Tilak's 'Gita Rahasya' is still relevant

There is little doubt that Tilak's 'Gita Rahasya' was a nationalist text, but when looked at more deeply, it is a work of civilisational renewal.

- SANTISHREE DHULIPUDI PANDIT

Bal Gangadhar Tilak's "Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Rahasya", composed during his imprisonment in Mandalay between 1908 and 1914, was not just an act of personal intellectual labour but an urgent intervention for the rejuvenation of the Bharatiya consciousness. Tilak believed that freedom for India could not be secured solely through political struggle or constitutional reform, but a side-by-side reawakening of the civilisational mind was essential.

In such a sense, for Tilak, the Bhagavad Gita had an essential role. It was not a relic to be worshipped from a distance, but a text to be lived, a manual for purposeful action, ethical clarity, and service to the larger community. At the heart of "Gita Rahasya" lies his bold reinterpretation of the Gita's core teaching: that life's highest calling is to perform one's duty without attachment to the results.

Tilak saw nishkam karmayoga not as an ascetic withdrawal from the world, but as a call to enter life's struggles with discipline and detachment. This insight carried political urgency in the nationalist movement of his day; today, it carries ethical urgency for a world facing crises of trust, leadership, and purpose. In the IKS tradition, philosophical texts are not frozen in time. They are subject to reinterpretation to meet the needs of changing eras. Tilak's work embodies this tradition, using indigenous interpretative methods like the Mimamsa framework to challenge dominant readings and make the Gita speak to the pressing issues of his age and ours.