10-17-2007, 11:19 PM
Anglospheric view on Tilak:
In time these movements became increasingly nationalistic and anti-Western, tending to defend orthodox Hinduism rather than to purify it and to oppose Westerners rather than to copy them. This tendency culminated in Bal Gangathar Tilak (1859-1920), a Marathi journalist of Poona, who started his career in mathematics and law but slowly developed a passionate love for Hinduism, even in its most degrading details, and insisted that it must be defended against outsiders, even with violence. He was not opposed to reforms which appeared as spontaneous developments of Indian sentiment, but he was violently opposed to any attempt to legislate reform from above or to bring in foreign influences from European or Christian sources. He first became a political figure in 1891 when he vigorously opposed a government bill which would have curtailed child marriage by fixing the age of consent for girls at twelve years. By 1897 he was using his paper to incite to murder and riots against government officials.
A British official w ho foresaw this movement toward violent nationalism as early as 1878 sought to divert it into more legal and more constructive channels by establishing the Indian National Congress in 1885. The official in question, Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912), had the secret support of the viceroy, Lord Dufferin. They hoped to assemble each year an unofficial congress of Indian leaders to discuss Indian political matters in the hope that this experience would provide training in the working of representative institutions and parliamentary government. For twenty years the Congress agitated for extension of Indian participation in the administration, and for the extension of representation and eventually of parliamentary government within the British system. It is notable that this movement renounced violent methods, did not seek separation from Britain, and aspired to form a government based on the British pattern.
In time these movements became increasingly nationalistic and anti-Western, tending to defend orthodox Hinduism rather than to purify it and to oppose Westerners rather than to copy them. This tendency culminated in Bal Gangathar Tilak (1859-1920), a Marathi journalist of Poona, who started his career in mathematics and law but slowly developed a passionate love for Hinduism, even in its most degrading details, and insisted that it must be defended against outsiders, even with violence. He was not opposed to reforms which appeared as spontaneous developments of Indian sentiment, but he was violently opposed to any attempt to legislate reform from above or to bring in foreign influences from European or Christian sources. He first became a political figure in 1891 when he vigorously opposed a government bill which would have curtailed child marriage by fixing the age of consent for girls at twelve years. By 1897 he was using his paper to incite to murder and riots against government officials.
A British official w ho foresaw this movement toward violent nationalism as early as 1878 sought to divert it into more legal and more constructive channels by establishing the Indian National Congress in 1885. The official in question, Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912), had the secret support of the viceroy, Lord Dufferin. They hoped to assemble each year an unofficial congress of Indian leaders to discuss Indian political matters in the hope that this experience would provide training in the working of representative institutions and parliamentary government. For twenty years the Congress agitated for extension of Indian participation in the administration, and for the extension of representation and eventually of parliamentary government within the British system. It is notable that this movement renounced violent methods, did not seek separation from Britain, and aspired to form a government based on the British pattern.