Page 20 - Swatantrata to Atmanirbharta : Lokmanya Tilak’s legacy

others would have acceded to his counsel, not to form an
exclusive Hindu party. He would have upheld the Congress
as an umbrella party, inclusive of all shades of public opinion
and would have seconded the demand of Mahatma Gandhi, to
liquidate it at the dawn of the Independence, so that no single
group could claim its legacy in free India, for electoral benefits.
As a realist, Tilak would have diagnosed correctly, the
precarious position of Great Britain in 1940, during the battle
of Britain, would have advanced the Quit India movement by
2 years and then negotiated with the colonial masters from a
position of strength and would have extracted Independence on
the most favorable terms. By waiting till 1942, Gandhiji started
that movement at a time when Britain had turned the corner in
the Second World War, with the entry on its side, of America
and the compulsion of the Soviet Union to tow the British line
for the help the latter was providing in its struggle against the
Nazi juggernaut.

Tilak would certainly have stemmed the deteriorating
relations between the Congress and Muslim league, as he had
good relations with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had defended
him in the sedition case. Who knows, that would have averted
the Partition of our motherland?

Is Lokmanya Tilak relevant, a century after his demise? Most
certainly, YES. All the different features of his personality are,
as contemporary as they were during his life. Let us discuss
them one by one.

A) Journalism: Tilak was a fearless and even-handed
journalist. Imagine writing vitriolic editorials against a colonial
government aided by a bent magistracy. He was imprisoned on
the sedition charges for 6 years in Mandalay. It is a different issue
that he utilized his incarceration for writing a scholarly treatise
on Bhagwat Gita. On his release he restarted his journalistic
career with a renewed vigor, without diluting the sting of his
pen, even a single bit.

The journalists of the 1975 Emergency era proved themselves
unworthy of his legacy. They famously crawled when asked to
bend. It is sad to say that in present times too there is hardly a

Swatantrata to Atmanirbharata 18