Who dares to call that man a murderer who, when only nine years old, had received Divine inspiration not to bow down before a Mahomedan Emperor?  Who dares to condemn Shivaji for disregarding a minor duty in the performance of a major one?  Had Shivaji committed five or fifty crimes more terrible, I would have been equally ready to prostrate myself not once but one hundred times before the image of our lord Shivaji ...  Every Hindu, every Mahratta must rejoice at this spectacle, for we too are all striving to regain our lost independence, and it is only by combination that we can throw off the yoke.

Tilak himself was even more outspoken:—­

It is needless to make further researches as to the killing of Afzul Khan.  Let us even assume that Shivaji deliberately planned and executed the murder.  Was the act good or evil?  This question cannot be answered from the standpoint of the Penal Code or of the laws of Manu or according to the principles of morality laid down in the systems of the West or of the East.  The laws which bind society are for common folk like you and me.  No one seeks to trace the genealogy of a Rishi or to fasten guilt upon a Maharaj.  Great men are above the common principles of morality.  Such principles do not reach to the pedestal of a great man.  Did Shivaji commit a sin in killing Afzul Khan?  The answer to this question can be found in the Mahabharata itself.  The Divine Krishna teaching in the Gita tells us we may kill even our teachers and our kinsmen, and no blame attaches if we are not actuated by selfish desires.  Shivaji did nothing from a desire to fill his own belly.  It was in a praiseworthy object that he murdered Afzul Khan for the good of others.  If thieves enter our house and we have not strength to drive them out, should we not without hesitation shut them in, and burn them alive?  God has conferred on the mlencchas (foreigners) no grant of Hindustan inscribed on imperishable brass.  Shivaji strove to drive them forth out of the land of his birth, but he was guiltless of the sin of covetousness.  Do not circumscribe your vision like frogs in a well.  Rise above the Penal Code into the rarefied atmosphere of the sacred Bhaghavad Gita and consider the action of great men.

In the reflected blaze of this apotheosis of Shivaji, Tilak stood forth as the appointed leader of the “nation.”  He was the triumphant champion of Hindu orthodoxy, the high-priest of Ganesh, the inspired prophet of a new “nationalism,” which in the name of Shivaji would cast out the hated mlencchas and restore the glories of Mahratta history.  The Government feared him, for people could put no other construction on the official confirmation of his election when he was returned in 1895 as a member of the Bombay Legislative Council—­above all, when inside the Council-room he continued with the same audacity and the same impunity his campaign of calumny and insult.  His activity was unceasing.  He disdained