Yet this is not the whole man. You cannot say this is he, that is he. All that you can say with certainty is that he is here, he is there. Everywhere his influence reigns, his .autho###rity rules, his elusive personality pervades ; and this must be so, for it is true of all great men that they are incalculable, beyond definition. They partake of the nature of the Illimi###table and the Eternal from which they have sprung and to which they are bound. With their feet firm-set on earth and their hands among the stars, they are pointers of the way to those who search, encouragers of the faint and weary, inspirers of those breathing in deep draughts of hope.
H. 5. Polak on M. K. Gandhi.
Now that Lokamanya Tilak, the Hercules of Indian nationahsm is no more and Mahatma Gandhi has succeeded to the leadership of the country, it will not be out of place to compare and contrast some of their character estics. It goes without saying, that the lives of both Lokamanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi were dedicated to the cause of the country. Mr. Tilak had a prevision of his ultimate destiny while yet a college student. Immediately after pass###ing the LL. B. examination, he set his back on the emoluments of the legal profession and the prospect of becoming a High Court Judge and became a poor school-master. He resisted also that still greater attraction of the career of a scholar, poring over volumes and making immortal researches, — a task^ for which, he was eminently qualified — and unreserved###ly accepted the life of a public man, so wasteful of time and productive of ephemeral literature. The dedica###tion of Mr. Gandhi came a little late, but certainly not very late. Mr. Tilak’s course appears self-sought and selected ; Mr. Gandhi’s accidental and providential. Once Mr. Gandhi planted his foot in South Africa, his career was fixed and his heroic work in the Land of Diamonds will form one of the most splendid and inspi###ring chapters in the history of India. The struggle, in which he was engaged there, was eminently spiritual. It was that losing struggle, with its terrible vicissitudes that called forth all his moral and spiritual powers. With a small band of desperate and patriotic Indians, surrounded by an extremely unsymapthetic and selfish white population which was eager to take advantage of every weakness of their opponents it is small wonder that Mr. Gandhi fought out the battle on the spiritual plane. He tested and developed his powers in a struggle with opponents who depended on mere physi###cal force. " More important than even the success in our endeavours, is the development of our character in this struggle. Let success come or not, we have gained by the gain of spirituality." So said he once, while re###ferring to the South African compaign. The struggle, in which Mr. Tilak was engaged, was essentially different from this. It was largely intellectual and spiritual only partially. A vast country governed recklessly, despotically and unsympathetically by a handful of
350 LOKAMANYA TILAK
foreigners^ with the children ot the soil mostly inert, the educated class timid, weak and vacillating — such was the India, which young Tilak saw. Knowing that he was wanted for the work of uplift, he threw himself, heart and soul, into the breach. Impatient to get freedom, he wanted all to concentrate on the political issue. The Age of Con###sent controversy separated him from the bulk of the Reformers, the circumstances of the Hindu-Mahomedan riots marked him out for Bureaucratic attentions. Honours were tried, but they did not ensnare him ; and then, all the concentrated ire, of a small but powerful clique of officials burst upon him ; that too left him unnerved and undaunted. His Famine and Plague agi###tations are well-known and thev were followed in a few years by the Swadeshi Movement and then the Home Rule Propaganda. It will thus be seen, that Mr. Tilak ’s mission called forth more varied qualities of the head and the heart. His career exhibits the tacti###cal cleverness of a politician, the far-sight of a states###man, the coolness of a philosopher, the profundity of a scholar and the fervid spirit of a martyr. These differ###ent hues, imperceptibly blended with one another, make his character as charming to the historian as the rain###bow is to the artist. Mr. Gandhi’s greatness is more uniform. The rigorous discipline, with which he has built up his character, has made him as great and sacri###ficing in the petty details of his life as in his leadership of his countrymen. His dress, diet, habits, talk, every move###ment from him reflects the intense fervour of his lumi###nous spirituahty. Mr. Tilak ’s greatness was the rugged, uneven loftiness of the Himalayas ; while that of Mr^
LOKAMANYA TILAK AND MAHATMA GANDHI 35 1
Gandhi puts us in mind of a mountain-fastness with its strong-built walls and parapets, every nook and comer, properly guarded and utilised for defence. In every day life, Mr. Tilak seemed an ordinary gentleman with nothing remarkably wonderful about him. It was only when the moment for thought or action came, that you saw him at his best, with his armour on. He never liked to keep the burden of his mail on his person the whole day long. Mr. Gandhi works, in the language of Milton, always " in his great Task-Master’s eye." Every small detail of his life, private or public, is to him of the utmost account, to be regulated in accord###ance with definite principles followed with military rigour. Asleep or awake, walking or talking, in thought or action, he is the same Mahatma with his eyes fixed on High. This utter holiness of life mellows the daz###zling heroic qualities he possesses. If, for instance, Mr. Tilak’s courage blinded both friend and foe, the courage of Mr. Gandhi is most delightful to the eye because he has softened it to a point, at which we can bear its light. To a Justice Davar, Mr. Tilak would reply with proud and flashing defiance. Mr. Gandhi, equally gifted with courage would moderate its lustre with the same care with which an Indian physician medicates mercury. Mr. Tilak’s utterances seem addressed to others, Mr. Gandhi’s nothing but a loud soliloquy. While Mr. Tilak is talk###ing to others, Mr. Gandhi thinks aloud.
It is admitted on aU hands that both Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Tilak have been the two most towering leaders of the age. Their leadership too, reveals certain pecu###liarities, characteristic of the temperament of each.
352 LOKAMANYA TILAK
Both of them have been worshippers of their own cons###cience. But they have never, Hke the Moderate leaders, emphasied their disagreement with the people. Both have considered leadership to be the capacity to interpret and appreciate the national sentiment and to conduct it in the most constructive channels. But there has been one difference. During the last thiry years, Mr. Tilak, with unerring astuteness, not only understood the will of the people, but had the elasticity to interpret it in action, with the result, that his leader###ship was continuous. With regard to Mr. Gandhi, though his hands have always been on the pulse of the people, and though he has been uniformly in sympathy and general agreement with his countrymen on the political issues, still he has not always cared to lead them. When the whole of India was astir and aglow with enthusiasm under the banner of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Tilak, Mr. Gandhi, carried away by his chivalrous regard for the difficulties of John Bull, was compara###tively silent, though fully sympathetic. I am sure, if to-morrow the way to the national freedom is to lie through the Reformed Councils, Mr. Gandhi would disdain to go there and would very likely retire to his Ashram at Sabarmati. On the other hand, Mr, Tilak would have been in the Councils at the head of the mili###tant Congressmen fighting every inch of the ground with his ready, resourceful and astute brain. In fact, the intellectual and moral leadership of Mr. Tilak had immense possibilities. Born three hundred years ago,, he would have been the Shivajee of the Mahratta people ; Mr. Gandhi would have contented himself with becoming a Ramdas. Born a hundred years hence.
LOKAMANYA TILAK AND MAHATMA GANDHI 353
Mr. Tilak would be the President of the United States of India ; Mr. Gandhi, if at all he cares to join the public movement, would be the gentlest but most uncompro###mising opponent of capitalism. To take yet one in###stance more, in the 8th century, Mr. Tilak would have been the Shankaracharya of those times, driving Bud###dhism out of India with all the weapons of his wonderful scholarship. Mr. Gandhi, instead of fighting intellec###tually, would have assimilated in his character the noblest features of Buddhism and Neo-Hinduism. There is no limit to the roles Mr. Tilak would have played ; Mr. Gandhi’s parts would be few. It is impossible to think of him as we can think of Mr. Tilak, as the foreign minister of India. What, however, Mr. Tilak gains in breadth and variety, Mr. Gandhi does in depth and intensity. Hitherto there has been no political worker who has fought with spiritual weapons. To Mr. Gandhi politics is the hand-maid of spirituality ; with Mr. Tilak, the case was perhaps, the reverse. There has been, I think, no fighter in the political world in modern times who has never used a single angry word. Mr. Tilak’s love of strong language is well-known. He never hit below the belt but he gave his opponent na quarter. Mr. Gandhi’s political language has always been the language of a Buddha or a Christ. Every word he utters has a " blessing behind it and a peace before it." It is an honour to the Bureaucracy that their foremost opponent is a moral and spiritual giant. Mr. Tilak’s leadership was hard-earned and challenged at every step, while that;, of Mr. Gandhi can be described in the language of Caesar. " I came, I saw, I conquered." In his South Africaa 23
354 LOKAMANYA TILAK
I
struggles, where Mr. Gandhi forged his spiritual wea###pons, he was^the unquestioned leader of a small group of Indians, nobly, though hopelessly, trying to assert their manhood ; when he returned to India, to his own province, the throne of political leadership was empty. His leadership of the Non-co-operation propoganda, too, is absolute and he has no second. Mr. Tilak had con###tinuously to struggle against a strong combination of leaders from whose views he differed. In the very be###ginning of his political career, in the early nineties, he had to" put up a strong fight against such stalwarts as Ranade, Telang, Mehta and Bhandarkar, while the second rank of leaders too, contained such brilliant personalities as Messrs. Agarkar and Chandavarkar. In the essentially spiritual fight of to-day, the brilliant galaxy of intellectual leaders has to sit at the feet of the towering spiritual personality of Mr. Gandhi, and the only leader who possessed in a pre-eminent degree that spiritual spark which has made Mr. Gandhi invin###cible has, unfortunately for Mr. Gandhi and for us all, passed away on the fateful first of August 1920 !
The general run of political workers, all over the world, have so little to say to humanity at large. To suffering, struggling and questioning humanity, they have no message ; what little they teach is only indirect###ly, as a result of the better part of their activities. Their minds are insular and cannot leave the usual groove of thoughts. Their time is not their own, the dust and heat of controversy is distracting and des###tructive of concentration. It is not therefore surpri###sing that so few of the Indian leaders have to say some###thing new, something worth hearing on the pro-
LOKAMANYA TILAK AND MAHATMA GANDHI 355
blems of humanity. So far as I know, it is only Mrs. Besant, Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Tilak and Mr. Arabindo Ghose who have given us their out###look on some of the questions, confronting mankind. We may leave the names of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Ghose as not bearing upon our subject here. While, both Tilak and Gandhi have deUvered their message to mankind, each has done so in a characteristic way. Mr. Tilak’s message is general ; Mr. Gandhi’s is particu###lar. With his intellectual sweep, Mr. Tilak absorbed in his own brain the culture of the East and the West and has given us the gospel of his Karma Yoga. Mr. Gandhi has put all the institutions and leading thoughts of the modern civilization to the touch-stone of his truthful, pure, and loving heart and has condemned them as grossly material. To the nations madly careering after the senses, Mr. Tilak cries ’ Halt ’ and bids them look inward. Mr. Gandhi also, would stop them and tell them to reform their life and institutions. Mr. Tilak gives them the key to introspection and self###elevation in ’ work without motive ;’ Mr. Gandhi calls upon them to destroy the machine-made, machine###dependant and machine-making soul-less civilization and on its ruins build a purer, grander and simpler life. The intellectual boldness of Mr. Tilak enabled him to free himself from the shackles of all commentators and study tlie message of Lord Krishna at first hand ; while the moral intrepidity of Mr. Gandhi throws away###all cant and book-lore and having unfalteringly examin###ed each detail of modem Ufe and civilization, accepts or rejects it, according as it agrees with his basic ideals. In the enforced leisure at Mandalay, Mr, Tilak has given
356 LOKAMANYA TILAK
his message that intellectual setting, without which» no message, however grand, can be expected to last permanently ; happy would be the day when some fol###lower of Mr. Gandhi would present his master’s thoughts with all the intellectual paraphernalia of science, eco###nomics and sociology.