Sudheendra Kulkarni, chaiman of the Observer Research Foundation, on Friday urged the Narendra Modi-led government to save structures associated with Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak from neglect, and restore them as national monuments. In letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the eve of Tilak’s birth anniversary Mr. Kulkarni said, “It pains me immensely to mention that the BJP-Shiv Sena government has continued the previous governments’ deplorable policy of neglect and discrimination with regard to the heritage associated with many great sons and daughters of Maharashtra and India.”
“Tilak was the foremost leader of India’s freedom struggle before Mahatma Gandhi took the mantle from him. He electrified the nation with his mantra – “Swaraj is my birth right, and I shall have it,” he said.He mentioned Sardar Gruh opposite Mumbai Police Headquaters at Crawford Market where Tilak breathed his last on August 1, 1920, the Tilak Museum in Kesari Wada in Pune where Tilak’s family still lives, and his birthplace in Chikhali in Ratnagiri district. “Sardar Gruh was once the hub of patriotic activity,” he said, “and now the façade itself is unbearably shabby though it is right in front of the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s office. Once you enter it, and climb to the fourth floor of the building where Tilak lived in a modest two-room apartment, the insult to his memory becomes manifest. Does the State Government have no money for the proper upkeep of Sardar Gruha — not to speak of its conversion into a befitting national memorial?” He said the Tilak Museum in Pune is also in poor shape with exhibits badly organised, and it does not comprehensively capture all aspects of Tilak’s life. “Unfortunately, neither the central government nor the state government gives a single rupee in financial aid to the museum. The responsibility of keeping it alive is borne by the descendants of Tilak’s family,” he said. He said that to acknowledge Tilak’s legacy, the government should put up commemorative plaques at Dongri jail, where Tilak and Agarkar spent 101 days in 1882, Shantaram Chawl, where Tilak, Gandhiji and Mohammed Ali Jinnah addressed public meetings, and Keshavji Naik Chawl in Girgaum, where he initated the Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav.
