of the “foreigner”—­and mlenccha, the term employed for “foreigner,” applied equally to Europeans and to Mahomedans—­as well as for tumultuous processions only too well calculated to provoke affrays with the Mahomedans and with the police, which in turn led to judicial proceedings that served as a fresh excuse for noisy protests and inflammatory pleadings.  With the Ganpati celebrations the area of Tilak’s propaganda was widely increased.

But the movement had yet to be given a form which should directly appeal to the fighting instincts of the Mahrattas and stimulate active disaffection by reviving memories of olden times when under Shivaji’s leadership they had rolled back the tide of Musulman conquest and created a Mahratta Empire of their own.  The legends of Shivaji’s prowess still lingered in Maharashtra, where the battlemented strongholds which he built crown many a precipitous crag of the Deccan highlands.  In a valley below Pratabghar the spot is still shown where Shivaji induced the Mahomedan general, Afzul Khan, to meet him in peaceful conference half-way between the contending armies, and, as he bent down to greet his guest, plunged into his bowels the famous “tiger’s claw,” a hooked gauntlet of steel, while the Mahratta forces sprang out of ambush and cut the Mahomedan army to pieces.  But if Shivaji’s memory still lived, it belonged to a past which was practically dead and gone.  Only a few years, before an Englishman who had visited Shivaji’s tomb had written to a local newspaper calling attention to the ruinous condition into which the people of Maharashtra had allowed the last resting-place of their national hero to fall.  Some say it was this letter which first inspired Tilak with the idea of reviving Shivaji’s memory and converting it into a living force.  Originally it was upon the great days of the Poona Peshwas that Tilak had laid the chief stress, and he may possibly have discovered that theirs were not after all names to conjure with amongst non-Brahman Mahrattas, who had suffered heavily enough at their hands.  At any rate, Tilak brought Shivaji to the forefront and set in motion a great “national” propaganda which culminated in 1895 in the celebration at all the chief centres of Brahman activity in the Deccan of Shivaji’s reputed birthday, the principal commemoration being held under Tilak’s own presidency at Raighar, where the Mahratta chieftain had himself been crowned.  What was the purpose and significance of this movement may be gathered from a Shlok or sacred poem improvised on this occasion by one of Tilak’s disciples who to acquire sinister notoriety.

Let us be prompt like Shivaji to engage in desperate enterprises.  Take up your swords and shields and we shall cut off countless heads of enemies.  Listen!  Though we shall have to risk our lives in a national war, we shall assuredly shed the life-blood of our enemies.

It was on the occasion of the Shivaji “coronation festivities” that the right—­nay, the duty—­to commit murder for political purposes was first publicly expounded.  With Tilak in the chair, a Brahman professor got up to vindicate Shivaji’s bloody deed:—­