Bal Gangadhar Tilak

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Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak ( Marathi : बाळ गंगाधर टिळक Bāḷ Gaṅgādhar Ṭiḷak ; * July 23, 1856 in Chikhli ; † August 1, 1920 in Bombay ) was one of the most important politicians in India during the struggle for independence. His contribution lay in its activation and dynamization and not so much in constitutional work.

Tilak was an Indian nationalist and strongly opposed to any form of imperialism and colonialism. He took the view that India was ripe for democratic self-government (Swaraja). He also denied any legitimation of the English to reside in India and saw the country's development being inhibited and even bleeding out: “if we don't get swaraj there will be no industrial progress, if we don't get swaraj there will be no possibility of having any kind of education to the nation ... no swaraja no female education, no secure industrial reform "

He was the first to proclaim the full independence of India, formulate important movements such as the Swaraja (self-government) and the boycott of English imported goods and mobilize, activate and, in particular, politicize his Indian compatriots in large numbers. He was a tall, strong, dynamic and dark-skinned man with a thick mustache who wore the traditional brahmin costume of silk and a scarf wrapped around his neck for his entire life . He belonged to the 8th generation of the Chitpavan Brahmins of the Shandily branch.

Life

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was born in the village of Chikhli in the Ratnagiri district in what is now the Indian state of Maharashtra . His father was a teacher and a Sanskritist . His mother died when he was ten years old. He lost his father at the age of 16. In 1873, aged 17, Tilak began studying at Deccan College in Pune , graduating with a bachelor's degree in mathematics with honors in 1877 and his bachelor's degree in law in 1879. He failed twice to pass his master's degree .

After his graduation in 1880, Tilak did not enter the compulsory British civil service, but was so politicized that he believed that India's independence could only be achieved if the people were educated in order to recognize the injustice of colonization and then to protest against it . He therefore founded together with Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar (1856–1895) the New English School in Pune, where he taught unpaid.

In 1881 he was the founder of the Marathi- language newspaper Kesari and co-founder of the English-language newspaper Mahratta, and it was only a few months before he had to serve his first sentence for denouncing the mistakes and ineptitudes of the British bureaucracy and robbing it of the aura of infallibility. This first sentence made him famous and popular as a political fighter.

In 1883 he wrote his first book, The Orion , in which he tried to date the origin of the Vedas . In the following years he co-founded the Deccan Education Society , an educational association for the low-cost promotion of schools, and another school, Fergussen College, in Pune. Tilak reactivated the Ganesh Festival ( Ganesh Chaturthi ) in 1893 and a year later the Shivaji Festival, which is still one of his most famous legacies. In the same year his second book, The Arctic Home of the Vedas , was published, in which he laid the origin of the Arya in the Arctic and awarded them an early world empire.

As early as 1889 he joined the INC ( Indian National Congress , today often just the National Congress) and established himself there as the leader of the nationalist camp, until in 1907 he broke the INC into a moderate and an extreme wing.

There were some unexplained phases in Tilak's life that were kept secret and not mentioned in public. Tilak stayed in Nepal for a few months, probably to persuade the Nepalese king to attack India and to establish a new Hindu kingdom. He also had secret connections with Russia and Japan and asked about military training for Indians there.

When Bengal was divided in 1905 , Tilak pushed completely into the extremist camp and expanded his agitation from Maharashtra to all of India. Until then, he saw himself as the coming leader of Maharashtra, but now he saw the possibility of becoming a national leader. In 1907 Tilak's demands for Swaraja and Swadeshi were proclaimed as official goals of the INC. In the same year, however, a majority of the INC threatened to enforce the withdrawal of the claims. Tilak therefore founded the New Party within the INC, the aim of which was to prevent the resolutions passed from being repealed. In fact, the break between the two wings could no longer be prevented and occurred at the annual meeting in Surat . Tilak and Gokhale had become implacable opponents, and the INC split in tumultuous conditions.

In 1908, Tilak was imprisoned again, this time for six years. Once again convicted of the call to insurrection, the British tried to weaken the national independence movement by imprisoning the national independence movement in an attempt to take its most charismatic and dynamic leader. Indeed, with his imprisonment, the national extremists were leaderless and rapidly dwindling, bringing political agitation back to the moderate party leaders who bowed to British guidelines in the struggle for independence. Tilak's public agitation until then had been powerful and full of glorifications of violence and threats to use it. He was personally acquainted with convicted assassins and had tried to protect them. A direct involvement in bomb attacks and political murders could never be proven.

During his detention in Mandalay ( Burma ), he wrote his most famous work, the Esoteric Doctrine, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita , in which he tried to prove that the Gita proclaims the action in the world and not passive meditation as the highest moral duty. Tilak fell ill with pneumonia while in custody, which significantly weakened him for the rest of his life.

Tilak, released from prison in 1914, was able to prevail against Gandhi after four years of struggle and regained power in the INC, and he was its president from 1918. However, he realized that Gandhi was to become the future leader of the INC and a few months before his death he founded a new party, the Democratic Congress Party, which came to an end with his death.

Tilak died on August 1, 1920 from the effects of renewed pneumonia. His body was carried to the cremation site by both Muslims and Hindus. 200,000 people came to scatter his ashes in the Arabian Sea in Bombay .

literature

  • Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India; Trial of tilak ; 1986 ["Proceedings of the trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 1856-1920, for the offense of sedition at the Third Criminal Sessions of the High Court of Bombay, July 13-22, 1908". Revision of: Full & authentic report of the Tilak trial (1908).]
  • Tahmankar, DV; Lokamanya Tilak: Father of Indian Unrest and Maker of Modern India ; 1956

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tilak Museum in Pune

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tilak, Bal Gangadhar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Chikhli
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1920
Place of death Bombay