412 Tilak, B G Texans A few weeks later, in the decisive engagement of the war, on the afternoon of April 21, 1836, General Houston, at the command of some 900 men, launched a surprise attack on the Mexican army encamped on the banks of the San Jacinto River The battle was over in less than 20 minutes Houston later reported 630 Mexicans killed and 730 taken prisoner, with fewer than 40 Texan casualties The next day, Santa Ana was found hiding in the brush, taken prisoner, compelled to sign two treaties effectively granting Texan independence, and sent back to Mexico City The Mexican government later refused to recognize Texan independence Texas twice applied for annexation to the United States (in 1836 and 1844) but was prevented by a coalition of northern senators fearing the addition of another slave state to the Union Texas joined the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845, its foundational mythologies becoming an integral part of the expanding nation’s stock of shared stories—especially events at the Alamo—mythologies that glorified Anglo Texans’ heroism, decried the treachery of the Mexicans, and elided the contradictions of a struggle for freedom waged by men holding slaves in perpetual bondage The state’s strong sense of nationalism endures to this day Further Reading Hardin, Stephen L Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994; Lack, Paul D The Texas Revolutionary Experience: A Political and Social History College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992 Michael J Schroeder Tilak, B G (1856–1920) Indian nationalist leader Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a prominent militant nationalist leader of the Indian freedom movement against British rule He was born in Ratnagiri to a family of Brahmans in 1856 His father was an officer in the educational department Tilak passed the bachelor of arts examination from Deccan College in 1879 and received a bachelor of law from Elphinston College, Bombay (now Mumbai) He was one of the founders of the New English School, Pune, and taught there in 1880 The success of the school encouraged him and his colleagues to set up the Deccan Educational Society in October 1884, and the following year the society opened Fergusson College Tilak also led influential newspapers—Kesari and Mahratta, in Marathi and English respectively—in 1881 Tilak was a radical in politics, but he was not a socialist He opposed the Age of Consent Act of 1891, saying that the British were interfering in the social life of Hindus Tilak was strongly resistant to British rule, advocating an agenda of social conservatism and a return to a golden Hindu past He became the extremist leader of Indian politics against moderates like G K Gokhale In the 1890s he championed the cause of peasants and criticized the plague prevention policies of the British government Tilak was sentenced to prison for 18 months on charges of sedition Tilak was interested in the Indian National Congress (INC) right from its inception in 1885, and he was elected its joint secretary in 1895 He was elected to the Bombay Legislative Council in the same year When Viceroy Lord Curzon partitioned the province of Bengal in 1905, Tilak joined those who opposed it and plunged into a swadeshi (indigenous) movement to advocate a boycott on British goods The agitation galvanized the masses in a boycott of foreign goods Tilak and his supporters dominated the INC session of 1906, which endorsed the idea of swaraj, or selfgovernment The result was a split between moderates and the extreme nationalists at the Surat session of the INC in 1907, with Gokhale emerging as a leader of the moderates In June 1908 Tilak was arrested in a bombing case and charged with sedition Tilak defended himself brilliantly but was sentenced to six years of imprisonment After his release Tilak formed the Indian Home Rule League in 1916, which collaborated closely with the Home Rule League of Annie Besant Both leagues demanded Home Rule or self-government for India after the end of World War I Because the moderates and extremists of the Congress had realized that a split among them was not serving Indian freedom, Tilak and his supporters returned to Congress again in 1916 Tilak was among those who signed the famous Lucknow Pact, which endorsed a Hindu-Muslim rapprochement He then went to England in 1918 to open a branch of the Home Rule League, garnering the support of many Labour party leaders He caught pneumonia and died on August 1, 1920, in Bombay His courage, patriotism, and devotion guided latter-day freedom fighters Mohandas Gandhi honored him as the “maker of modern India.” See also Aligarh College and movement; British East India Company