Lokamanya Tilak (1856–1920) represents the full tide of ideological activity in the Indian Nationalist movement. Long overshadowed by his younger contemporary, Gandhi, his life and thought are only now, a third of a century after his death, receiving due recognition.

Prior to his entrance upon the political stage, Indian leadership afforded the spectacle of a rather polite debating society which accepted British ideals and values as almost axiomatic. Protests against government policies consisted of thoughtfully worded petitions calculated to appeal to the sense of reason and fair play of officials. Tilak saw little profit in such method, but his rivals in the Nationalist leadership, particularly G. K. Gokhale, were wedded to the traditions of British parliamentary procedure.

Eleutheromania is defined by one lexicographer as “a frantic zeal for freedom.” This frantic zeal for casting off former linguistic shackles (or what seemed to be shackles) has led to some problems that are worth examining here.

Before launching into an analysis of Indonesian problems I might recall similar and probably more familiar situations of the past hundred years in Europe and Asia. The newly unified states of Germany and Italy suffered some of the same growing pains during their consolidation, but linguistically their situations were widely different. The Trecento in Italy left a language that has been able to resist encroachment gently yet firmly enough to forestall both xenomania and xenophobia. German has had both Luther and Goethe as great unifying literary forces, but Gallomania and Gallophobia have alternated to provide sociolinguistic attitudes comparable in a remote way with those besetting the Indonesians, Malays, Indians, and Pakistanis.