This is the way we treat the Lokmanya's memory!

Swaraj, he taught us, is our birthright.

His own birthplace, we learn today, is nobody's business.

Today, the two-storeyed building in Ratnagiri, in which Bal Gangadhar Tilak was born, way back on July 23, 1856, and where he lived till 1866, lies in a shambles -- so much for the hype and hysteria surrounding the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.

In July 1956, the government had acquired the Tilak home and converted it into a memorial. Or, to be more accurate, set up a committee to explore ways and means of carrying out the conversion, and to acquire funds for the same.

The committee took several years to acquire the home from the Gore family, which owned it at the time. And many more years before a bust of Tilak was installed in the premises.

The house, 140-odd years old now and boasting something like 10 rooms, was being cared for by the local public works department. And besides the bust, assorted literature on the life of Tilak were placed on display therein, as also the pagdi (head gear) that was as much a part of his persona as the rose was that of Nehru. Around this time, the site was handed over to the Archeology department of the government.

Tilak's father, a teacher, moved to Pune when the former was ten years old, and the family never did move back to Ratnagiri afterwards. In the last years of his life, Bal Gangadhar Tilak often expressed a desire to return to the place of his birth, without however ever managing to fulfill that ambition.

Meanwhile, as Tilak attained national prominence, Gore's widow kept the house intact, proudly displaying it to random visitors.

Today, the widow Gore does not exist. The birthplace of Tilak does exist -- but only just.

A few years ago, Congress leader and Tilak's grandson Jayantrao Tilak visited the site and expressed his displeasure at the evident neglect he saw there.

His words have had no visible impact. For today, amidst all the celebrations, the speeches and pontifications, the festivities attending on India's 50th anniversary of Independence, the home of one of the foremost figures of the Indian freedom movement stands as mute testimony to the underlying apathy that is increasingly becoming a national characteristic.