Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad

  • July 24, 2020
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: DPN Topics
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Subject: History

Context:

July 23 is birth anniversaries of great freedom fighters Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad

Concept:

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

  • Born on July 23, 1856, Tilak was a mathematician, philosopher, scholar and social reformer.
  • To impart quality education to the country’s youth, he founded the Deccan Education Society in 1884.
  • He also started two weeklies, Kesari (in Marathi) and Mahratta (in English), through which he criticised British policies of that time.
  • Tilakjoined the Congress in 1890, but due to ideological differences, he and his supporters were known as extremist leaders within the party.
  • British arrested him on the charges of sedition in 1906 and a court sentenced him to six years of imprisonment in Mandalay (Burma)
  • He was popularly known as Lokmanya. The famous slogan, “Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it”, was coined by him.
  • Tilak with Annie Besant, Joseph Baptista, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah founded the All India Home Rule League in 1916.
  • In the same year, he concluded the Lucknow Pact with Jinnah, which provided for Hindu-Muslim unity in the nationalist struggle.
  • When BalGangadharTilak was imprisoned during the freedom struggle, he wrote a book titled ‘Gita-Rahasya’.
  • The events like the Ganapati festival and ShivajJayanti were used by Tilak to build a national spirit beyond the circle of the educated elite in opposition to colonial rule.

Chandra Shekhar Azad

  • Chandra Shekhar Azad was one of the most notable Indian revolutionaries who took part in India’s freedom struggle at a very young age.
  • Azad was deeply moved by the JallianwalaBagh incident which took place on April 13, 1919.
  • He joined the revolution for Indian independence and soon became a part of the Non-Cooperation Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920. He even got arrested at the young age of 15 for being a part of the movement.
  • After Gandhi suspended the non-cooperation movement in 1922, Chandra Shekhar Azad joined the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a revolutionary organisation formed by Ram Prasad Bismil, SachindraNathSanyal and others.
  • As a freedom fighter, he was involved in the Kakori Train Robbery of 1925, in the attempt to blow up the Viceroy of India’s train in 1926, and in the shooting of British police officer JP Saunders at Lahore in 1928.
  • Chandra Shekhar Azad took charge of HRA after Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, RajendraLahiri and ThankurRoshan Singh were sentenced to death in the Kakori train robbery case.
  • After the capture of the main leaders of the HRA, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh secretly reorganised the HRA as the HSRA (Hindustan Socialist Republic Army) in September 1928.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Chandra Shekhar Azad History