Book Review – Mandalay’s Prisoner

Almost more than a year ago, I bought the book Mandalaycha Rajbandi. It had been making news in Marathi papers but still took me a lot of time to complete reading this book. The book is about the political life of Lokmanya Tilak and covers more than the school history books do. The book has been written by Arvind V Gokhale. Gokhale is one of the eminent journalists and columnists in Marathi press. He also worked as the editor of Kesari, Tilak's newspaper for over a decade. He has devotedly studied Tilak and the quality of the book shows it. The book is set from 1897 thro to 1914, and does not deal with the standard text book contributions of Tilak such as Ganpati Festival and famous quotes. What the book does deal with is, the British bureaucracy, handling of various administrative issues such as the plague epidemic and drought and famine, Tilak’s fiery brand of journalism and more importantly, the politics and infighting within Indian National Congress and the Congress split of 1908!

The book also deals with a lot of refreshing details of Congress Conventions and the court cases against Tilak and in my opinion in tad too many details of the editorials and opinions published in Kesari at that time. The latter could have been cut a little bit either to reduce the size of the book or to include some other details or could have been dealt with via commentary on specific sections. However, the author chose to reprint many of the editorials published at that time and all the speeches that Tilak gave in the court hearing.


Unlike during the later time, there was no category as a political prisoner and Tilak had to be part of the prison system as a common criminal. The charges in three cases were sedition and high treason of which only in the third case Tilak was acquitted. In the first case, Tilak was behind the bars for two years and in the second case, was sent off to Mandalay (via Mumbai and Ahmadabad) for a period of two days short of six years.

The book starts with a backdrop of the drought and the changes the British Government made to the laws that made life miserable. Pune also suffered from the plague epidemic and the strategies of Rand, the then Commissioner of Pune, in containing the plague caused much hardship to the people. It was under those circumstances that Tilak wrote several editorials in Kesari which caused much heartburn to the Government. Tilak may directly have instigated the Chapekar Brothers to kill Rand and naturally, he came under the scanner of the police. Curzon’s time was nothing less than tyranny and Tilak and his newspaper were on the forefront of criticism. And partition of Bengal brought about the most scathing attacks on the British.

Tilak was also a chief leader of the Congress Party at that time and had a great influence on the thought process. By the end of the first decade of 1900, the Congress was at a fork – complete independence or limited self-rule? And this created two groups – the extremists and the moderates. The tussle between the extremists and the moderates has been captured in great details. Various thought processes by Gopal Krishna Gokhale the leader of the moderates was in direct opposition to the extremist’s thought line. The extremists demanded full freedom, national education, boycott and swadeshi (use of local products). But the moderates believed this will lead to a confrontation with the government and can’t do any good to either Congress or to the cause of freedom. It is claimed that Ferozshah Mehta, Rasbihari Ghosh and others in the moderates’ camp played dirty politics to not let the extremists’ demands come on table. The venues and the possible chairman for the convention were changed many times. The moderates’ went so far as to deny Lala Lajpat Rai a chance to chair the meet lest it would make the government uncomfortable.

Tilak the leader of the extremists’ group was a strong critique of the moderates’ policies and this lead to a divide among the two groups. The Surat Convention literally led to fist fight and throwing of chairs and a split in the party.

Aggressiveness of Tilak and his criticism of the government brought him under the radar several times. The government was looking at possibilities of booking him under the clause of treason and did so eventually. In both the cases, Tilak defended himself with help of eminent lawyers. The official translation of the Marathi articles was challenged, debated and shredded apart, but the government found loopholes. In both the cases, the result was almost pre-decided before the case. Irony is that, in the first case, advocate Dawar defended Tilak but by the second case, Dawar had become a justice himself and presided over the case. During the second case, Tilak was helped by Jinnah among other lawyers and used his own intelligence to cleverly breakdown the government’s argument. His speech in the court was very remarkable, especially given that he was not even allowed notes and had to defend himself without knowing what the government’s exact stance would be. The jury was selected to heavily favor the government as well. It is claimed that Justice Dawar was very strict in his dealing with Tilak and did not heed to Tilak’s age while handing out the conviction. The only saving grace was that the rigorous imprisonment statement was abrogated to simple imprisonment.

While in Mandalay, Tilak had to undergo many hardships nevertheless. The hot and humid climate took its toll; exacerbated by age and ailments like Diabetes and Blood Pressure. Tilak also had to bear the brunt of the news of his wife’s death while in prison. The sketch of his prison life shows a sensitive caring husband and father worried about the well being of his family. The time Tilak got at the prison was well utilized in reading and writing. The silver lining of the prison may have been several books published out of the manuscripts written while in the prison.

Could Indian history have been different if the Congress were not so divided in its principles in early 1900s? Tilak had prepared not only for the fight for freedom but also how to govern once self-rule was attained. His knowledge about the Irish struggle was very deep. And his plans for Home Rule League were very concrete. May be history would have indeed been different had the Congress been united in its early days!