Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/393

 give a home-thrust to our callous rulers, Congressmen and Moderate newspapers were found to ridicule, 'Honest Swadeshi ' and ' economic boycott '. The circumstan- ces of Bengal were such that it was impossible for the harassed, persecuted and well-nigh desperate Ben- galis to believe in the advent of a day when Britain would make us their equal partners. Naturally the Bengalis began to look to independence as their ulti- mate ideal, an ideal, be it remembered, which the Indian law-courts and the then Secretary of State found nothing to find fault with. Was it Mr. Tilak's fault that when some of his Indian and Anglo-Indian opponents began to stamp the ideal of independence as illegal, he rushed to the rescue of his Bengali friends ? Did not Sir Surendranath himself allow an amendment to the Self- Government Resolution at the Pubna Conference (1908) wherein, the Nationalists did affirm their faith in independence as the ultimate goal to be achieved ? So the ' inconsistency ' of Mr. Tilak amounts to this, that knowing Maharashtra to be not quite ready for this higher ideal, he preached in Western India "Colonial Self-Go vernment " as the political ideal, though in view of certain mischievous attacks, he felt bound to draw the sword in defence of the theoretically perfect ideal of independence.

The one work, which Mr. Tilak set himself to do with his phenomenal energies, was to rouse the moral and intellectual courage of the people. Where, as in Bengal, circumstances considerably helped the process of this awakening, he did his best to prevent it from dis- aster by a reckless extravagance which defeats its own ^nd. To rouse the latent moral and intellectual nature