Lokmanya Tilak National Award
Recently Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi was honored with Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune, Maharashtra.
The Prime Minister has donated the prize money to the Namami Gange project.
About Lokmanya Tilak National Award
- The award was instituted by the Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust in 1983 to honor the legacy of Lokmanya Tilak.
- It is presented every year on August 1, the death anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak.
- It is awarded to those people who have worked for the progress and development of the nation and whose contribution can only be seen as remarkable and extraordinary.
- The Prime Minister became the 41st recipient of this award. It has earlier been presented to luminaries like Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Smt. Indira Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Shri NR Narayana Murthy, E. Sreedharan.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- Bal Gangadhar Tilak was an Indian social reformer and freedom fighter. He was one of the principal architects of modern India and probably the strongest advocate of Swaraj or self-rule for India.
- His famous declaration “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it” served as an inspiration to future revolutionaries during India’s freedom struggle.
- The British government called him the “Father of the Indian Unrest”, and his followers gave him the title of ‘Lokmanya’, which means one who is revered by the people.
- Lokmanya Tilak started the Deccan Educational Society with college batchmates, Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, with the aim of inspiring nationalist education among Indian students.
- Parallel to his teaching activities, Tilak established two newspapers, the ‘Kesari’ in Marathi and the ‘Maratha’ in English.
- Gangadhar Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in 1890. His article inspired the Chapekar brothers and they carried out the assassination on June 22, 1897, of Commissioner Rand Ayerst and Lt.
- As a result, Tilak was imprisoned for 18 months for abetting the murder. During 1908-1914, Bal Gangadhar Tilak had to undergo six years of rigorous imprisonment in Mandalay Jail in Burma.
- He openly supported the revolutionaries Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki’s 1908 attempt to assassinate Douglas Kingsford, the Chief Presidency Magistrate. During the years of imprisonment he continued to write and the most prominent among them was Gita Rahasya.
- Tilak founded the All India Home Rule League in 1916 along with Joseph Baptista, Annie Besant and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Tilak proposed grand celebrations on ‘Ganesh Chaturthi’ and ‘Shivaji Jayanti’. Bal Gangadhar Tilak never became the President of the Indian National Congress.
Source – Indian Express
