Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/395

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

India, and issued a statement deploring the outrages and suggesting ways and means for their prevention. But the Bureaucracy was apparently bent on putting down the Nationalists. Mr. Tilak was arrested and within a month was sent away to Ahmedabad and Mandalay; he got an opportunity, however, to declare in solemn tones a warning that repression, though temporarily successful, would only strengthen the cause he was fighting for.

And he proved a true prophet ; while he was at Mandalay, alternating his time between Religion, Philosophy, History and Mathematics, the surviving party of the Moderates tried its best to take full advantage of the Morley-Minto Reforms, as also of the inactivity of its opponents. But it quickly realized the truth, Mr. Tilak had repeatedly uttered that the Moderate could expect a little favour only when the Extremist was in the field. The Moderates were quickly disillusioned and were ready to ask for another 'boon '; the Moslems, who had accustomed them selves to be considered as the special favourites of Government, had been exasperated by the attitude of England in the Turko-Balkan and the Turko-ItaJian wars. Even Mrs. Besant, hitherto somewhat indifferent to Indian politics, had taken a plunge into the arena of our public life.

It speaks much for Mr. Tilak's elasticity of mind that soon after his return (1914) from Mandalay he took in the situation almost at a glance. Being always accustomed to place his country's interests above everything else, he was prepared to forget and forgive not only his Moderate opponents but even the