Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first Indian nationalist leader to demand outright independence rather than reform, and the man who turned the movement into a mass one. Born in Ratnagiri in 1856 into a Chitpavan Brahmin family, he was educated at Deccan College in Pune, took degrees in mathematics and law, and helped found the Deccan Education Society and Fergusson College to provide Indian-run higher education. He edited two newspapers from 1881, the Marathi Kesari and the English Mahratta, and used them as political instruments. His slogan — Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it — became the movement's formula. His method was to build politics out of existing religious and popular culture. He transformed the household Ganesh festival into a large public celebration from 1893, and created a festival for the Maratha ruler Shivaji in 1895, both designed to assemble crowds that colonial law could not easily prohibit. This mobilised enormous numbers and simultaneously narrowed the movement's appeal to Muslims, a tension that persisted. He was jailed for sedition in 1897 after articles the government linked to the killing of a plague commissioner, and again in 1908 for defending Bengali revolutionaries, receiving six years' transportation to Mandalay in Burma. He spent them writing the Gita Rahasya, a commentary arguing that the Bhagavad Gita commands selfless action in the world rather than renunciation. At the Congress session in Surat in 1907 he led the extremist faction in a split with the moderates. On release he founded the All India Home Rule League in 1916 and signed the Lucknow Pact with the Muslim League. He died in 1920, weeks after Gandhi's rise.
- Lived: 1856 CE – 1920 CE
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: nationalist
