Thousands of men live happily with their wives who still haven’t reached their years of discretion. Is it not surprising then that a woman who herself lacks any sense of discrimination should tell the court her husband is not fit for her? Isn’t it more surprising still that our reformers should take up cudgels for her and raise such a big hue and cry? …Clearly there is no need to change things.
Tilak on the Rukhmabai Case, 1887 (pp. 103-04)
Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak remains an enigma to the teachers and students of Modern Indian History more than a hundred years after his death at the age of sixty-four in 1920. Unlike some other leaders of the Indian freedom struggle, Tilak does not command too many biographies. In this context the volume reviewed is a welcome addition to the literature on the late militant nationalist whose legacy remains divided between the Congress and its detractors, the Hindu Nationalists. As far as the Feminists and Dalit Bahujan scholars are concerned, their position on Tilak is clear: he was a social reactionary who upheld the laws of Manu and the general Brahminical order which passes as Sanatan Dharma in common parlance. Although Tilak supported the anti-untouchability movement, his position on caste was fundamentally different from that of Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar. Tilak’s assertion that untouchability was not sanctioned by the shastras but had to be done away with in the interest of Hindu society and unity is almost the same as that of the Hindu communalists. Where he differed from the communalists was in his opposition to British rule.