Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 23tured with the native traditions. When the Age of Consent Bill of 1891
proposed to increase a girl's age of consent to her marriage from 10 to 12,
Tilak fiercely criticized that and emerged as the champion of orthodox
nationalism. Invoking the Hindu scriptures and philosophy for the mod-
ern political purposes, he founded the Anti-Cow-Killing Society, and this
orthodox spirit of aggressive nationalism also crystallized in the form of
organizations such as the Society for the Removal of Obstacles to Hindu
Religion. The British government's interest in perpetuating the religious
superstitions and beliefs and keeping the people resigned to their "fate"
resulted in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 and other such declarations
assuring the orthodox forces free hand in social and religious exploitation.
Tilak also delved into history to find inspiration for the present and came
up with the idea of Shivaji festival.
Tilak's integral nationalism was accorded philosophico-spiritual sub-
limity by other extremists such as Pal and Ghose, for whom independence
was to be more of a spiritual uplift than political progress. When they
recognized the need to give predominance to material questions, they
replaced the "defense of Dharma and cow" with the Swadeshi program
(encouraging the use of indigenous articles and boycotting foreign ones).
As Roy puts it, this revealed "the inherent impotency of the reactionary
tendencies that ran through its ideological structure." However, the mod-
erates were forced to adopt Swadeshi in the 21st session of the Congress
in 1906 and boycotting British goods in 1907. When the moderates tried
to rescue the Congress from the extremists, it resulted in a split in 1907,
and with the persecution of the latter by the British, their politics broke
down.^26
The indigenous nationalism of the Lal-Bal-Pal trinity of the pre-
Gandhian era had a very different conception of and convictions about
the Indian nation from the nineteenth-century liberal and moderate
nationalisms. P. D. Saggi argues that the extremists were motivated by a
strong sense of wrong, equipped with a unique historical interpretation,
and tried to reawaken the people with original thinking, singular cour-
age, and personal risks. With them the Indian "nationalism became posi-
tive and confident."^27 Lal(a Lajpat Rai) asserted that India was practically
independent until the twelfth century, and the subsequent six centuries of
Muslim rule was not foreign domination either because the Muslim rulers
"adopted the country, made it their home, married and raised children
there and became the sons of the soil." Emphasizing the alien character of
the British rule and their economic exploitation, he demanded "a position
of equality" for India. He insisted on Hindu-Muslim unity not "as a mea-
sure of political expediency" but "as a fundamental doctrine of our faith."
Having traveled in Japan, the United States, and Britain, he assured the
people that "we are inferior to none on the face of the earth." He added,
"If we had learnt the art of telling lies on a broad scale, if we had swept