Lokmanya Tilak

by A K Bhagwat

  Gandhiji observed: “The Gita enabled the late Lokmanya Tilak out of his encyclopaedic learning and study, to produce a monumental commentary. For him it was a store-house of profound truths to exercise his intellect upon. I believe his commentary on the Gita will be a more lasting monument to his memory. It will survive even the successful termination of the struggle for Swarajya. Even then his memory will remain as fresh as ever on account of his spotless purity of life and his great commentary on the Gita. No one in his lifetime, nor even now, could claim deeper and vaster knowledge of the Shastras than he possessed. His masterwork commentary on the Gita is unsurpassed and will remain so for a long time to come. Nobody has yet carried on more elaborate research in the questions arising from the Gita and the Vedas.”

  1 Translated from German by Dr. J. Morison

  A SUMMING UP

  19

  PART I

  Lives of great men are like music, the tunes of which linger in our ears long after they are heard no more. Death snatches an individual from this earth, time draws its veil over him and he becomes a part of the past which grows dim as days roll on. In the case of great men, however, the past creeps into the present and becomes a part of the future. We remember them because we feel their presence in our midst. Their words and their deeds are not converted into the shadows of the past, but find a place in the hearts of millions, and become an indivisible part of the personality of the nation — and in some cases even of humanity. An attempt, therefore, to know the perennial significance of the work of a noble individual is in fact an attempt to know that part of our life which is his.

  An attempt to interpret the life of a great man is prompted by a sort of an intellectual curiosity. History is a fascinating subject and it is all the more fascinating to study how a great individual influenced the course of history and to place him in the scheme of things. Lokmanya Tilak is a part of India’s personality — a part of which Indians should justly be proud. To evaluate his life correctly is a task which only a mastermind can accomplish.

  The personality of an individual is a complex of the stable and the ever - changing . The former aspect consists of temperamental characteristics formed during the impressionable age of the individual. This determines the nature of the individual’s reactions to any situation. The latter is the change in the standpoint or the opinions of the individual. In the case of most people, this change is generally impulsive and is determined by the momentary events. There are, however, some individuals whose life is a perpetual search after truth, whose mind is enriched by experience and knowledge and the changes in whose attitude reveal the development of their intellectual and moral stature. Lokmanya Tilak belonged to the latter category and showed a dynamic attitude in his public life. The peculiar complexity of his life was that the main qualities promoted in him during the impressionable period of his life were conformity and acceptance, while the development of his personality led him more and more on to defiance. Fortunately the dynamic aspect of his character was far more dominant than the conservative traits in his nature and even his severest critics will have, therefore, to admit that he was one of the main architects of the progress of our nation.

  The urge for salvation created during his early years and the teachings of Mill, Spencer and Comte, inculcated in him during his college days, led Tilak to the decision of dedicating his life to the cause of his country. The method of translating this decision into action had also to be determined. The stimulating ideas of Dadabhai, the exciting fervour of Chiplunkar, the pioneering social work of Ranade, and the heated discussions with Agarkar, helped Tilak find this way, and he started the arduous journey of public work through the noble profession of teaching. After some time, the sphere of teaching was extended and Tilak became the educator of public opinion. Differences with colleagues compelled him to leave the former sphere, but this enabled him to throw himself headlong into the latter and to devote his inexhaustible energies to the task of influencing public opinion in the light of the ideas crystallised in his mind after a long process of thought, feeling and action.

  The ideas did not remain with Tilak as abstractions, but were given a concrete shape through programmes which touched the hearts of people and made them active participants, rather than passive onlookers. Tilak’s greatness lay in the execution of an idea, which in the beginning might not appear original or profound. He had a rare judgment about the environment as well as individuals and discovered the ways through which the idea enfolded itself in a manner which captivated the imagination of the people, provided them with an incentive and made them conscious of their own strength as participants in a new movement. The domination of the British was not just the supremacy of a superior military power but the domination of a scientifically advanced nation. The people of India, therefore, suffered from a terrible sense of inferiority which made them feel that meek submission was the only course left open to them. The last vestige of self-confidence and self-respect were throttled by the Imperialist frame. Ranade created new social institutions, which, he hoped, would enable people to assimilate the spirit of the modern times and to express their urges within the given framework. The Indian National Congress was a platform for giving expression to the political aspirations of the people. The institutions, in their initial phases, were confined to the elite and though many noble ideas were expressed from their platforms, action in which people had a part to play was not even contemplated. Moreover, these institutions had not sprung up from people’s lives but were an outcome of the efforts of transplanting western ideas in our soil. They, therefore, aroused a response from the educated section brought up on western ideas, but were ineffective as a stimulus to the mind of the masses. The movement which grew out of these institutions was therefore not instrumental in bringing about the psychological change which was a condition precedent to a people’s movement.

  Tilak’s political ideas were not different from those of other Congress leaders. But he was the first to realise the limitations of the social and political institutions which were mostly imitative in character. He realised the need of securing a wider basis for the political ideals and he felt that a participation of the people in the newly started movements was possible after creating in them a feeling of confidence and after making the pattern of the new movements conform to the traditional ways, so as to make people feel perfectly at home in them. Tilak thought that the new ideals must be grafted — and not transplanted — on the life of the people. It was on account of this that he took to the revivalist method in his political work. Through the Ganapati festival and the Shivaji celebrations, he was making the new ideas familiar to the people and also creating in them a pride in the glorious past, which was an assurance of the glorious future in spite of the dismal present. In this work, Tilak picked up promising young men and built up a network of workers who came from the people and who therefore were potent instruments of influencing people’s minds. In his anxiety to influence public opinion for political action, Tilak decided not to disturb their traditionalist ways in social life.

  In spite of their popular form, these movements would have grown stale and fizzled out, but Tilak knew that service, and not advice, was the right medium for getting access to people’s mind. The qualities of a leader are tested in times of crisis and Tilak’s superb abilities as a leader were testified to by the work he did during the famine and the plague. In the famine, he made a humanitarian appeal to the wealthy merchants, did splendid relief work such as organising a weaver’s guild, taught people how to express their grievances to the government, to get them redressed even within the framework of existing laws and created a new confidence — almost verging on defiance — among the people by making the workers of the Sarvajanik Sabha face boldly the wrath of bureaucracy. The fact that the trials of these social workers were attended by thousands of people was the first demonstration of public sanction for the work done through social institutions. During the calamity of plague
too, Tilak extended all possible aid to the people, helped the government wherever necessary and boldly criticised the British soldiers for transgressing the limits of their authority. His constructive effort and his severe indictment of the bureaucracy, made him the accredited leader of the people.

  When, after Rand’s murder, the hand of the government came on the people with all its might, Tilak continued his stringent criticism of the government’s repressive measures through the Kesari and this fearless attitude restored some confidence to the people, who during the plague had suffered at the hands of soldiers and who were demoralised by the naked display of imperial power in the form of puritive police. The prosecution of Tilak was almost a foregone conclusion and the courage with which he accepted the long and harsh term of imprisonment has been described by Aurobindo as “the second seal of the divine hand upon his work, for there can be no diviner seal than suffering for a cause.” The resumption of his political work after the term of imprisonment, further demonstrated his indomitable will and brought home to the people the truth that a struggle for a cause could not be suppressed by force but emerged stronger out of ordeals. Tilak’s unyielding attitude, his absolute confidence in facing the government’s displeasure, the total disregard of his self seen in all his activities and the ever-growing content of the movements he sponsored, captivated the imagination of the people. He spoke to them the language of their life, aroused their potential qualities and elicited from them the response he desired.

  The autocratic rule of Curzon was a challenge to the leaders of India and Tilak took it up readily. He felt that the more ruthless the rule, the greater was the responsibility of leaders, and by his uninterrupted endeavours to create the national sentiment in all sections of the people, Tilak showed that the flame of patriotism could not be extinguished. He grew more and more impatient of the method of petitions and requests and when the hopes aroused by Morley were belied, he started advocating the need of discarding it.

  The partition of Bengal gave a fillip to the nationalist upsurge and Tilak saw in the agitation in Bengal, an opportunity for teaching direct action. He knew that agitation had its significance in creating an atmosphere of defiance and in stirring the passions of the people. But he would not be satisfied with mammoth demonstrations, if they did not lead to further action. He therefore laid all stress on boycott, Swadeshi and national education, the three pillars for sustaining the movement for Swaraj. He directed all his energies for bringing home to the people the significance of this programme and convinced them that the movement for Swaraj was not confined to the chosen few, either the elite or the revolutionaries, but had a place for every patriotic person who was prepared to extend his or her support, however humble it may be. Through the boycott of British goods, people could express their rage against the rulers and also bring some pressure on them. The Swadeshi movement had a more positive aspect and inculcated in people a new spirit of self-reliance. National education was, according to Tilak, a programme for imparting to the younger generation instruction in the new way of life i.e., of dedication. The indefatigable advocacy of this programme by Tilak showed that he had clearly perceived the way of creating in the people the will to be free. The clarion call of Swaraj thus reached the hearths and homes of the people and gave a new vitality to the body politic. As Aurobindo picturesquely put it: “The four resolutions were, for him, the first step towards shaking the Congress out of its torpid tortoise-like gait and turning it into a living and acting body.”

  Tilak’s impatience with the go-slow policy of the moderates was due to his growing conviction that the British would not part with power, unless compelled by circumstances and that nothing less than Swaraj would satisfy the natural aspirations of the people. During this period he was closely associated with Aurobindo and regarded the revolutionary activities as a necessary complement to the civil revolt for which he was creating a favourable ground. In spite of his differences with the Congress, he wanted to keep up a united front in the Congress because he wanted the nation to speak with one voice against the British. He believed that if the aspirations of India were expressed by the Congress in an unanimous manner, the British would have to give substantial rights to India in the proposed reforms. He, however, wanted the Congress to state the ideal of Swaraj in an unequivocal manner and accept the programme of boycott, Swadeshi and national education as was conceived by him. He made an effort to secure the majority in the Congress for his point of view and as the moderates interpreted the effort as an attempt to thrust the extremist programme on them, a split became inevitable. Aurobindo, who along with Tilak led the extremist section, has made the following significant comment: “Many, after Surat, spoke of him as the deliberate breaker of the Congress, but to no one was the catastrophe so great a blow as to Mr. Tilak. He did not love the do-nothingness of that assembly, but he valued it both as a great national fact and for its unrealised possibilities and hoped to make of it a central organisation for practical work. To destroy an existing and useful institution was alien to his way of seeing and would not have entered into his ideas or his wishes.”

  Though Tilak did not succeed in making the Congress accept his programme, he was undeterred in his effort of persuading the people to accept it and therefore he became the de facto spokesman of the people and the Congress leaders only remained the de jure spokesmen. Tilak was a democratic leader who trusted the judgment of the people and the opposition of the official group in the Congress did not therefore come in his way of creating a popular sanction for the demand for Swaraj. He did not, however, court the favours of the masses or appeal to their irrational sentiments. His approach was intellectual, his methods were open, plain and direct, he talked to people as to his equals, and, as a result of all these, he succeeded in making the fourfold programme representative of the will of the people. He was emerging as the most popular leader of Indians and the British Government who realised the extent of his hold on people, was only waiting for an opportunity for removing him from amidst the people.

  Then came the famous sedition case of 1908, when he became the symbol of national honour and though the British Government sent him to Mandalay, no power on earth could dethrone him from the hearts of the people. Many felt that Tilak would not survive his long term of imprisonment, but he came out of the ordeal unscathed and started with renewed zest his work of awakening the national spirit. His resumption of the duties, soon after the devouring imprisonment, reassured people of the strength of the national spirit and developed in them a new enthusiasm. His quiet acceptance of the sufferings as a natural sequel to his actions, taught people the lesson of sacrifice in the most effective manner and heralded the beginning of an era, in which the prison had no terrors for even the average volunteer of our freedom movement.

  Tilak was, however, conscious of the fact that the sacrifice of one individual, however great, had only symbolic significance and had little meaning when pitted against the might of the empire. He therefore decided to strive for creating mass sanction for the political movement in India and after his long experience of public life he had come to realise that internal antagonisms in society had to be tided over before mass sanctions were created. After his entry in the Congress, he pursued the method of consolidation of political forces through compromise and was one of those who took the initiative in bringing about the historic Lucknow pact for achieving Hindu Muslim unity in India. In his fervent advocacy of the pact, he convinced the people how it was necessary to avoid a triangular fight in India and how it was necessary to mobilise all forces in India, for strengthening the Home Rule movement. In Hindu society, too, he accepted the idea of social mobility and expressed views lending support to the claim made by the backward classes for equal social rights. It was in the Lucknow Congress that Tilak uttered the memorable words: “Home Rule is my brith-right and I shall have it.” These moving words electrified the whole nation. It became a slogan which cast a spell on Indian people — a slogan which afte
r twenty-six years was to culminate into another soul-stirring slogan “Quit India.” Tilak then carried on a whirlwind propaganda for Home Rule and appealed to the people ‘to awake, arise and not to move away from the path of duty to the nation.’ When the British Government, enraged at the rising tide of nationalism, started repression and arrested Mrs. Besant, Tilak wanted the Congress to accept the challenge and advocated direct action in the form of passive resistance.