Why Lokmanya Tilak National Award for PM Modi has raised hackles in Congress

Why Lokmanya Tilak National Award for PM Modi has raised hackles in Congress

Subject: History

Section: Modern India

Context: The award has been instituted by the Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust in the memory of the nationalist ‘Lokmanya’ Bal Gangadhar Tilak and is given on Tilak’s death anniversary.

Lokmanya’ 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.
• Tilak joined 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.