MEANWHILE the Russian revolution of 1905 had failed but not before it had inspired the entire international working class movement with a new vision and with a brand new weapon: the mass political strike. When Bipin Chandra Pal was arrested, the Calcutta journal Nabasakti wrote on 14 September, 1907: “The workers of Russia today are teaching the world the methods of effective protest in times of repression – will not Indian workers learn from them?”

This anticipation soon came true in Bombay. The arrest of Tilak on 24 June, 1908 provoked a storm of protest not only in Bombay but also in industrial centres like Nagpur and Sholapur. While court proceedings were on, workers would explode in protest and clashes would ensue with the police and military. In one of these street battles, on 18 July, several hundred workers were wounded and many killed. The next day some 65,000 workers belonging to 60-odd mills went on strike. Dock workers of Bombay also joined the movement on 21 July. On July 22, Tilak was sentenced to six years of rigorous imprisonment. In protest, for six days striking workers converted Bombay into a veritable battle field.

Lenin hailed this heroic assertion of Bombay workers as an inflammable material in world politics: “... in India the street is beginning to stand up for its writers and political leaders. The infamous sentence pronounced by the British jackals on the Indian democrat Tilak ... evoked street demonstrations and a strike in Bombay. In India, too, the proletariat has already developed to conscious political mass struggle — and, that being the case, the Russian-style British regime in India is doomed!”