Tilak and Maharashtra in the national movement

The Indian National Congress held its first session in Bombay in 1885. The Quit India resolution was passed in Bombay in 1942. In between, Maharashtra gave the freedom movement its first mass leader in Lokmanya Tilak, some of its most daring revolutionaries, and one of its most remarkable experiments in self-rule — the parallel government of Satara. For MPSC, Maharashtra's role in the national movement is essential, both for Prelims facts and for Mains answers.

The moderate phase

Bombay and Pune were centres of early nationalism.

• Bombay Presidency Association (1885): founded by Pherozeshah Mehta, K. T. Telang and Badruddin Tyabji.
• First Congress session: Bombay, 1885, at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, presided by W. C. Bonnerjee.
• Moderate leaders from the region: Dadabhai Naoroji (drain theory; Poverty and Un-British Rule in India), Ranade, Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta.

Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920)

Tilak transformed the national movement from a debate among the educated elite into a mass movement.

Journalism and education

• Co-founded the New English School (1880), the Deccan Education Society (1884) and Fergusson College (1885).
• Started Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English) in 1881.

Festivals as political mobilisation

• Ganeshotsav: in 1893–94, Tilak helped transform the household Ganesh festival into a public (sarvajanik) festival, bringing people together across the city.
• Shivaji festival (Shivjayanti): begun in 1895–96 to celebrate Shivaji Maharaj as a national hero.

These festivals created spaces for political speeches and national awareness, reaching people who did not read newspapers.

The famine and plague years

• During the 1896–97 famine, Tilak urged peasants to claim relief under the Famine Code.
• During the plague, the heavy-handed measures of the Plague Commissioner W. C. Rand caused anger in Pune. On 22 June 1897, the Chapekar brothers — Damodar and Balkrishna — shot Rand and another officer.
• Tilak was tried for sedition for his writings in Kesari and sentenced to 18 months (1897).

Extremist leadership

• With Lala Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal — "Lal-Bal-Pal" — Tilak led the extremist wing, advocating Swadeshi, boycott, national education and Swaraj.
• At the Surat session (1907), the Congress split between moderates and extremists.
• In 1908, Tilak was convicted of sedition again for articles defending revolutionaries and sentenced to six years in Mandalay (Burma), where he wrote Gita Rahasya.

Home Rule and the slogan

• In April 1916, Tilak founded the Indian Home Rule League at Belgaum; Annie Besant founded her league later that year.
• His declaration — "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it" — became one of the defining slogans of the movement.
• The Lucknow Pact (1916) between the Congress and the Muslim League was concluded with his support.

He died on 1 August 1920, the day the Non-Cooperation Movement was launched.

Revolutionaries

The Gandhian phase in Maharashtra

• Non-Cooperation (1920–22): widespread support; boycott of foreign cloth.
• Civil Disobedience (1930): salt satyagraha at Shiroda (Konkan) and Vadala; forest satyagrahas in the tribal and forest areas, including in Vidarbha; the Solapur uprising of 1930, after which martial law was imposed and four men were later hanged.
• Individual Satyagraha (1940): Vinoba Bhave, who had an ashram at Paunar near Wardha, was chosen as the first individual satyagrahi.
• Wardha and Sevagram: Gandhi lived at Sevagram near Wardha from 1936, making it a centre of the national movement. The Wardha scheme of basic education (Nai Talim) was drawn up in 1937.

Quit India (1942)

• On 8 August 1942, the All-India Congress Committee passed the Quit India resolution at Gowalia Tank Maidan (now August Kranti Maidan), Bombay. Gandhi gave the call "Do or Die".
• The next morning, the leaders were arrested. Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank.
• Usha Mehta ran the underground Congress Radio from Bombay.

Chimur and Ashti

In Vidarbha, the movement took a violent turn at Chimur (Chandrapur district) and Ashti (Wardha district) in August 1942. Protesters clashed with police, and harsh repression followed.

The Prati Sarkar (parallel government) of Satara

In the Satara region, Krantisinh Nana Patil and his associates set up a parallel government (Prati Sarkar or Patri Sarkar) from 1943. It:

• ran its own courts (nyayadan mandals);
• punished moneylenders and informers;
• organised food supply and village defence;
• operated for several years in defiance of British authority.

Its armed wing was known as the Toofan Sena. It is one of the longest-running parallel governments of the Quit India period.

The Royal Indian Navy mutiny (1946)

In February 1946, ratings of the Royal Indian Navy mutinied in Bombay, beginning on HMIS Talwar. The mutiny spread to other ports and was supported by strikes in the city. It showed the British that they could no longer rely on Indian armed forces.

Questions to practise

Prelims-style:

1. Where was the first session of the Indian National Congress held?
2. Which two newspapers did Tilak run?
3. Who assassinated Rand, and why?
4. Where was the Quit India resolution passed?
5. Who led the parallel government of Satara?
6. Who was the first individual satyagrahi in 1940?

Mains-style:

• "Tilak made the national movement a mass movement." Discuss.
• Examine Maharashtra's contribution to the Quit India Movement.

After independence, Maharashtra's political story continued with a new struggle — the movement for a unified Marathi-speaking state, the subject of our next guide.