Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/108

88 the Government officers rigorously enforced measures for the safety of the people. They however failed to temper their rigour by enlisting popular sympathy. They neither sought public support and co-operation nor did they welcome it when spontaneously offered. Such benevolent execution of precautionary measures required a higher type of imagination than the Bureaucrants could command and while men like Lord Sandhurst sincerely wished the least interference witH the conveniences of the people, the plague measures actually created greater terror than the epidemic itself.

To save themselves from the epidemic, many so-called leaders of the people left Poona to a safer retreat. But Mr. Tilak did not do so. He stood by the suffering multitude, shared their misfortunes, helped them, started a Plague Hospital and did his best to interpret the difficulties of the people to the Government and the wishes of the Government to the people. The conduct of Mr. Tilak in thus cooperating with the Government was strongly criticised by many of the followers of Ranade and insinuations were recklessly made that the Lion of Poona was ensnared by the additional membership of the Legislative Council. The time soon came when the pseudo-lions of Poona humiliated themselves before the British Lion, while Mr. Tilak refused to be cowed down by the terrors of repression.

For an effective crusade against the Plague, the relief work was taken—without any semblance of law or justice—out of the hands of the Municipality and was continued by a special body, called the Plague Committee, a purely European association headed by the '* sullen and suspicious " Mr. Rand. With the name of this