Page:Bal Gangadhar Tilak, his writings and speeches.djvu/32

 An Appreciation by Babu Aurobindo Ghose

Congress out of its torpid tortoise-like gait and "turning it into a living and acting body." Swaraj, complete and early self-government in whatever form, had the merit in his eyes of making definite and near to the national vision the one thing needful, the one aim that mattered, the one -essential change that includes all the others. No nation can develop a living' enthusiasm or adopt great action and great sacrifices for a goal that is lost to its eye in the midst of far-off centuries ; it must see it near and distinct hefore it, magnified by a present hope, looming largely and actualised as a living aim whose early realisation only depends on a great, sustained and sincere effort. National education meant for him the training of the young generation in the new national spirit to be the architects of liberty, if that was delayed, the citizens of a free India which had rediscovered itself, if the preliminary condition were rapidly fulfilled. Swadeshi meant an actualising of the national self-consciousness and the national will and the readiness to sacrifice which would fix them in the dally mind and daily life of the people. In Boycott, which was only a popular name for passive resistance, he saw the means to give to the struggle between the two ideas in conflict, bureaucratic control and national control, a vigorous shape and body and to the popular side a weapon and an effective form of action. Himself a man of organisation and action, he knew well that by action. 19