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Poona but at sixteen Tilak was an orphan. A
self-reliant but physically weak youth, he
devoted a year to building up his physique
with exercises. After receiving his BA he took
a B achelor of Law degree but refused to enter
government service. He started a school and
two newspapers to spread Western knowledge
among the people of Maharashtra. He helped
found the Deccan Education Society and
Fergusson Colleges. Opposed the reform
programme of Angarkar and Gokhale and
resigned from the group in 1890. Tilak
purchased from the group the Marathi weekly,
Kesari
(The Lion), which he had named and
helped to edit its English counterpart,
The
Mahratta.
His Marathi style was effective and
influenced his readers. Tilak also promoted in
his papers the celebration of two festivals, one
dedicated to the Hindu god Ganesha and the
other honouring the Maratha hero, Shivaji. His
purpose in organising these two festivals was
to develop in the Maratha people a sense of
pride in their common history and religion.
Tilak's success in creating popular enthusiasm
through these activities alarmed the British
after the assassination of two British officials
in Poona in 1897. Tilak was accused of
fomenting hatred towards the officials with his
Kesari
articles and sentenced to jail for 18
months. The agitation in 1905 against the
partition of Bengal found him in the forefront.
His cry "Freedom is my birthright and I will
have it" swept the country. When the
extremists failed to wrest control from the
moderates at the 1907 congress session Tilak
defied the Chairman whereupon the meeting
degenerated into a riot. He was again arrested
and tried for fostering political assassination
in his speeches and writing. He was sentenced
to six-year rigorous imprisonment in
Mandalay, Upper Burma. He returned to his
Sanskrit studies in prison and wrote a lengthy
commentary on the
Bhagavad Gita
in which
he stressed that the sacred poem preached
political as well as religious activity and
hinted that violence in a righteous cause was
morally justifiable. By the time of his death in
1920, Tilak favoured contesting the elections
under the Montagu - Chelmsford Reforms of
1919 in contrast to Gandhi who wished to
boycott them. Tilak was described as the
"Father of Indian Unrest" by the British
journalist, Valentine Chirol.
Bipin Chandra Pal
(1858-1932)
He was born in a zamindar family in
Sylhet District. He was against the caste
system and that made him join the Brahmo
Samaj. Twice married his first and second
wives were Brahmo widows. He joined the
Presidency College Calcutta, failed twice but
later became a great scholar, journalist and
writer. Started Bengali weekly "Paridarsak".
Started daily
Bande Mataram
whose Editor
was Aurobindo Ghose. Was introduced to
Congress by Sivnath Shastri in 1877. In 1886
attended his first Congress session as a
delegate. Went to prison as he refused to give
evidence against Aurobindo in Bande
Mataram sedition case. He fought for India's
freedom. Advocated complete independence
for India long before the Congress adopted it
as its goal. He passed away on May 20,1932.
Jagdish Chandra Bose
(1858-1937)
Born in Rarikhal in Bengal in 1858, J.C.
Bose's contribution to physics and plant
physiology was of a very high order. As a
child in his nsative village he was interested in
insects, fish and even water-snakes and as a
grown-up student of St. Xavier's College,
Calcutta, he had animal pets and spent a lot of
time on their housing and care. Because of his
fondness for animals he would have studied
zoology but since Calcutta University did not
offer zoology as a subject in those days he
learnt physics under Professor Lafont of St.
Xavier's College? After getting his B.A. from
Calcutta University he went to Cambridge
where he did research in physics and obtained
his D.Sc. in 1896. In 1897 he was invited by
the British Association to address its
Liverpool session where he delivered a lecture
outlining his researches on electric waves
using a microwave spectrometer with a
transmitter and a receiver constructed by
himself. Later he took up investigations which
showed that not only animal life but also plant
tissues under different kinds of stimuli display
similar electrical responses. He also noticed a
parallel between the behaviour of inert matter
and living matter. Bose therefore deserted
physics to study plants and animals. He was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920.
Three years earlier he had established a
research institute called the Bose Institute and
was its Director till his death in 1937. In his
address at the inaugural function of the
Institute Bose observed: "I am attempting to
carry out the traditions of my country which
so far back as 25 centuries ago, welcomed all
scholars from different parts of the world
within the precincts of the ancient seats of
learning at Nalanda and Taxila."
M. Visvesvaraya
(1861-1962)
Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born
in the village of Muddenahalli near the
town of Chikballapur in Mysore state as
Karnataka was then known. His parents had
migrated from Mokshagundam village in the
Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh. His
father Srinivasa Sastry was a student of the
shastras, and was an astrologer and physician.
After completing his early education in
Chikballapur, he joined the Central College,
Bangalore. Thereafter he joined the College of
Science in Poona (the engineering college was
then called by that name) with a scholarship
from Mysore state. He passed his engineering
examination standing first and joined service
in 1884 as an Assistant Engineer in the Public
Works Department of the Government of
Bombay. He became Executive Engineer and
Superintending Engineer superseding as many
as 18 of his seniors. He could not become
Chief Engineer as this post was then the
preserve of the British. He requested
retirement from service in 1908 when he was
only 47. In 1909 he was invited to join the
Mysore state service as Chief Engineer. He
accepted on condition that he was allowed to
encourage education and industries. He
designed and completed the Krishnaraja Sagar
Dam, the largest in India at that time, and
initiated the Iron and Steel Works at
Bhadravati. He was instrumental in setting up
the Mysore University in 1916, the first
university to come up in any Indian state. He
retired from the Dewanship in 1919 but
continued to be active as Chairman of the
Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works and in
touring the advanced countries of the West to
see for himself the secret of their prosperity
and dynamism. When smaller countries with
fewer resources could progress so rapidly he
could not understand why his own people
should be content waiting for things to
happen. In one of his books he wrote, "A
consciousness should be roused in the Indian
mind that a better state of things exists outside
and a vastly better state of things could be
brought into existence in India itself if the
people willed and worked for the same. " He
was one of the earliest advocates of a planned
economy and spelt out his ideas in a book
Planned Economy for India,
(1934). He was
one of the first to think of raising a Public
Debt for reconstruction and progress : "No
leading modem nation has reached its present
prosperous position without being in debt
during the time it was building up its assets or
wealth." He was always properly dressed in
coat and tie topped with laced Mysore turban.,
methodical and punctual. He was awarded the
Bharat Ratna in 1955.