Bal Gangadhar Tilak – The Swarajya Man of India

Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!”

We were under foreign rule. It was mainly because we made a good business. We resisted and then they ruled by power. When the resistance was more the power against us was more. Finally there were wars and struggles.

The people in India were divided in to various groups. We even had a group who accepted the foreign rule and enjoyed the system. These people came into the rich and elite class soon and seemed rather happy with the British rule.

But we had these patriotic class which wanted to have the governance. People like Bal Gangadhar Tilak were also among the educated class but had a stand for our freedom. In fact, Tilak was amongst one of the first generation of Indians to receive a college education .He brought a fantastic slogan which inspired millions to jump in to the freedom struggle. A journalist, he gave the famous slogan “Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it”. It had a huge impact on the struggle we had against the British rule.

The real name of Bal Gangadhar(23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920) was Keshav Gangadhar Tilak. He was born in Ratnagiri district of Maharastra. Started his career as a teacher, he became a journalist later on. He was tagged as “Father of the Indian unrest” by the British officials then. And no wonder he was known as Lokmanya by the people of nation. He joined the Congress in 1890 but was against their moderate views.

Over the years, we have seen that many freedom fighters get a few paragraph in the history text books and only a few of the leaders at that time take the maximum coverage. The paid Indian media too is helping the branding of just a few leaders and they are projecting a few leaders and dampening others.

We have Swaraj now. But we lack Surajya or good governance. What is your take on that?