. Agarkar arrived at this idea as he regarded the sanction of the individual conscience as the supreme criterion for deciding the justness of an individual’s action. This idea was later fully developed by Mahatma Gandhi in expounding his technique of Satyagraha. Political life is generally believed to be starkly materialistic where self-interests, however glorified, are the pivotal points. A person with a philosophic preoccupation can, however, lift politics from the plane of material interests to the plane of ideas and values. During the Bengal partition it was that, in addition to the sanction of popular support demonstrated on’a mass scale, which made Tilak take the same position. India and the world had to wait till the advent of Gandhi on the political horizon before this idea, proved and perfected, was to assume the proportions of a philosophy of life and an incentive to action. Tilak’s greatness lies in the fact that out of the welter of political discussions, he arrived at ideas, which have an abiding value in our political life. Time has drawn its veil over his life and yet the moral values he preached have a perennial significance for us. It is in such a discussion that there is a welding of the past, the present and the future, giving forth a beam of light which illumines the path of struggling humanity.

  Tilak and Aurobindo

  This article of Tilak was not an accidental outburst of individual conviction. It is a note which was struck on a number of occasions by more than one individual. During this period the philosophic significance of the national struggle was explained by another great individual, Shri Aurobindo. To him India’s fight for freedom was really an effort for the realisation of her soul. Under Aurobindo’s leadership the New Movement transcended the limitations of politics and embraced life.

  Aurobindo objected to the methods of the moderates because he thought that a servile attitude was an insult to India’s honour. He believed that those whose minds were emancipated could alone participate in India’s fight for freedom and Swadeshi was to him a way of life rather than a political movement. The association of Tilak with Aurobindo was a happy accident. Both of them had a burning passion for the liberation of India and yet there was a great difference in their temperaments and methods. Aurobindo was a revolutionary whose method of preparing the country for liberation was that of armed revolt. He thought in terms of insurrectionary methods and guided a number of secret societies. Tilak did not rule out the possibility of an armed rebellion but mature experience of political life in India had convinced him that consolidating people for an open struggle was a surer method. He therefore tried to develop the technique of civil revolt and regarded the organised strength of the people as the most powerful of all weapons. Aurobindo was a visionary and had a mystic touch about him. Tilak was a realist and relied on intellect rather than on intuition. Tilak was among the first to be struck by Aurobindo’s articles in Indu-Prakash, a Bombay weekly edited by K. G. Deshpande. Aurobindo wrote the articles in August 1893 at the request of Deshpande, who was his friend at Cambridge. In these articles Aurobindo criticised the leaders of the Congress for mishandling the country’s cause. He ruthlessly attacked ‘the policy of protest, petition and prayer’ to which the Congress was committed. The first two articles created a sensation and Ranade warned the editor against them. Aurobindo was asked to write in a modified tone, and though he reluctantly consented he could not find much interest and dropped the plan. When Aurobindo was in Baroda State service he came in contact with some revolutionaries from Maharashtra and he always looked up to Maharashtra as a favourable ground for his future activities. One of his ideas was to capture the Congress and ‘make it an instrument for revolutionary action, instead of a centre of a timid constitutional agitation.’ He attended the Congress Session at Ahmedabad in 1902 but not officially. There Tilak took Aurobindo out of the pandal to the open grounds and talked to him for an hour expressing his contempt for the tinker-work show and explaining his own line of action in Maharashtra. This was not just a meeting between two political leaders but a meeting of two forces, one representing the robust realism and the indomitable will of Maharashtra, the other representative of the revolutionary fervour and the tempestuous energies of Bengal. Tilak could justly be compared to an ocean with waves crashing on a rock with a tremendous uproar. Aurobindo resembled a smouldering volcano which would erupt at any moment. The two idealists must have expressed to each other the agonies of their minds about the then conditions must have discussed plans for changing them and must have intensified each other’s faith in India’s destiny. The meeting was like a sacred confluence of two rivers, out of which emerged new stream, flowing with tremendous rapidity and creating a new life on its banks.

  Tilak recognised in Aurobindo a new force in Indian politics and, in spite of the difference in approach, realised the need for a close association with him. Both these great leaders took their ideals to the people mainly through their writings. Tilak’s articles in Kesari had kindled a new flame in Maharashtra and Aurobindo’s articles in Bande Mataram heralded the dawn of the New Movement in Bengal. Both of them wanted to teach the people the lesson of self-reliance, but the ways in which their thoughts found expression were quite different. Tilak’s writings were direct, matter-of-fact and un-embellished. In Aurobindo’
s writings there is a religious tone and the throbbing of an intense emotion. The following passage from Aurobindo reveals the peculiar qualities of his writings: “Courage is your principal asset. If you are to work out the salvation of your country, you will have to do it with heroism.... You have your only guide in the loftiness and spirituality that make their heaven in the thought of the wider light and purer happiness that you may bring to your country by long force of vision and endeavour. The rapturous contemplation of a new and better state for your country is your only hope. What great element is wanting in a life in such a hope?”

  Tilak would have expressed the same thoughts probably in the following words: “It is now high time that the people of our country give up their fear and develop a bold and courageous attitude. The progress of our country is possible only when people become heroic. Our task is glorious but it can only be accomplished through a sustained effort. We must never forget our ideal and there must not be any faltering in our endeavour. The present is dark and gloomy but it is in our hands to change the future. Tht determination to change it will give a new hope to us. Blessed are those who get this hope through the devotion to the cause of our country.”

  After the Calcutta Congress, the moderates became more and more conscious of the fact that they were losing ground to the extremists. In a political organisation, the ruling party does not surrender its power easily, but always makes a frantic effort to consolidate its position and to postpone the crisis. Those who aspire to “ring out the old and ring in the new,” are on the offensive and want to precipitate a crisis. The moderates in the Congress felt that the resolutions passed at the Calcutta Congress had created an embarrassing situation for them. They could not openly say that they did not accept the resolutions, but they tried to find a way out by putting their own interpretation on them. The moderate leaders thought it necessary to clarify their position and distinguish it from that of the extremists. One of such efforts was the Bombay Provincial Congress held at Surat on 29th March 1907. Tilak could not attend the conference and it was completely dominated by liberal leaders like Pherozshah Mehta. Sir Bhalchandra Bhatawadekar who presided over the conference indirectly criticised the new party and advocated the moderate line. On the resolution on Swadeshi and boycott, the president gave the ruling that the subject of Swadeshi did not fall in the jurisdiction of the Congress. Gokhale had gone out on a lecture tour in U.P. and Punjab and some more articles were written by moderates to state their cause.... Tilak wrote a smashing article in the Kesari of 20th August 1907, under the heading “And still I am a Liberal.” In this article Tilak compared the liberals to the innocent peasant girl in Wordsworth’s poem ‘We are seven!.’ The girl could not understand the meaning of death and said that “Two of us at Conway dwell and two are gone to sea.... And yet we are seven.” Similarly the moderates conceded almost all the points to the extremists and yet remarked that they were moderates . Tilak made a reference to the statement of Mr. Ramaswami Iyer which had appeared in the Hindu in which he had remarked that “After Dadabhai held aloft the banner of Swaraj... neither the moderates nor the extremists can say that they are not Swarajists.” Tilak further wrote, “Among the members of the same party there are bound to be some minor differences; but it is quite unreasonable to say on that account that we are not one. To set the ultimate ideal before the people and thus to elevate the minds of the people is not only desirable but also absolutely necessary for the uplift of a nation. When a leader is thus ennobling the nation it is cowardly to repulse him by telling him that ‘he is not one of us.’ And if the moderates are going to do this, let them have their own way.... The Nation has decided its objective. He who does not accept it will have to fall back. The nation - the National Congress will not now retreat.” Tilak then mentioned the letter which Rao Bahadur Ananda Charlu, who was once the President of the Congress, had written to the Madras Standard. Ananda Charlu openly stated that the Indians must resort to obstructionist tactics as the Americans had done when the Stamp Act was not repealed. The article then continued:

  “Similar thoughts have been expressed by Bipin Chandra Pal, Surendranath Banerjee and by Bande Mataram, the organ of the new party; and people in Bengal and to some extent people in other provinces had started living up to these teachings. The Raja of Bombay, the Pandit of Allahabad, the Vedanti of Madras or other minor spokesmen of the moderates might shrug their shoulders at this. But the current of the national movement is flowing with great rapidity and the old foggies and the new colts are bound to be overwhelmed by it.” Tilak did not however merely criticise the moderates. He positively and boldly stated his own concept of the political movement in India. “Political rights cannot be secured by soft and easy ways. At present in the regime of a great scholar, the Russian type of rule has come to stay in our country, and in order to secure political rights leaders will have to suffer imprisonment, deportation and be prepared for other tortures. What then is the use of retracing our steps? People must be trained for struggle which will have to be waged to win freedom, and the only way to do it, is to make them participate in the struggle.”

  Self-government and Good-government

  In this article Tilak has stated the responsibilities of leaders who take this extreme stand in politics. By his personal example he showed how he could shoulder them. In his task of shaping public opinion he did not merely resort to the device of rousing sentiments. As an educator of public opinion, he enunciated and clarified new ideas and concepts. His appeal was to reason and his method logical. The importance of this approach cannot be over-estimated. In the infancy of the political movement the educative role is all important for there is danger of agitation dwindling into mere slogan-shouting. He was engaged in the task of shaping public opinion. In doing so, however, he did not resort to the method of rousing sentiments. He was an educator of public opinion who explained clearly the new ideas and the new concepts through his articles in the Kesari. Tilak knew how to make the slogan a reality by revitalising it with ideological and material content. He wrote an article, in the Kesari of 9th April 1907 ‘Self-government and Good-government.’ The occasion for this article was a difference of opinion among Bengali leaders at the Barkapur Conference about the meaning of Swaraj. Tilak at the beginning of his article emphasised the need for understanding clearly the implications of a political term and said it was necessary to give a full clarification of the terms self-government and good-government which were used by Dadabhai in his presidential address at the Calcutta Congress. He commented on the British rule in India and showed that it certainly was not good government.... “The present government in India is thus neither self-government nor good-government. It is necessary to have a movement for achieving Swaraj not in British India, but also in the native States.” The last statement is particularly important as it throws light on the development in Tilak’s political views. There was a time when he looked upon the native States as relics of bygone glory and hoped that the Indian Princes would help the movement against foreign rule. In the Kesari there were articles protesting against the autocratic powers of the Residents of States, and whenever some ruler of the State was dethroned, Tilak condemned the tyranny of the British rule. With greater experience of the political movement, Tilak’s. views underwent a change. He found that the Indian Princes, with only one or two exceptions, were reconciled to their fate and had accepted the sovereignty of British rule. Moreover instead of using their authority for the good of their subjects they became tyrants and suppressed all the rights of the people. The States had therefore ceased to be relics of a bygone age and had become the most reactionary pockets.1 Tilak rounded up the article in his usual way and reiterated the views he had already stated.

  Democratic Control of the Congress

  As the moderates were trying to keep their hold on the Congress, Tilak insisted on a democratic control of the Congress. He wrote an article “Whose Congress?” on the 27th August 1907. Tilak in the beginning remarked that Ind
ians were not yet habituated to the political ideas and institutions in the West. He wanted to state that the democratic institutions functioned smoothly in England but the Indian people did not always follow the correct procedure necessary for these institutions. His statement implied a charge of undemocratic behaviour against the Liberals. This was an answer to a Liberal leader who had made the suggestion that the extremists should start a Congress of their own. Tilak then compared the Congress to the British Parliament. In making this comparison, he wanted to emphasise the fact that the Congress was a national institution which, like the British Parliament, was a democratic institution, representing the will of the nation.... He further wrote, “It was necessary that some learned persons should take a lead in starting the Congress and they certainly did it, and it is necessary to be grateful to them for it. But if anyone argues that he had taken a lead in starting the Congress and, therefore, he and his followers had acquired monopolistic rights in the Congress, he is causing by his attitude the ruin of the institution he has started.... This is contrary to the principles with which the Congress was established.” Tilak assertively stated that the Congress was not a secret organisation but a national institution in which everyone who wanted to work had a place. In conclusion, it was said that the important principle of democracy was that once a resolution is passed by a majority, even those who are opposed to it have to accept the verdict and act up to it.