THE TILAK SCHOOL OF POLITICS

THE Tilak School of Politics, whose constitution as well as prospectus for the year 1921-22 were published in recent issues of The Tribune, is the first institution of its kind in India. Its subjects include education in politics, economics, sociology, social psychology, journalism, etc., independent of any official University, to train political workers, to provide facilities for research in social sciences, to prepare and publish books on these subjects in the vernaculars of India, and to establish and maintain a well-equipped library in connection with this institution. The bare recital of these objects is enough to show that there is no institution in the country with the exception of the Servants of India Society which has anything in common with the new School, that between the Servants of India Society itself and this School, there is far greater difference than agreement, and that an institution on those lines has always been a real desideratum. There is, indeed, need for trained political theorisers and workers everywhere, but nowhere are they more needed than in a country in the position of India, where, just because of its abnormal political situation, there is almost equal danger of a lack of political intelligence and a lack of political enthusiasm, where, unlike in free and self-governing countries, people do not imbibe political ideas with their mothers’ milk and do not get habituated to political practice as they get habituated to their daily life. In such a country the attitude of the average educated man towards political problems alternates between indifference, apathy and too great a readiness to acquiesce on the one hand, and an excess of idealistic enthusiasm on the other. The sane, steady worker with regulated enthusiasm, who is the backbone of progressive political life, either does not exist or is at a discount. Up to a certain stage, this is inevitable.