We have included an essay on Bal Gangadhar Tilak for students in 1000 words. It includes early life, education, political career, major works, and death.
Essay on Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1000 Words)
Lokmanya Tilak, also known as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian patriot, teacher, and freedom leader who was born on July 23, 1856, as Keshav Gangadhar. He joins the Lal Bal Pal trifecta as one-third of the trio. He was one of Swaraj’s most ardent supporters.
Early Life and Birth
On July 23rd, 1856, he was born in Ratnagiri to a Hindu Marathi Brahmin family as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak. His ancestral village was renamed Chikhali. Tilak’s father was a Sanskrit teacher and student who died when Tilak was sixteen years old.
He married Tapibai in 1871 when he was 16 years old, just a few months before his father died. His wife’s name was changed to Satyabhama Bai after they married. In 1877, he graduated from Deccan College in Pune with a bachelor of arts in first class in math.
Education of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
He graduated from a government regulatory institution with a law degree. Tilak began teaching math at a private college in Pune after graduation.
Vishnushastri Krushnashastri Chiplunkar inspired him, and he and a handful of his university friends co-founded a new English school for secondary education in 1880.
They aimed to improve the quality of Indian children’s education. When the school did well, they started the Deccan Schooling Society, which started teaching kids about nationalist beliefs and how to live in India at the same time.
This new method of education was called “Indian education,” and it was a big hit. In 1885, the group established Fergusson College for post-secondary education. Tilak was a math professor at Fergusson University.
Political Career of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Tilak had a long political career in which he fought for India’s freedom from British rule. In contrast to his Maharashtrian contemporary, he became India’s most well-known flesh presser.
The British considered him an extreme nationalist, although he went on to become a socialist as well. He was imprisoned many times, including a stay in Mandalay.
In 1890, Tilak became a member of the Indian Countrywide Congress. He became a sceptic of its moderate approach to the fight for self-government. He became an opponent in 1891, even though he opposed early marriage because he saw it as a threat to Hinduism and a dangerous precedent.
The bubonic plague spread from Bombay to Pune in 1896, reaching pandemic proportions. At first, British troops were dispatched to deal with the situation, and heinous measures were taken against them.
Marathi writer Bal Gangadhar Tilak published provocative pieces in the Marathi weekly Kesari and the English-language journal Maratha.
Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it -Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Tilak was an outspoken supporter of the Swadeshi and boycott movements. The campaign included a boycott of imported items as well as a social boycott of any Indian who used imported goods.
The usage of locally made items was part of the Swadeshi movement. When foreign items were boycotted, a void had to be filled by manufacturing those products in India. According to Tilak, the swadeshi and boycott campaigns are two sides of the same coin.
Tilak opposed Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s moderate ideas and was backed by fellow Indian nationalists such as Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab. The trio was known as the “Lal-Bal-Pal trifecta.”
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was tried three times by the British Indian government for sedition charges throughout his life, among other political trials, in 1897, 1909, and 1916.
In 1897, Tilak was convicted of 18 months in jail for preaching anti-raj sentiments, and in 1909, he was charged with sedition for inflaming racial tensions between Indians and the British.
Tilak’s defence lawyer, Muhammad Ali Jinnah of Bombay, was unable to overturn the evidence in Tilak’s polemical publications, and Tilak was sentenced to 6 years in jail in Burma.
Faith affairs of state
Throughout his life, Bal Gangadhar Tilak worked to bring the Indian people together for mass political action. He argued that a full explanation for anti-British Seasoned-Hindu activity was required for this to happen.
In this circumstance, he looked for support in the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita’s purportedly unique ideas. He used the term “karma-yoga,” or “yoga of action,” to describe this urge to action.
According to his view, the Bhagavad Gita illustrates this notion in a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, in which Krishna exhorts Arjuna to battle his adversaries (which in this case included many members of his family) because it is his duty.
Issues affecting women
Using his publications, the Maratha and Kesari, Bal Gangadhar Tilak vigorously fought the creation of the first indigenous female excessive school (now known as Huzurpaga) in Pune in 1885 and its curriculum.
Tilak was also opposed to inter-caste marriages, particularly those in which an upper-caste woman married a lower-caste man.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was hostile to the bill, claiming that the Parsis, like the English, had no control over (Hindu) spiritual concerns. He criticised the female for having “defective lady parts” and pondered how the husband could be “diabolically prosecuted for executing a harmless deed,” when he is recognised as one of nature’s “hazardous freaks.”
When it came to gender members of the family, Tilak did not have a modern perspective. He did not believe that Hindu women were required to receive further education. As an alternative, he adopted a more traditional viewpoint, thinking that women were designed to be homemakers who had to serve their husbands and children.
In 1918, years before his death, Tilak declined to sign a petition calling for the removal of untouchability, despite having spoken out against it in advance at a conference.
Swami Vivekananda is held in high regard.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Swami Vivekananda had a great deal of respect and admiration for one another. They met by chance while travelling by train in 1892, and Tilak welcomed Vivekananda into his home.
Someone who went to serve there overheard Vivekananda and Tilak agreeing that Tilak would fight for nationalism in the “political” arena while Vivekananda would work for nationalism in the “non-secular” arena.
Despite the fact that Swami Vivekananda died at a young age, Bal Gangadhar Tilak showed deep sadness and paid respect to him within the Kesari. Tilak began about the same time as Swami Vivekananda:
“No Hindu, who holds Hinduism’s pastimes dear to his heart, can help but be saddened by Swami Vivekananda’s samadhi.”
In short, Vivekananda had taken on the duty of keeping the banner of Advaita philosophy flying around the globe and helping them understand the true glory of the Hindu religion and Hindu people.
He had thought that by gaining knowledge of, eloquence, excitement, and sincerity, he would be able to crown his achievement with the success of this task, simply because he had constructed a nice basis for it. However, with the swami’s samadhi, these hopes are long gone.
Many years ago, there was another saint, Shankaracharya, who demonstrated the grandeur and magnificence of Hinduism to the globe. The second Shankaracharya is Vivekananda, who guaranteed the honour of Hinduism to industry in the nineteenth century.
His task hasn’t been finished yet. We’ve lost everything: our grandeur, freedom, and everything else.
Contributions to society and legacy
With Gopal Ganesh Agarkar as the first editor, Tilak started weeklies, Kesari (“the lion”) in Marathi and Maratha in English (often referred to as ‘Maratha’ in educational reference books) in 1880–81. As a result of this, he is known as the ‘awakener of India,’ as Kesari eventually became and still maintains a publication.
In 1894, Bal Gangadhar Tilak elevated household Ganesha worship into a spectacular public event, Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav. The festivities lasted many days and included processions, music, and banquets. Subscriptions were used to organise them, and they were organised by community, caste, or vocation.
College students typically celebrate Hindu and national glories while also dealing with political issues, such as support of swadeshi items.
Tilak established the Shri Shivaji Fund Committee in 1895 to commemorate the birth of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the Maratha Empire’s founding father, on his birthday, “Shiv Jayanti.”
In addition, the enterprise aimed to engage in the renovation of Shivaji’s mausoleum (samadhi) at Raigad fort. Tilak utilised these dates, as well as the Ganapati festival and Shiv Jayanti, to foster a national spirit in opposition to colonial authority beyond the educated elite.
Gangadhar Bal Tilak was diabetic to the point of death. Tilak became weak in mid-July as his body could no longer take the discomfort. On August 1, 1920, he passed away.