“Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it!” (‘स्वराज्य हा माझा जन्मसिद्ध हक्क आहे आणि तो मी मिळवणारच’). These words reverberated across the country, and rekindled the patriotism in many souls who had given up under the tyrranical rule of the British. These highly evocative words were spoken by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. the beloved leader of the people.
Born to a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin Family in a rural area of Ratnagiri district, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a prominent Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and journalist. He completed his bachelors education in Mathematics and Sanskrit at Deccan College and Law degree at University of Bombay.
His three-point programme for national awakening – Swaraj, Swadeshi and Nationalist Education – lit the fire of self-pride in every Indian’s heart. He founded the Deccan Education Society (1884) to inculcate young minds with nationalist thoughts and educate masses about Indian culture.
He along with friends, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai (Lal-Bal-Pal) took the route of education, culture and media to reach out people.
These three actions took Bal Gangadhar Tilak much more closer to people through social reformation and mass mobilization.
Tilak is at the moment probably the most powerful man in India.”
– Edwin Samuel Montagu, British Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922, in An Indian Diary
In 1881, he started Marathi newspaper Kesari and English newspaper Maratha, which was a hit among public.
In the year 1894, he initiated the “Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav” celebrations in Mumbai to have cultural togetherness and foster a spirit of national unity among the masses. In 1895, he initiated the celebration of “Shiv Jayanti”, the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji. He was dead against the ‘moderate’ approach of Congress in attaining Indian independence.
In the year 1905, he along with other nationalist started the Swadeshi movement to boycott foreign goods and start using Indian goods and in 1914, he launched the Home Rule League with the rousing slogan “Swarajya is my birthright and I will have it”.
The greatest Indian of the day… indomitable Tilak, who would not bend though he break.
– Jawaharlal Nehru
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was arrested by the British thrice on sedition charges – first with incitement to murder of Assistant Collector of Pune Mr. Rand and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and second was in 1908, for six years of rigorous imprisonment in Mandalay in Burma and in 1916, for his lectures on self-rule. In 1915, he wrote the famous ‘Gita Rahasya’ – is the analysis of Karma yoga which finds its source in the Bhagavad Gita.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak breathed his last in Bombay. His funeral at Chowpatty Beach, in a guest house called Sardar Griha – was attended by over a million people.
No man of our times had the hold on the masses that Mr Tilak had.
– Mahatma Gandhi, in his obituary for Lokmanya Tilak in Young India, August 4, 1920
On 28 July 1956, a portrait of Bal Gangadhar Tilak was put in the Central Hall of Parliament House.
From Chandrasekhar Azad to Veer Savarkar, Balgangadhar Tilak inspired a generation of freedom fighters to resist the British rule.
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