Who among the following edited newspaper Kesari which became one of the…

Concept

During the Indian freedom struggle, newspapers were a primary tool political leaders used to build public opinion and organise opposition to British rule. Every major nationalist paper of the era is tied to the specific person who edited it during its politically defining years, so identifying that person means matching the paper's name, language, and politics to its actual editor rather than guessing from the general period.

Application

Kesari (Marathi, "The Lion") was launched in January 1881 by Bal Gangadhar Tilak together with Gopal Ganesh Agarkar and Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, with Agarkar serving as its first editor while Tilak initially edited the allied English paper Mahratta. In 1887, after a rift over priorities -- Agarkar favoured social reform first, Tilak favoured political freedom first -- Agarkar left to start his own paper, and Tilak took over as Kesari's editor, a position he held (with N. C. Kelkar standing in during Tilak's own imprisonments, notably in 1897 and 1908-1914) until his death in 1920. Under Tilak, Kesari attacked repressive British policies, opposed the Age of Consent Bill as colonial interference in Indian social custom, faced sedition prosecution over articles linked to the 1897 Chapekar-brothers episode, and popularised his slogan "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it" -- making it one of the most influential and most frequently prosecuted nationalist papers of its time.

Contrast

• Jyotirao Phule is remembered for nineteenth-century social reform -- founding the Satyashodhak Samaj and campaigning for women's and lower-caste education -- not for editing a nationalist political newspaper; his written legacy lies in works such as Gulamgiri, a different genre altogether.

• Mahatma Gandhi's editorial work is tied to journals he personally founded decades later -- Young India, Navajivan, and Harijan -- as vehicles for his own satyagraha campaigns; he had no editorial role in this earlier Extremist-era Marathi paper.

• Lala Lajpat Rai built his own journalistic platform in Punjab rather than editing this Maharashtra-based paper.

Result

Kesari's editor, as described in the question, was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who took charge of the paper in 1887 and led it -- bar brief interim stints by N. C. Kelkar during his imprisonments -- until 1920.