Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a mathematics teacher, a newspaper editor and a political leader. He went to jail twice for what he wrote and said.

People called him “Lokmanya”, the one accepted by the people. This lesson covers his life, his papers, his festivals, the Home Rule League and the exam traps.

1Who was Bal Gangadhar Tilak?

He began as a teacher and ended as the most feared leader of his day.

• Tilak was born on 23 July 1856 at Ratnagiri, in present-day Maharashtra.
• He studied mathematics at Deccan College, Pune, and later took a law degree.
• He chose teaching and public work over a government job.
• In 1880 he started the New English School in Pune with Vishnushastri Chiplunkar and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar.
• In 1884 the group founded the Deccan Education Society.
• The Society opened Fergusson College in 1885.
• Tilak later split from some of his colleagues. He wanted politics to come before reform.
• He died on 1 August 1920 in Bombay.
• Gandhi called him the “Maker of Modern India”. The British press called him the “Father of Indian Unrest”.

2What did Kesari and Mahratta do?

He used the press to speak to ordinary people, not just English-speaking elites.

• In 1881 Tilak started two papers.
• Kesari was in Marathi. Mahratta was in English.
• Marathi readers were many more than English readers. Kesari reached them.
• The papers attacked British policy in plain, forceful language.
• They also criticised the slow, polite style of the Moderates.
• Tilak wrote on famine, taxes and the cost of foreign rule.
• In 1903 he published The Arctic Home in the Vedas.
• That book argued that the Vedic Aryans came from the Arctic.
• Exams ask a simple question: which paper was his main voice? The answer is Kesari.

3How did he use festivals for politics?

He turned private worship into public gatherings.

• Ganesh Chaturthi was a household festival. Tilak made it a public festival.
• Most accounts date this to 1893. Some sources say 1894.
• Public festivals brought crowds together across caste lines.
• Speakers, songs and plays carried nationalist messages to them.
• In 1895 he began a festival honouring Shivaji.
• Shivaji stood for courage and for rule by Indians.
• Critics said the festivals gave politics a Hindu colour. Tilak’s aim was mass mobilisation.
• The method worked. Public Ganeshotsav is still a major event in Maharashtra.

4Why was he jailed?

He was tried for sedition more than once.

• In 1897 plague struck Pune. Harsh plague measures angered people.
• In June 1897 the Chapekar brothers shot W. C. Rand, the plague officer.
• The government blamed Tilak’s writings. He was tried and sentenced to 18 months.
• In 1907 the Congress split at Surat into Moderates and Extremists.
• Tilak led the Extremist side. The Moderates kept control of the Congress.
• In 1908 Kesari wrote in support of young revolutionaries after the Muzaffarpur bomb.
• He was arrested and sentenced to six years.
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah defended him. The defence did not win in 1908.
• He served the term at Mandalay in Burma, from 1908 to 1914.
• In jail he wrote the Gita Rahasya, a study of the Bhagavad Gita.
• He was tried a third time in 1916. This time he was not convicted.

5What was the Home Rule League?

It was his comeback after prison.

• Tilak came out of Mandalay in 1914. The war had begun in Europe.
• He launched his Home Rule League on 28 April 1916 at Belgaum.
• Annie Besant launched hers at Madras in September 1916.
• The two leaders split the work to avoid overlap.
• Tilak’s league covered Maharashtra (except Bombay city), Karnataka, the Central Provinces and Berar.
• Besant’s league covered the rest of India.
• Around this time he gave the slogan “Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it”.
• In December 1916 the Lucknow session reunited the Congress. Tilak returned to it.
• The same session saw the Congress-League Pact with the Muslim League.
• In 1920 the All India Home Rule League was renamed Swarajya Sabha.
• Tilak did not live to see that. He died in August 1920.

6What are the exam traps?

Exams love Tilak’s dates and his place among the leaders.

• He was one of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio.
• The other two were Lala Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal.
• Do not mix the two Home Rule Leagues. Tilak’s was April 1916. Besant’s was September 1916.
• Do not say he was jailed only once. There were trials in 1897, 1908 and 1916.
• The Mandalay term was six years, from 1908.
• Do not say Gandhi founded Kesari. Tilak did.
• 2026 marks 170 years since his birth.