Eternal India Encyclopedia

Poona but at sixteen Tilak was an orphan. A self-reliant but physically weak youth, he devoted a year to building up his physique with exercises. After receiving his BA he took a B achelor of Law degree but refused to enter government service. He started a school and two newspapers to spread Western knowledge among the people of Maharashtra. He helped found the Deccan Education Society and Fergusson Colleges. Opposed the reform programme of Angarkar and Gokhale and resigned from the group in 1890. Tilak purchased from the group the Marathi weekly, Kesari (The Lion), which he had named and helped to edit its English counterpart, The Mahratta. His Marathi style was effective and influenced his readers. Tilak also promoted in his papers the celebration of two festivals, one dedicated to the Hindu god Ganesha and the other honouring the Maratha hero, Shivaji. His purpose in organising these two festivals was to develop in the Maratha people a sense of pride in their common history and religion. Tilak's success in creating popular enthusiasm through these activities alarmed the British after the assassination of two British officials in Poona in 1897. Tilak was accused of fomenting hatred towards the officials with his Kesari articles and sentenced to jail for 18 months. The agitation in 1905 against the partition of Bengal found him in the forefront. His cry "Freedom is my birthright and I will have it" swept the country. When the extremists failed to wrest control from the moderates at the 1907 congress session Tilak defied the Chairman whereupon the meeting degenerated into a riot. He was again arrested and tried for fostering political assassination in his speeches and writing. He was sentenced to six-year rigorous imprisonment in Mandalay, Upper Burma. He returned to his Sanskrit studies in prison and wrote a lengthy commentary on the Bhagavad Gita in which he stressed that the sacred poem preached political as well as religious activity and hinted that violence in a righteous cause was morally justifiable. By the time of his death in 1920, Tilak favoured contesting the elections under the Montagu - Chelmsford Reforms of 1919 in contrast to Gandhi who wished to boycott them. Tilak was described as the "Father of Indian Unrest" by the British journalist, Valentine Chirol.

wives were Brahmo widows. He joined the Presidency College Calcutta, failed twice but later became a great scholar, journalist and writer. Started Bengali weekly "Paridarsak". Started daily Bande Mataram whose Editor was Aurobindo Ghose. Was introduced to Congress by Sivnath Shastri in 1877. In 1886 attended his first Congress session as a delegate. Went to prison as he refused to give evidence against Aurobindo in Bande Mataram sedition case. He fought for India's freedom. Advocated complete independence for India long before the Congress adopted it as its goal. He passed away on May 20,1932. Jagdish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) Born in Rarikhal in Bengal in 1858, J.C. Bose's contribution to physics and plant physiology was of a very high order. As a child in his nsative village he was interested in insects, fish and even water-snakes and as a grown-up student of St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, he had animal pets and spent a lot of time on their housing and care. Because of his fondness for animals he would have studied zoology but since Calcutta University did not offer zoology as a subject in those days he learnt physics under Professor Lafont of St. Xavier's College? After getting his B.A. from Calcutta University he went to Cambridge where he did research in physics and obtained his D.Sc. in 1896. In 1897 he was invited by the British Association to address its Liverpool session where he delivered a lecture outlining his researches on electric waves using a microwave spectrometer with a transmitter and a receiver constructed by himself. Later he took up investigations which showed that not only animal life but also plant tissues under different kinds of stimuli display similar electrical responses. He also noticed a parallel between the behaviour of inert matter and living matter. Bose therefore deserted physics to study plants and animals. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920. Three years earlier he had established a research institute called the Bose Institute and was its Director till his death in 1937. In his address at the inaugural function of the Institute Bose observed: "I am attempting to carry out the traditions of my country which so far back as 25 centuries ago, welcomed all scholars from different parts of the world within the precincts of the ancient seats of learning at Nalanda and Taxila." M. Visvesvaraya (1861-1962) Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born

in the village of Muddenahalli near the town of Chikballapur in Mysore state as Karnataka was then known. His parents had migrated from Mokshagundam village in the Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh. His father Srinivasa Sastry was a student of the shastras, and was an astrologer and physician. After completing his early education in Chikballapur, he joined the Central College, Bangalore. Thereafter he joined the College of Science in Poona (the engineering college was then called by that name) with a scholarship from Mysore state. He passed his engineering examination standing first and joined service in 1884 as an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department of the Government of Bombay. He became Executive Engineer and Superintending Engineer superseding as many as 18 of his seniors. He could not become Chief Engineer as this post was then the preserve of the British. He requested retirement from service in 1908 when he was only 47. In 1909 he was invited to join the Mysore state service as Chief Engineer. He accepted on condition that he was allowed to encourage education and industries. He designed and completed the Krishnaraja Sagar Dam, the largest in India at that time, and initiated the Iron and Steel Works at Bhadravati. He was instrumental in setting up the Mysore University in 1916, the first university to come up in any Indian state. He retired from the Dewanship in 1919 but continued to be active as Chairman of the Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works and in touring the advanced countries of the West to see for himself the secret of their prosperity and dynamism. When smaller countries with fewer resources could progress so rapidly he could not understand why his own people should be content waiting for things to happen. In one of his books he wrote, "A consciousness should be roused in the Indian mind that a better state of things exists outside and a vastly better state of things could be brought into existence in India itself if the people willed and worked for the same. " He was one of the earliest advocates of a planned economy and spelt out his ideas in a book Planned Economy for India, (1934). He was one of the first to think of raising a Public Debt for reconstruction and progress : "No leading modem nation has reached its present prosperous position without being in debt during the time it was building up its assets or wealth." He was always properly dressed in coat and tie topped with laced Mysore turban., methodical and punctual. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955.

Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932)

He was born in a zamindar family in Sylhet District. He was against the caste system and that made him join the Brahmo Samaj. Twice married his first and second