Bal Gangadhar Tilak, honoured as Lokmanya or 'accepted by the people', was among the foremost leaders of the early nationalist movement and is remembered for the declaration that Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it. He published the newspapers Kesari in Marathi and Mahratta in English, used the Ganesh and Shivaji festivals to build mass political participation in Maharashtra, and was one of the trio known as Lal-Bal-Pal along with Lala Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal, who represented the assertive or extremist wing of the Congress. He was tried for sedition and imprisoned in Mandalay, where he wrote the Gita Rahasya. He died on 1 August 1920, the date on which the award named after him is presented each year.

The award is a private honour from the Tilak Smarak Trust rather than a state decoration, which is what makes its recipient list interesting: it has gone to serving and former prime ministers, industrialists, scientists and now a serving national security advisor. For exam purposes the significant details are the institution behind it, the fixed date of 1 August, and the sequence of recent recipients — award questions in general awareness papers almost always test the current recipient against the previous two or three.