Lokmanya

Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it…

A man is standing in the criminal box in the court, wrongly being indicted for no offence of his. The evidences laid before the court will prove him guilty.what would a lawyer do in such a case? Give up. But he would not get bogged down. As he had complete faith in his clients innocence. So he asks time from court. The court Grant’s permission. Next hearing, the lawyer declares that his client is dead, when he is sitting in front of everyone. The reason given by the lawyer is that He has taken “sanyaas” (renounced the world), so now he does not live according to Hindu scriptures. He has already done his own “pind daan.” (A ritual done after someone’s death and a person taking sanyaas is expected to do so.) The court agrees and let’s the person go free.

The lawyer is none other than Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, whose 100th punyatithi is today.

He was not a strong advocate of non violence and so had his differences with Gandhi. He even urged Gandhi to drop his idea of complete non – violence, to which Gandhi did not agree.

It is also said that he met Swami Vivekanand accidentally while travelling by train and then Swamiji was his guest for a few days too. They held each other in great esteem and had a mutual respect for each other. Again it is said that they both agreed that Tilak Maharaj would work towards nationalism in his own political way and Swamiji would do so in his own religious way.

When Swamiji passed away at a very early age, Tilak Maharaj said thus :

“No Hindu, who, has the interests of Hinduism at his heart, could help feeling grieved over Vivekananda’s samadhi. Vivekananda, in short, had taken the work of keeping the banner of Advaita philosophy forever flying among all the nations of the world and made them realize the true greatness of Hindu religion and of the Hindu people. He had hoped that he would crown his achievement with the fulfillment of this task by virtue of his learning, eloquence, enthusiasm and sincerity, just as he had laid a secure foundation for it; but with Swami’s samadhi, these hopes have gone. Thousands of years ago, another saint, Shankaracharya, who, showed to the world the glory and greatness of Hinduism. At the fag of the 19th century, the second Shankaracharya is Vivekananda, who, showed to the world the glory of Hinduism. His work has yet to be completed. We have lost our glory, our independence, everything.”

(SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA)

His writings and contribution towards the society through his newspapers “Kesari” and “Maratha” and through “Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav” and “Shiv Jayanti” have had a tremendous effect on the masses which lead to a great transformation in the society as a whole.

In 1903, Tilak wrote the book “The Arctic Home of the Vedas”. In it, he argued that the Vedas could only have been composed in the Arctics, and the Aryan bards brought them south after the onset of the last ice age. He proposed a new way to determine the exact time of the Vedas. In “The Orion”, he tried to calculate the time of the Vedas by using the position of different Nakshatras. The positions of the Nakshtras were described in different Vedas. Tilak wrote “Shrimad Bhagvad Gita Rahasya” in prison at Mandalay – the analysis of ‘Karma Yoga’ in the Bhagvad Gita, which is known to be a gift of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

While bowing down to this great towering personality on his 100th Punyatithi, can also ask for the spirit of nationalism to thrive amongst us, like him.

Vande Mataram