Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak

   Bal Gangadhar Tilak, by name Lokamanya (born July 23, 1856, Ratnagiri [now in Maharashtra state], India—died on August 1, 1920, Bombay [now Mumbai]), scholar, mathematician, philosopher, and militant nationalist who helped lay the foundation for India’s independence by building his own defiance of British rule into a national movement. He founded (1914) and served as President of the Indian Home Rule League.

   In 1916 he concluded the Lucknow Pact with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, which provided for Hindu-Muslim unity in the nationalist struggle.

Early life and career

    Tilak was born into a cultured middle-class Brahman family. Although his birth place was Bombay (Mumbai), he was raised in a village along the Arabian Sea coast in what is now Maharashtra state until the age of 10, when his father, an educator and noted grammarian, took a job in Poona (now....