Gokhale was always ready to co-operate against the forces of religious
superstition, he had left disciples ready to carry on the good fight.
Tilak raised against them a storm of passion and prejudice. In the
columns of the _Kesari_, of which he had become sole proprietor, he
denounced every Hindu who supported the measure as a renegade and a
traitor to the cause of Hinduism, and thus won the support of
conservative orthodoxy, which had hitherto viewed with alarm some of his
literary excursions into the field of Vedantic exegesis. With the help
of the brothers Natu, who were the recognized leaders of Hindu
orthodoxy, he carried his propaganda into the schools and colleges in
the teeth of the Moderate party, and, proclaiming that unless they
learnt to employ force the Hindus must expect to be impotent witnesses
of the gradual downfall of all their ancient institutions, he proceeded
to organize gymnastic societies in which physical training and the use
of more or less primitive weapons were taught in order to develop the
martial instincts of the rising generation.

If amongst many Brahmans of Maharashtra hatred of the British is the
dominant passion, amongst the Mahratta population at large whatever
there is of racial and religious jealousy is mainly directed against the
Mahomedans. This is partly, no doubt, a legacy of the old days of
Mahomedan supremacy. In 1893 some riots in Bombay of a more severe
character than usual gave Tilak an opportunity of broadening the new
movement by enlisting in its support the old anti-Mahomedan feeling of
the people. He not only convoked popular meetings in which his fiery
eloquence denounced the Mahomedans as the sworn foes of Hinduism, but he
started an organization known as the "Anti-Cow-Killing Society," which
was intended and regarded as a direct provocation to the Mahomedans,
who, like ourselves, think it no sacrilege to eat beef. In vain did
liberal Hindus appeal to him to desist from these inflammatory methods.