Builders of Modern India: Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak

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The objective of the series is to record, for the present and future generations, the story of the struggles and achievements of the eminent sons and daughters of India who were instrumental in our national renaissance and the attainment of independence. Except in a few cases, such authoritative biographies are not available.

The series is planned as handy volumes written by knowledgeable people, giving a brief account, in simple words, of the life, time and activities of these eminent leaders. The volumes do not intend either to be comprehensive studies or to replace the more elaborate biographies.

Born a year before the First War of Independence, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak died 27 years before India became free. His life thus spans the major part of our struggle for freedom. Tilak made his countrymen conscious of their slavery and created in them the urge for freedom. He was described by Sir Valentine Chirol, Special Correspondent of the Times, London as "the father of Indian unrest". But Tilak did much more than that. He made it vocal; he gave it shape; he directed it into constructive channels.

Tilak did not merely coin the slogan Swarajya is my birthright and I will have it. He blazed the trail for it through life-long struggle and sacrifice, persecution and imprisonment, dynamic and multifarious activities. N.G. Jog, the author has lucidly compressed and compiled a personality without sacrificing any detail.

Justice is proverbially blind and day or night should make little difference to it. But the scene in the cavernous nous Gothic Structure of the Bombay High Court on the night of July 22, 1908, seemed to bode ill for justice. Indian courts do not normally function at night. When, therefore, the Judge told the Advocate-General that afternoon that he would sit as late as necessary to finish the case against the accused charged on three counts of sedition, he as good as indicated what the outcome of the case was going to be Gloomy premonition hung in the air as the Judge finished his summing-up to the jury. It was unmistakably slanted against the accused despite the customary direction to give the benefit of doubt if any to him. The Jury, composed of seven Europeans and two Indians, returned at 9.20 p.m. after eighty minutes' deliberation. In pindrop silence the foreman announced the majority verdict of guilty-seven to two. The Judge readily agreed with it and asked the accused if he had anything to say before the sentence was pronounced.

Looking serene and composed despite the ordeal of his month-long trial, the accused rose in the dock and without a moment's hesitation said in a firm tone:

"All I wish to say is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of men and nations, and it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free."