CHAPTER X
THE NEW PARTY
Bal Gangadhar Tilak is a Maratha Brahmin, thinker and fighter in one. His is the brain that conceived, his is the pen that expressed, his is the force that has directed the extra-ordinary movement against which the bureaucracy is now calling up all its resources.
THE year 1905 forms a land-mark in Indian History. In that year was carried out the fatal Partition of Bengal. The whole Province was thrown into a ferment. The Bengalis heartily disliked the odius measure. Appeals were made, monster petitions were sent to the Parliament. Then came the Bycott. It encouraged Swadeshism. The Swadeshi movement quickly out-grew its economic or political nature and became a movement for National Regeneration. The Nation called for Swadeshism in dress, in diet, in habits, in life, in arts, in literature, in science, in religion and philosophy. Swadeshism thus became an all-pervading spiriritual movement directed against the Western Civilisation which the British Government represented and symbolized. The Boycott bade fair to develop into a movement of Passive Resistance. Young men enrolled themselves as National Volunteers for peaceful participation in public life. The Government retaliated with the Risley Circular and the Carlyle Circular. The
