Lokmanya Tilak

Bal Gandadhar Tilak (1856 - 1920) was born in Maharashtra. Tilak had many admirers
and they named him Lokmanya (admired by the people) Tilak. He joined the Indian
National Congress and was among its first militant leaders who attacked the British rule
and demanded self-rule for India. He blamed the British that they were exploiting India
for their economical gain while they completely neglected the basic needs of the Indians.
He was the first Indian leader who moved the Indian independence cause from the closed
rooms of the intellectuals to the ordinary people of India. Some of the main nationalist
slogans used by Indians during their struggle for independence were slogans coined by
him. One of his famous sentences was "Swaraj (self rule) is my birthright and I shall have
it". Other of his important concepts utilized later on by Mahatma Gandhi were boycott of
foreign goods and use of the term 'Swadeshi', meaning 'of our country' or 'self reliance'.

Tilak supported and introduced social and religious reforms in Indian society, but at the
same time he was also a Hindu nationalist and proud about India's past. He tried different
ways to gather the different Indian communities together and start unifying them. He
started two festivals, which even today exist in India. In these festival patriotic songs
were sung and a platform was establish for exhibition of Indian arts and cultures. One
festival is of Lord Ganesh – the God with the elephant head - in which the idol of Ganesh
is immersed in the sea. The other festival is Shivaji festival - Shiv Jayanti. Shivaji was a
Hindu king who rebelled against Moghuls- Muslims who arrived to India from outside
India (see India in the past). Tilak also established newspapers and schools. He succeeded
in arousing major uprisings against the British and was titled by the western press in 1907
as the ‘father of Indian uprising’.

Tilak and his associates were considered by the British as dangerous and as the main
cause for the violence against them and therefore they arrested and deported them. Tilak
was deported to Burma in 1907. In Burma he wrote a new commentary on the holy
Bhagwad Gita. He claimed that the main message of the Gita was action. With this
commentary he tried to convince Indians to rise and fight for their rights. Tilak returned
from his deportation in 1915 and became the leader of the Indian nationalism. He
managed to bridge between the extremes and liberals in the Congress and also succeeded
in signing a cooperation agreement with another nationalist organization in British India,
Muslim League.

Lokmanya Tilak died in 1920 and was replaced by Mahatma Gandhi as the leader of
India's freedom struggle.