1. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak on 23 July 1856. His ancestral village was Chikhali. His father, Gangadhar Tilak was a school teacher and a Sanskrit scholar.

    Bal Gangadhar Tilak
  2. In 1871 Tilak was married to Tapibai ( Née Bal) when he was sixteen, a few months before his father’s death.
  3. He graduated in 1876 and obtained a degree in law in 1879. After finishing his education, he plunged into politics.
  4. He, along with a few of his friends, founded the Deccan Education Society and the Fergusson College in Pune in 1885.
  5. Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in 1890. He opposed its moderate attitude, especially towards the fight for self-government.
  6. Tilak also worked on two weekly newspapers in order to spread his views; Kesari (in Marathi) and The Mahratta (in English).

    Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal
  7. His nationalist views led him into an open conflict with the British and they imprisoned him on the charge of sedition in 1897.
  8. This did not change his views and he declared, ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it.’ This historical trial earned him the title of ‘Lokmanya’.
  9. Tilak, for a long time, was not a member of the core committee that formulated the policies of the Indian National Congress.
  10. He wanted to create a militant mass movement to achieve his political aim. His difference of opinion with Moderates at the Surat session of the Congress in 1907, eventually led to its split.

    Bal Gangadhar Tilak
  11. The opportunist British took the advantage of the situation, and wasted no time in prosecuting him. British Government sent Bal Gangadhar Tilak to the Mandalay jail in Burma (Myanmar) in 1908.
  12. Bal Gangadhar Tilak helped to form the All India Home Rule League in 1916, along with Annie Besant. In the same year he rejoined Congress at the Lucknow session along with the extremists. He put in great effort in carrying out the message of Home Rule across the country.
  13. In April 1920, Tilak started the Congress Democratic Party in order to fight for Swarajya.
  14. He died on 1 August 1920 in Mumbai.
  15. Tilak published a work titled The Arctic Home in the Vedas. It is a seminal work on the origin of Aryans presented by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
  16. In Maharashtra, Bal Gangadhar Tilak started celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi on a large scale in the 1890s to unite people on a common platform.
  17. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, widely regarded as the ‘Father of Indian unrest’, was a scholar, philosopher and freedom fighter.

Leave a Reply