The Congress paid tribute to freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Lokmanya Tilak on the occasion of his 91st death anniversary at Congress Bhawan on Monday.
“Tilak, an Indian nationalist, social reformer and freedom fighter was the first popular leader of the country’s independence movement. Tilak sparked the fire for complete independence in Indian consciousness and is known as the father of Hindu nationalism,” said senior party leader Satyanarayan Sharma.
“Tilak’s famous quote – ‘swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it’ was very popular and well-remembered in the country even today,” he added.
“Tilak was a scholar of Indian history, Sanskrit, Hinduism, mathematics and astronomy. He proposed various social reforms, such as a minimum age for marriage, and was especially keen to see a prohibition placed on the sale of alcohol,” he said.
“Tilak’s thoughts on education and Indian political life have remained highly influential as he was the first Congress leader to suggest that Hindi, written in the devanagari script, should be accepted as the sole national language of India, a policy that was later strongly endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi,” said DCC Raipur Urban president Inderchand Dhariwal.
“His another major contribution was propagation of sarvajanik (public) Ganesh festival called – Ganesh Chaturthi, which contributed for people to get together and celebrate the festival and provided a good platform for leaders to inspire masses. His call for boycott of foreign goods also served to inspire patriotism among Indian masses,” he said.
“However, Tilak is considered in many ways to have created the nationalist movement in India, by expanding the struggle for political freedoms and self-government to the common people of India. His writings on Indian culture, history and Hinduism spread a sense of heritage and pride amongst millions of Indians for India’s ancient civilisation and glory as a nation,” he said.
“Tilak was considered the political and spiritual leader of India by many, and Gandhi is considered his successor. When Tilak died in 1920, Gandhi paid his respects at his cremation in Bombay, along with 200,000 people. Gandhi called Tilak ‘The maker of modern India’,” informed RMC corporator and MiC member Manoj Kandoi.
On the occasion were present PCC media incharge Mahendra Chhabra, Madan Taleda, Harish Dhotre, Mamta Rai, Dilip Chouhan, Satish Jain, Udho Verma, Radheshyam Vibhar, Murlidhar Netam, Surendra Choudhary, Shreekumar Menon, Samir Akhtar, Prashant Tengdi and other Congress workers at large number.
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