Presenter
Prashant kidambi - -Panel
104 – Political Trials and the making of ‘India’Abstract
In popular perception and academic writings, Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) is associated with two famous trials: in 1897, for inciting ‘disaffection’ against the colonial government and causing the murder of two British officials in Poona; and in 1908, for writing ‘seditious’ articles in his newspaper Kesari that justified revolutionary violence in Bengal. Yet, Tilak’s entanglements with the law were a running theme throughout this political career. In 1882, he was jailed for 101 days in a defamation case against the Diwan of Kolhapur; in the early 1900s, he became embroiled in the infamous ‘Tai Maharaj’ case which consumed his energies until the end of his life; and in 1916, colonial authorities tried (and failed) to implicate him in yet another sedition case. Tilak too used the law to counter colonial allegations about his ‘seditious’ activities. In 1899, he sued the Times of India for defamation. Two decades later, he launched a case against Valentine Chirol, the Times journalist who called him the ‘Father of Indian Unrest’. Drawing on these cases, this paper explores the place of the law in the construction of Tilak’s identity as a political subject. In particular, it will attempt to assess the ways in which law simultaneously functioned as a site of interpellation and resistance in Tilak’s career as an anti-colonial activist.
