'Has
The Government Gone Mad?'
A youth, enraged by the senselessness of the
government's anti-plague measures, shot the Special Plague Officer Rand dead. The police
reacted violently and acts of injustice and cruelty multiplied.
Tilak's blood boiled.
Under the title "Has the Government gone mad?" Tilak condemned in the 'Kesari'
the immoral acts of the govern ment.
Tilak's pungent writings made the government tremble. The government came to the
conclusion that if Tilak was free it could not survive. By some means or the other Tilak
must be locked upbehind the bars.
The government suspected that Tilakmight have had a hand in Rand's murder! It took
objection to a poem and an article on Shivaji published in the 'Kesari', and impris oned
Tilak in 1897.
Tilak was charged with writing articles instigating die people to rise against the
government and to break the laws and disturb the peace. He was sentenced to a year and a
half's rigorous imprisonment.
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