{"id":3282,"date":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3282"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","slug":"04-tilak-vol-bankim-tilak-dayananda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/bankim-tilak-dayananda\/04-tilak-vol-bankim-tilak-dayananda","title":{"rendered":"-04_Tilak.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n

\nBAL GANGADHAR TILAK<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nNeither Mr. Tilak nor his speeches really require any presentation or foreword. His speeches are, like the featureless Brahman, self-luminous. Straightforward, lucid, never turning aside from the point which they mean to hammer in or wrapping it up in ornamental verbiage, they read like a series of self-evident propositions. And Mr. Tilak himself, his career, his place in Indian politics are also a self-evident proposition, a hard fact baffling and dismaying in the last degree to those to whom his name has been anathema and his increasing pre-eminence figured as a portent of evil. The condition of things in India being given, the one possible aim for political effort resulting and the sole means and spirit by which it could be brought about, this man had to come and, once in the field, had to come to the front. He could not but stand in the end where he stands today, as one of the two or three leaders of the Indian people who are in their eyes the incarnations of the national endeavour and the God-given captains of the national aspiration. His life, his character, his work and endurance, his acceptance by the heart and the mind of the people are a stronger argument than all the reasonings in his speeches, powerful as these are, for Swaraj, Self-government, Home Rule, by whatever name we may call the sole possible present aim of our effort, the freedom of the life of India, its self-determination by the people of India. Arguments and speeches do not win liberty for a nation; but where there is a will in the nation to be free and a man to embody that will in every action of his life and to devote his days to its realisation in the face <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 17<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof every difficulty and every suffering, and where the will
\nof the nation has once said, "This man and his life mean
\nwhat I have in my heart and in my purpose," that is a sure
\nsignpost of the future which no one has any excuse for
\nmistaking. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThat indomitable will and that unwavering devotion
\nhave been the whole meaning of Mr. Tilak’s life; they are
\nthe reason of his immense hold on the people. For he does
\nnot owe his pre-eminent position to any of the causes
\nwhich have usually made for political leading in India,
\nwealth and great social position, professional success,
\nrecognition by Government, a power of fervid oratory or
\nof fluent and taking speech; for he had none of these
\nthings to help him. He owes it to himself alone and to the
\nthing his life has meant and because he has meant it with
\nhis whole mind and his whole soul. He has kept back
\nnothing for himself or for other aims, but has given all
\nhimself to his country. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet is Mr. Tilak a man of various and no ordinary gifts,
\nand in several lines of life he might have achieved present
\ndistinction or a pre-eminent and enduring fame. Though
\nhe has never practised, he has a close knowledge of law
\nand an acute legal mind which, had he cared in the least
\ndegree for wealth and worldly position, would have
\nbrought him to the front at the bar. He is a great Sanskrit
\nscholar, a powerful writer and a strong, subtle and lucid
\nthinker. He might have filled a large place in the field of
\ncontemporary Asiatic scholarship. Even as it is, his Orion
\n<\/i>and his Arctic Home<\/i> have acquired at once a world-wide
\nrecognition and left as strong a mark as can at all be
\nimprinted on the ever-shifting sands of oriental research.
\nHis work on the Gita, no mere commentary but an <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 18<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\noriginal criticism and presentation of ethical truth, is a
\nmonumental work, the first prose writing of the front rank
\nin weight and importance in the Marathi language, and
\nlikely to become a classic. This one book sufficiently
\nproves that had he devoted his energies in this direction,
\nhe might easily have filled a large place in the history of
\nMarathi literature and in the history of ethical thought, so
\nsubtle and comprehensive is its thinking, so great the
\nperfection and satisfying force of its style. But it was
\npsychologically impossible for Mr. Tilak to devote his
\nenergies in any great degree to another action than the
\none life-mission for which the Master of his works had
\nchosen him. His powerful literary gift has been given up to
\na journalistic work, ephemeral as even the best journalistic work must be, but consistently brilliant,, vigorous,
\npolitically educative through decades, to an extent seldom
\nmatched and certainly never surpassed. His scholastic labour has been done
\nalmost by way of recreation. Nor can anything be more significant than the fact
\nthat the works which have brought him a fame other than that of the politician
\nand patriot, were done in periods of compulsory cessation from his life-work,
\nplanned and partly, if not wholly, executed during the imprisonments
\nwhich could alone enforce leisure upon this unresting
\nworker for his country. Even these by-products of his
\ngenius have some reference to the one passion of his life,
\nthe renewal, if not the surpassing of the past greatness of
\nthe nation by the greatness of its future. His Vedic
\nresearches seek to fix its prehistoric point of departure; the Gita-rahasya<\/i> takes the scripture which is perhaps the
\nstrongest and most comprehensive production of Indian
\nspirituality and justifies to that spirituality, by its own <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 19<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nauthoritative ancient message, the sense of the importance of life, of action, of human existence, of man’s
\nlabour for mankind which is indispensable to the idealism
\nof the modern spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe landmarks of Mr. Tilak’s life are landmarks also in
\nthe history of his province and his country. His first great
\nstep associated him in a pioneer work whose motive was
\nto educate the people for a new life under the new
\nconditions, on the one side a purely educational movement of which the fruit was the Ferguson College, fitly
\nfounding the reawakening of the country by an effort of
\nwhich co-operation in self-sacrifice was the moving spirit,
\non the other the initiation of the Kesari<\/i> newspaper, which
\nsince then has figured increasingly as the characteristic
\nand powerful expression of the political mind of Maharashtra. Mr. Tilak’s career has counted three periods each
\nof which had an imprisonment for its culminating point.
\nHis first imprisonment in the Kolhapur case belongs to
\nthis first stage of self-development and development of
\nthe Maratha country for new ideas and activities and for
\nthe national future. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe second period brought in a wider conception and a
\nprofounder effort. For now it was to reawaken not only
\nthe political mind, but the soul of the people by linking its
\nfuture to its past; it worked by a more strenuous and
\npopular propaganda which reached its height in the
\norganisation of the Shivaji and the Ganapati festivals. His
\nseparation from the social reform leader, Agarkar, had
\nopened the way for the peculiar role which he has played
\nas a trusted and accredited leader of conservative and
\nreligious India in the paths of democratic politics. It was
\nthis position which enabled him to effect the union of the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 20<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nnew political spirit with the tradition and sentiment of the
\nhistoric past and of both with the ineradicable religious
\ntemperament of the people, of which these festivals were
\nthe symbol. The Congress movement was for a long time
\npurely occidental in its mind, character and methods,
\nconfined to the English-educated few, founded on the
\npolitical rights and interests of the people read in the light
\nof English history and European ideals, but with no roots
\neither in the past of the country or in the inner spirit of the
\nnation. Mr. Tilak was the first political leader to break
\nthrough the routine of its somewhat academical methods,
\nto bridge the gulf between the present and the past and to
\nrestore continuity to the political life of the nation. He
\ndeveloped a language and a spirit and he used methods
\nwhich Indianised the movement and brought into it the
\nmasses. To his work of this period we owe that really
\nliving, strong and spontaneously organised movement in
\nMaharashtra which has shown its energy and sincerity in
\nmore than one crisis and struggle. This divination of the
\nmind and spirit of his people and its needs and this power
\nto seize on the right way to call it forth prove strikingly the
\npolitical genius of Mr. Tilak; they made him the one man
\npredestined to lead them in this trying and difficult period
\nwhen all has to be discovered and all has to be reconstructed. What was done then by Mr. Tilak in Maharashtra has been initiated for all India by the Swadeshi
\nmovement. To bring in the mass of the people, to found
\nthe greatness of the future on the greatness of the past, to
\ninfuse Indian politics with Indian religious fervour and
\nspirituality are the indispensable conditions for a great and
\npowerful political awakening in India. Others, writers,
\nthinkers, spiritual leaders, had seen this truth. Mr. Tilak <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 21<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwas the first to bring it into the actual field of practical
\npolitics. This second period of his labour for his country
\nculminated in a longer and harsher imprisonment which
\nwas, as it were, the second seal of the divine hand upon his
\nwork; for there can be no diviner seal than suffering for a
\ncause. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA third period, that of the Swadeshi movement, brought
\nMr. Tilak forward prominently as an All-India leader; it
\ngave him at last the wider field, the greater driving power,
\nthe larger leverage he needed to bring his life-work
\nrapidly to a head, and not only in Maharashtra but
\nthroughout the country. The incidents of that period are
\ntoo fresh in memory to need recalling. From the inception
\nof the Boycott to the Surat catastrophe and his last and
\nlongest imprisonment, which was its sequel, the name and
\nwork of Mr. Tilak are a part of Indian history. These three
\nimprisonments, each showing more clearly the moral stuff
\nand quality of the man under the test and the revealing
\nglare of suffering, have been the three seals of his career.
\nThe first found him one of a small knot of pioneer
\nworkers; it marked him out to be the strong and inflexible
\nleader of a strong and sturdy people. The second found
\nhim already the inspiring power of a great reawakening of
\nthe Maratha spirit; it left him an uncrowned king in the
\nDeccan and gave him that high reputation throughout
\nIndia which was the foundation-stone of his present commanding influence. The last found him the leader of an
\nAll-India party, the foremost exponent and head of a
\nthoroughgoing Nationalism; it sent him back to be one of
\nthe two or three foremost men of India adored and
\nfollowed by the whole nation. He now stands in the last
\nperiod of his lifelong toil for his country. It is one in which <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 22<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfor the first time some ray of immediate hope, some
\nprospect of near success shines upon a cause which at one
\ntime seemed destined to a long frustration and fulfilment
\nonly perhaps after a century of labour, struggle and
\nsuffering. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe qualities which have supported him and given him
\nhis hard-earned success, have been comparatively rare in
\nIndian politics. The first is his entirely representative
\ncharacter as a born leader for the sub-nation to which he
\nbelongs. India is a unity full of diversities and its strength
\nas well as its weakness is rooted in those diversities: the
\nvigour of its national life can exist only by the vigour of its
\nregional life. Therefore in politics as in everything else a
\nleader, to have a firm basis for his life-work, must build it
\nupon a living work and influence in his own sub-race or
\nprovince. No man was more fitted to do this than Mr.
\nTilak. He is the very type and incarnation of the Maratha
\ncharacter, the Maratha qualities, the Maratha spirit, but
\nwith the unified solidity in the character, the touch of
\ngenius in the qualities, the vital force in the spirit which
\nmake a great personality readily the representative man of
\nhis people. The Maratha race, as their soil and their
\nhistory have made them, are a rugged, strong and sturdy
\npeople, democratic in their every fibre, keenly intelligent
\nand practical to the very marrow, following in ideas, even
\nin poetry, philosophy and religion the drive towards life
\nand action, capable of great fervour, feeling and enthusiasm, like all Indian peoples, but not emotional idealists,
\nhaving in their thought and speech always a turn for
\nstrength, sense, accuracy, lucidity and vigour, in learning
\nand scholarship patient, industrious, careful, thorough
\nand penetrating, in life simple, hardy and frugal, in their <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 23<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntemperament courageous, pugnacious, full of spirit, yet
\nwith a tact in dealing with hard facts and circumventing
\nobstacles, shrewd yet aggressive diplomatists, born politicians, born fighters. All this Mr. Tilak is with a singular
\nand eminent completeness, and all on a large scale, adding
\nto it all a lucid simplicity of genius, a secret intensity, an
\ninner strength of will, a single-mindedness in aim of quite
\nextraordinary force, which remind one of the brightness,
\nsharpness and perfect temper of a fine sword hidden in a
\nsober scabbard. As he emerged on the political field, his
\npeople saw more and more clearly in him their representative man, themselves in large, the genius of their type.
\nThey felt him to be of one spirit and make with the great
\nmen who had made their past history, almost believed him
\nto be a reincarnation of one of them returned to carry out
\nhis old work in a new form and under new conditions.
\nThey beheld in him the spirit of Maharashtra once again
\nembodied in a great individual. He occupies a position in
\nhis province which has no parallel in the rest of India. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn the wider national field also Mr. Tilak has rare
\nqualities which fit him for the hour and the work. He is in
\nno sense what his enemies have called him, a demagogue: he has not the loose suppleness, the oratorical fervour, the
\nfacile appeal to the passions which demagogy requires; his
\nspeeches are too much made up of hard and straight
\nthinking, he is too much a man of serious and practical
\naction. None more careless of mere effervescence, emotional applause, popular gush, public ovations. He tolerates them since popular enthusiasm will express itself in
\nthat way; but he has always been a little impatient of them
\nas dissipative of serious strength and will and a waste of
\ntime and energy which might better have been solidified <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 24<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand devoted to effective work. But he is entirely a democratic politician, of a type not very common among our
\nleaders, one who can both awaken the spirit of the mass
\nand respond to their spirit, able to lead them, but also able
\nto see where he must follow the lead of their predominant
\nsense and will and feelings. He moves among his followers
\nas one of them in a perfect equality, simple and familiar in
\nhis dealings with them by the very force of his temperament and character, open,
\nplain and direct and, though capable of great reserve in his speech, yet,
\nwherever necessary, admitting them into his plans and ideas as one taking
\ncounsel of them, taking their sense even while enforcing as much as possible his
\nown view of policy and action with all the great strength of quiet will at his
\ncommand. He has that closeness of spirit to the mass of men, that unpretentious
\nopenness of intercourse with them, that faculty of plain and direct speech which
\ninterprets their feelings and shows them how to think out what
\nthey feel, which are pre-eminently the democratic qualities. For this reason he has always been able to unite all
\nclasses of men behind him, to be the leader not only of the
\neducated, but of the people, the merchant, the trader, the
\nvillager, the peasant. All Maharashtra understands him
\nwhen he speaks or writes; all Maharashtra is ready to
\nfollow him when he acts. Into his wider field in the
\ntroubled Swadeshi times he carried the same qualities and
\nthe same power of democratic leadership. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n It is equally a mistake to think of Mr. Tilak as by nature
\na revolutionary leader; that is not his character or his
\npolitical temperament. The Indian people generally, with
\nthe possible exception of emotional and idealistic Bengal,
\nhave nothing or very little of the revolutionary temper; <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 25<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthey can be goaded to revolution, like any and every
\npeople on the face of the earth, but they have no natural
\ndisposition towards it. They are capable of large ideals
\nand fervent enthusiasms, sensitive in feeling and liable to
\ngusts of passionate revolt which are easily appeased by
\neven an appearance of concession; but naturally they are
\nconservative in temperament and deliberate in action. Mr.
\nTilak, though a strong-willed man and a fighter by nature,
\nhas this much of the ordinary Indian temperament, that
\nwith a large mind open to progressive ideas he unites a
\nconservative temperament strongly in touch with the
\nsense of his people. In a free India he would probably
\nhave figured as an advanced Liberal statesman eager for
\nnational progress and greatness, but as careful of every
\nstep as firm and decided in it and always seeking to carry
\nthe conservative instinct of the nation with him in every
\nchange. He is besides a born Parliamentarian, a leader for
\nthe assembly, though always in touch with the people
\noutside as the constant source of the mandate and the final
\nreferee in differences. He loves a clear and fixed procedure which he can abide by and use, even while making
\nthe most of its details, of which the theory and practice
\nwould be always at his finger-ends, to secure a practical
\nadvantage in the struggle of parties. He always set a high
\nvalue on the Congress for this reason; he saw in it a centralising body, an instrument and a first, though yet
\nshapeless, essay at a popular assembly. Many after Surat
\nspoke of him as the deliberate breaker of the Congress,
\nbut to no one was the catastrophe so great a blow as to
\nMr. Tilak. He did not love the do-nothingness of that
\nassembly, but he valued it both as a great national fact and
\nfor its unrealised possibilities and hoped to make of it a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 26<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncentral organisation for practical work. To destroy an
\nexisting and useful institution was alien to his way of seeing and would not have entered into his ideas or his
\nwishes. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoreover, though he has ideals, he is not an idealist by
\ncharacter. Once the ideal fixed, all the rest is for him
\npractical work, the facing of hard facts, though also the
\novercoming of them when they stand in the way of the
\ngoal, the use of strong and effective means with the
\nutmost care and prudence consistent with the primary
\nneed of as rapid an effectivity as will and earnest action
\ncan bring about. Though he can be obstinate and iron-willed when his mind is made up as to the necessity of a
\ncourse of action or the indispensable recognition of a
\nprinciple, he is always ready for a compromise which will
\nallow of getting real work done, and will take willingly
\nhalf a loaf rather than no bread, though always with a full
\nintention of getting the whole loaf in good time. But he
\nwill not accept chaff or plaster in place of good bread. Nor
\ndoes he like to go too far ahead of possibilities, and indeed
\nhas often shown in this respect a caution highly disconcerting to the more impatient of his followers. But neither
\nwould he mistake, like the born Moderate, the minimum
\neffort and the minimum immediate aim for the utmost
\npossibility of the moment. Such a man is no natural
\nrevolutionist, but a constitutionalist by temper, though
\nalways in such times necessarily the leader of an advanced
\nparty or section. A clear constitution he could use, amend
\nand enlarge would have suited him much better than to
\nbreak existing institutions and get a clear field for innovations which is the natural delight of the revolutionary
\ntemperament. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 27<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis character of Mr. Tilak’s mind explains his attitude
\nin social reform. He is no dogmatic reactionary. The
\nMaratha people are incapable of either the unreasoning or
\ntoo reasoning rigid conservatism or of the fiery iconoclasm
\nwhich can exist side by side, they are often only two
\nsides of the same temper of mind, in other parts of
\nIndia. It is attached to its social institutions like all peoples
\nwho live close to the soil, but it has always shown a
\nreadiness to adapt, loosen and accommodate them in
\npractice to the pressure of actual needs. Mr. Tilak shares
\nthis general temperament and attitude of his people. But
\nthere have also been other reasons which a strong political
\nsense has dictated; and first, the clear perception that the
\npolitical movement could not afford to cut itself off from
\nthe great mass of the nation or split itself up into warring
\nfactions by a premature association of the social reform
\nquestion with politics. The proper time for that, a politician would naturally feel, is when the country has a free
\nassembly of its own which can consult the needs or carry
\nout the mandates of the people. Moreover, he has felt
\nstrongly that political emancipation was the one pressing
\nneed for the people of India and that all else not directly
\nconnected with it must take a second place; that has been
\nthe principle of his own life and he has held that it should
\nbe the principle of the national life at the present hour. Let
\nus have first liberty and the organised control of the life of
\nthe nation, afterwards we can see how we should use it in
\nsocial matters; meanwhile let us move on without noise and
\nstrife, only so far as actual need and advisability demand
\nand the sense of the people is ready to advance. This
\nattitude may be right or wrong; but, Mr. Tilak being what
\nhe is and the nation being what it is, he could take no other.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 28<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nIf then, Mr. Tilak has throughout his life been an
\nexponent of the idea of radical change in politics and
\nduring the Swadeshi agitation the head of a party which
\ncould be called extremist, it is due to that clear practical
\nsense, essential in a leader of political action, which seizes
\nat once on the main necessity and goes straight without
\nhesitating or deviation to the indispensable means. There
\nare always two classes of political mind: one is preoccupied with details for their own sake, revels in the petty
\npoints of the moment and puts away into the background
\nthe great principles and the great necessities, the other
\nsees rather these first and always and details only in
\nrelation to them. The one type moves in a routine circle
\nwhich may or may not have an issue; it cannot see the
\nforest for the trees and it is only by an accident that it
\nstumbles., if at all, on the way out. The other type takes a
\nmountain-top view of the goal and all the directions and
\nkeeps that in its mental compass through all the deflections, retardations and tortuosities which the character of
\nthe intervening country may compel it to accept; but these
\nit abridges as much as possible. The former class arrogate
\nthe name of statesman in their own day; it is to the latter
\nthat posterity concedes it and sees in them the true leaders
\nof great movements. Mr. Tilak, like all men of preeminent political genius, belongs to this second and
\ngreater order of mind. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoreover in India, owing to the divorce of political
\nactivity from the actual government and administration of
\nthe affairs of the country, an academical turn of thought is
\ntoo common in our dealings with politics. But Mr. Tilak
\nhas never been an academical politician, a "student of
\npolitics" meddling with action; his turn has always been to<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 29<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsee actualities and move forward in their light. It was
\nimpossible for him to view the facts and needs of current
\nIndian politics of the nineteenth century in the pure
\nserene or the dim religious light of the witenagemot and
\nthe Magna Charta and the constitutional history of
\nEngland during the past seven centuries, or to accept the
\nacademic sophism of a gradual preparation for liberty, or
\nmerely to discuss isolated or omnibus grievances and
\nstrive to enlighten the darkness of the official mind by
\nluminous speeches and resolutions, as was the general
\npractice of Congress politics till 1905. A national agitation
\nin the country which would make the Congress movement
\na living and acting force was always his ideal, and what the
\nCongress would not do, he, when still an isolated leader of
\na handful of enthusiasts in a corner of the country, set out
\nto do in his own strength and for his own hand. He saw
\nfrom the first that for a people circumstanced like ours
\nthere could be only one political question and one aim,
\nnot the gradual improvement of the present administration into something in the end fundamentally the opposite
\nof itself, but the early substitution of Indian and national
\nfor English and bureaucratic control in the affairs of India.
\nA subject nation does not prepare itself by gradual
\nprogress for liberty; it opens by liberty its way to rapid
\nprogress. The only progress that has to be made in the
\npreparation for liberty, is progress in the awakening of the
\nnational spirit and in the creation of the will to be free and
\nthe will to adopt the necessary means and bear the
\nnecessary sacrifices for liberty. It is these clear perceptions
\nthat have regulated his political career. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore the whole of the first part of his political life
\nwas devoted to a vigorous and living propaganda for the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 30<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nreawakening and solidifying of the national life of Maharashtra. Therefore, too, when the Swadeshi agitation gave
\nthe first opportunity of a large movement in the same
\nsense throughout India, he seized on it with avidity, while
\nhis past work in Maharashtra, his position as the leader of
\na small advanced section in the old Congress politics and
\nhis character, sacrifices and sufferings at once fixed the
\nchoice of the New Party on him as their predestined
\nleader. The same master-idea made him seize on the four
\nmain points which the Bengal agitation had thrown into
\nsome beginning of practical form, Swaraj, Swadeshi,
\nNational Education and Boycott, and formulate them into
\na definite programme, which he succeeded in introducing
\namong the resolutions of the Congress at the Calcutta
\nsession, much to the detriment of the uniformity of sage
\nand dignified impotence which had characterised the
\naugust, useful and calmly leisurely proceedings of that
\ntemperate national body. We all know the convulsion that
\nfollowed the injection of this foreign matter; but we must
\nsee why Mr. Tilak insisted on administering annually so
\npotent a remedy. The four resolutions were for him the
\nfirst step towards shaking the Congress out of its torpid
\ntortoise-like gait and turning it into a living and acting
\nbody. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSwaraj, complete and early self-government in whatever form, had the merit in his eyes of making definite and
\nnear to the national vision the one thing needful, the one
\naim that mattered, the one essential change that includes
\nall the others. No nation can develop a living enthusiasm
\nor accept great action and great sacrifices for a goal that is
\nlost to its eye in the mist of far-off centuries; it must see it
\nnear and distinct before it, magnified by a present hope, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 31<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nlooming largely and actualised as a living aim whose early
\nrealisation only depends on a great, sustained and sincere
\neffort. National education meant for him the training of
\nthe young generation in the new national spirit to be the
\narchitects of liberty, if that was delayed, the citizens of
\na free India which had rediscovered itself, if the
\npreliminary conditions were rapidly fulfilled. Swadeshi
\nmeant an actualising of the national self-consciousness
\nand the national will and the readiness to sacrifice which
\nwould fix them in the daily mind and daily life of the
\npeople. In Boycott, which was only a popular name for
\npassive resistance, he saw the means to give to the struggle
\nbetween the two ideas in conflict, bureaucratic control
\nand national control, a vigorous shape and body and to
\nthe popular side a weapon and an effective form of action.
\nHimself a man of organisation and action, he knew well
\nthat by action most, and not by thought and speech alone,
\ncan the will of a people be vivified, trained and made solid
\nand enduring. To get a sustained authority from the
\nCongress for a sustained effort in these four directions
\nseemed to him of capital importance; this was the reason
\nfor his inflexible insistence on their unchanged inclusion
\nwhen the programme seemed to him to be in danger. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYet also, because he is a practical politician and a man
\nof action, he has always, so long as the essentials were
\nsafe, been ready to admit any change in name or form or
\nany modification of programme or action dictated by the
\nnecessities of the time. Thus during the movement of
\n1905-10 the Swadeshi leader and the Swadeshi party
\ninsisted on agitation in India and discouraged reliance on
\nagitation in England, because the awaking and fixing of a
\nself-reliant national spirit and will in India was the one <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 32<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwork for the hour and in England no party or body of
\nopinion existed which would listen to the national claim,
\nnor could exist, as anybody with the least knowledge of
\nEnglish politics could have told, until that claim had
\nbeen unmistakably and insistently made and was clearly
\nsupported by the fixed will of the nation. The Home Rule
\nleader and the Home Rule party of today, which is only
\nthe "New Party" reborn with a new name, form and
\nfollowing, insist on the contrary on vigorous and speedy
\nagitation in England, because the claim and the will have
\nboth been partially, but not sufficiently recognised, and
\nbecause a great and growing British party now exists
\nwhich is ready to make the Indian ideal part of its own
\nprogramme. So, too, they insisted then on Swaraj and
\nrejected with contempt all petty botching with the administration, because so
\nalone could the real issue be made a living thing to the nation; now they accept
\nreadily enough a fairly advanced but still half-and-half scheme, but always with
\nthe proviso that the popular principle receives substantial embodiment and the full ideal is included as an
\nearly goal and not put off to a far-distant future. The
\nleader of men in war or politics will always distrust petty
\nand episodical gains which, while giving false hopes, are
\nmerely nominal and put off or even endanger the real
\nissue, but will always seize on any advantage which brings
\ndecisive victory definitely nearer. It is only the pure
\nidealist, but let us remember that he too has his great
\nand indispensable uses, who insists always on either all
\nor nothing. Not revolutionary methods or revolutionary
\nidealism, but the clear sight and the direct propaganda
\nand action of the patriotic political leader insisting on the
\none thing needful and the straight way to drive at it, have <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 33<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbeen the sense of Mr. Tilak’s political career. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe speeches in this book belong both to the Swadeshi
\nand the Home Rule periods, but mostly to the latter. They
\nshow Mr. Tilak’s mind and policy and voice with great
\nforce that will and political thought now dominant in the.
\ncountry which he has so prominently helped to create. Mr.
\nTilak has none of the gifts of the orator which many lesser
\nmen have possessed, but his force of thought and personality make him in his own way a powerful speaker. He is
\nat his best in his own Marathi tongue rather than in
\nEnglish; for there he finds always the apt and telling
\nphrase, the striking application, the vigorous figure which
\ngo straight home to the popular mind. But there is
\nessentially the same power in both. His words have the
\ndirectness and force no force can be greater of a sincere and powerful mind
\nalways going immediately to the aim in view, the point before it, expressing it
\nwith a bare, concentrated economy of phrase and the insistence of the hammer
\nfull on the head of the nail which drives it in with a few blows. But the
\nspeeches have to be read with his life, his character, his life-long aims as
\ntheir surrounding atmosphere. That is why I have dwelt on their main
\npoints; not that all I have said is not well-known, but the
\nrepetition of known facts has its use when they are
\nimportant and highly significant. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTwo facts of his life and character have to be
\ninsisted on as of special importance to the country because they give a great
\nexample of two things in which its political life was long deficient and is even
\nnow not sufficient. First, the inflexible will of the patriot and man of sincere
\nheart and thorough action which has been the very grain of his character: for
\naspirations, emotion, enthusiasm are no<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 34<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthing without this; will alone creates and prevails. And
\nwish and will are not the same thing, but divided by a
\ngreat gulf: the one, which is all most of us get to, is a puny,
\ntepid and inefficient thing and, even when most enthusiastic, easily discouraged and turned from its object; the
\nother can be a giant to accomplish and endure. Secondly,
\nthe readiness to sacrifice and face suffering, not needlessly
\nor with a useless bravado, but with a firm courage when it
\ncomes, to bear it and to outlive, returning to work with
\none’s scars as if nothing had happened. No prominent
\nman in India has suffered more for his country; none has
\ntaken his sacrifices and sufferings more quietly and as a
\nmatter of course. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe first part of Mr. Tilak’s life-work is accomplished.
\nTwo great opportunities have hastened its success, of
\nwhich he has taken full advantage. The lava-like flood of
\nthe Swadeshi movement fertilised the soil and did for the
\ncountry in six years the work of six ordinary decades; it
\nfixed the goal of freedom in the mind of the people. The
\nsudden irruption of Mrs. Besant into the field with her
\nunequalled gift, born of her untiring energy, her flaming
\nenthusiasm, her magnificent and magnetic personality,
\nher spiritual force, for bringing an ideal into the stage of actuality with one
\nrapid whirl and rush, has been the second factor. Indeed the presence of three
\nsuch personalities as Mr. Tilak, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Gandhi at the
\nhead and in the heart of the present movement, should
\nitself be a sure guarantee of success. The nation has
\naccepted the near fulfilment of his great aim as its own
\npolitical aim, the one object of its endeavour, its immediate ideal. The Government of India and the British
\nnation have accepted complete self-government as their <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 35<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfinal goal in Indian administration; a powerful party in
\nEngland, the party which seems to command the future,
\nhas pronounced for its more speedy and total accomplishment. A handful of dissentients there may be in the
\ncountry who still see only petty gains in the present and
\nthe rest in the dim vista of the centuries, but with this
\ninsignificant exception, all the Indian provinces and
\ncommunities have spoken with one voice. Mr. Tilak’s principles of work have been
\naccepted; the ideas which he had so much trouble to enforce have become the commonplaces and truisms of our political thought. The only
\nquestion that remains is the rapidity of a now inevitable
\nevolution. That is the hope for which Mr. Tilak still
\nstands, a leader of all India. Only when it is accomplished,
\nwill his life-work be done; not till then can he rest while he
\nlives, even though age grows on him and infirmities
\ngather, for his spirit will always remain fresh and
\nvigorous, any more than a river can rest before the
\npower of its waters has found their goal and discharged
\nthem into the sea. But whether that end, the end of a
\nfirst stage of our new national life, the beginning of a
\ngreater India reborn for self-fulfilment and the service of
\nhumanity, come tomorrow or after a little delay, its
\naccomplishment is now safe, and Mr. Tilak’s name stands
\nalready for history as a nation-builder, one of the half-dozen greatest political personalities, memorable figures,
\nrepresentative men of the nation in this most critical
\nperiod of India’s destinies, a name to be remembered
\ngratefully so long as the country has pride in its past and
\nhope for its future. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n(Introduction to Bal Gangadhar Tilak: His Writings and Speeches,<\/i> 1918) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 36<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nA GREAT MIND, A GREAT WILL<\/b>
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA great mind, a great will, a great and pre-eminent leader
\nof men has passed away from the field of his achievement
\nand labour. To the mind of his country Lokamanya Tilak
\nwas much more, for he had become to it a considerable
\npart of itself, the embodiment of its past efforts and the
\nhead of its present struggle for a free and greater life. His
\nachievement and personality have put him amidst the first
\nrank of historic and significant figures. He was one who
\nbuilt much rapidly out of little beginnings, a creator of
\ngreat things out of an unworked material. The creations
\nhe left behind him were a new and strong and self-reliant
\nnational spirit, the reawakened political mind and life of a
\npeople, a will to freedom and action, a great national
\npurpose. He brought to his work extraordinary qualities, a
\ncalm, silent, unflinching courage, an unwavering purpose,
\na flexible mind, a forward-casting vision of possibilities,
\nan eye for the occasion, a sense of actuality, a fine
\ncapacity of democratic leadership, a diplomacy that never
\nlost sight of its aim and pressed towards it even in the most
\npliant turns of its movement, and guiding all, a single minded patriotism that cared for power and influence only
\nas a means of service to the Motherland and a lever for the
\nwork of her liberation. He sacrificed much for her and
\nsuffered for her repeatedly and made no ostentation of his
\nsuffering and sacrifices. His life was a constant offering at
\nher altar and his death has come in the midst of an
\nunceasing service and labour. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe passing of this great personality creates a large and
\nimmediate void that will be felt acutely for a time, but it is <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 37<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe virtue of his own work that this vacancy must very
\nsoon be filled by new men and new forces. The spirit he
\ncreated in the country is of that sincere, real and fruitful
\nkind that cannot consent to cease or to fail, but must
\nalways throw up minds and capacities that will embody its
\npurpose. It will raise up others of his mould, if not of his
\nstature, to meet its needs, its demands, its call for ability
\nand courage. He himself has only passed behind the veil,
\nfor death and not life is the illusion. The strong spirit that
\ndwelt within him ranges now freed from our human and
\nphysical limitations, and can still shed upon us, on those
\nnow at work, and those who are coming, a more subtle,
\nample and irresistible influence; and even if this were not
\nso, an effective part of him is still with us. His will is left
\nbehind in many to make more powerful and free from
\nhesitations the national will he did so much to create, the
\ngrowing will whose strength and single wholeness are the
\nchief conditions of the success of the national effort. His
\ncourage is left behind in numbers to fuse itself into and
\nuplift and fortify the courage of his people; his sacrifice
\nand strength in suffering are left with us to enlarge
\nthemselves, more even than in his lifetime, and to heighten the fine and steeled temper our people need for the
\ndifficult share that still lies before their endeavour. These
\nthings are his legacy to his country, and it is in proportion
\nas each man rises to the height of what they signify that his
\nlife will be justified and assured of its recompense. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nMethods and policies may change but the spirit of
\nwhat Lokamanya Tilak was and did remains and will
\ncontinue to be needed, a constant power in others for the
\nachievement of his own life’s grand and single purpose. A
\ngreat worker and creator is not to be judged only by the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 38<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwork he himself did, but also by the greater work he made
\npossible. The achievement of the departed leader has
\nbrought the Nation to a certain point. Its power to go
\nforward from and beyond that point, to face new circumstances, to rise to the more strenuous and momentous
\ndemand of its future will be the greatest and surest sign of
\nthe soundness of his labour. That test is being applied to
\nthe National Movement at the very moment of his
\ndeparture. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe death of Lokamanya Tilak comes upon us at a time
\nwhen the country is passing through most troubled and
\npoignant hours. It occurs at a critical period, it coincides
\neven with a crucial moment when questions are being put
\nto the nation by the Master of Destiny, on the answer to
\nwhich depends the whole spirit, virtue and meaning of its
\nfuture. In each event that confronts us there is a divine
\nsignificance, and the passing away at such a time of such a
\nman, on whose thought and decision thousands hung,
\nshould make more profoundly felt by the people, by every
\nman in the Nation, the great, the almost religious responsibility that lies upon him personally. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAt this juncture it is not for me to prejudge the issue; each must meet it according to his light and conscience.
\nThis at least can be demanded of every man who would be
\nworthy of India and of her great departed son that he shall
\nput away from him in the decision of the things to be done
\nin the future all weakness of will, all defect of courage, all
\nunwillingness for sacrifice. Let each strive to see with that
\nselfless impersonality, taught by one of our greatest
\nscriptures, which can alone enable us to identify ourselves
\nboth with the Divine Will and with the soul of our Mother.
\nTwo things India demands for her future, the freedom of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 39<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsoul, life and action needed for the work she has to do for
\nmankind; and the understanding by her children of that
\nwork and of her own true spirit that the future India may
\nbe indeed India. The first seems still the main sense and
\nneed of the present moment, but the second is also
\ninvolved in them a yet greater issue. On the spirit of our
\ndecisions now and in the next few years depends the truth,
\nvitality and greatness of our future national existence. It is
\nthe beginning of a great Self-Determination not only in
\nthe external but in the spiritual. These two thoughts
\nshould govern our action. Only so can the work done by Lokamanya Tilak find its true continuation and issue. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n(The Independent \u2014<\/i> 5th August, 1920) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 40<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BAL GANGADHAR TILAK   Neither Mr. Tilak nor his speeches really require any presentation or foreword. His speeches are, like the featureless Brahman, self-luminous. Straightforward,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bankim-tilak-dayananda","wpcat-71-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}