Amongst the majority of Brahmans in Kolhapur and elsewhere this proclamation, I fear, found no echo, for their hostility towards their own Maharajah had often assumed or encouraged criminal forms of violence. It had certainly not remained confined to the spiritual domain, and it became absolutely savage when, in 1902, his Highness declared that he would reserve at least half the posts in the State for qualified men of the non-Brahman communities. Under the constant inspiration of Poona, the Tilak Press waged relentless war against his Highness, preaching disaffection towards his Government, just as it preached disaffection towards the British _Raj_; and the agitation in Kolhapur itself was reinforced by the advent of a large number of Poona Brahmans who, in consequence of a recrudescence of plague, fled from that city to the Maharajah's capital. They flung themselves eagerly into the fray, and had the audacity even to start a mock "Parliament." But the Maharajah was determined to be master in his own State, and in Mr. Sabnis he had found a Prime Minister who loyally and courageously carried out his policy for the improvement of the administration and the spread of education amongst the non-Brahman castes. The Maharajah realizes that Brahman ascendency cannot be broken down permanently unless the non-Brahman castes are adequately equipped to compete with them in the public services. Amongst these there is plenty of loyalty to the ruling chief, for his Mahratta subjects have not wholly forgotten the tyranny of Chitpavan Brahman rule either under Shivaji IV.'s Prime Minister or in the less recent times of the Poona Peshwas. One of the most interesting institutions in Kolhapur is a hostel specially endowed for non-Brahman, Mahratta, Mahomedan, and Jain youths who are following the courses of the Rajaram College. The control of education plays in Kolhapur as conspicuous a part as at Poona in the struggle between the forces of order and disorder, and it is amongst the Kolhapur youth that the latter have made their most strenuous exertions and with the same lawless results.
The first organization started at Kolhapur in imitation of Poona was a Shivaji club, with which were associated bands of gymnasts, Ganpati choirs, an anti-cow-killing society, &c., all on the lines of those founded by Tilak. It was suppressed in 1900 as several of its members had been implicated in the disturbances at Bir, where a young "patriot" had proclaimed himself Rajah and collected a sufficient number of armed followers to require a military force to suppress the rebellion. The disturbances at Bir were, in fact, the starting point of that new form of political propagandism which takes the shape of dacoities or armed robberies for the benefit of the "patriotic" war-chest. After the suppression of the Kolhapur Shivaji Club, many of its leading members disappeared for a time, but only to carry on their operations in other parts of India, where they entered into relations with secret societies of a similar type. Three years later the club had been practically revived under the new name of "Belapur Swami Club," so called in honour of the late Swami of Belapur, to whose wooden slippers the members of the club were in the habit of doing worship, whilst his shrine was used as a sanctuary for sedition-mongers and a store-house for illicit weapons. "Political" dacoities were soon in vogue again, and in 1905 there was an epidemic of house-breaking in and around Kolhapur, which enriched the club with several thousands of rupees and a few arms. Seven members were finally arrested and some made full confessions. All of these except one were Brahmans and mostly quite well connected. But even those who were convicted got off with light sentences, and the campaign, which clearly had powerful aiders and abettors both inside Kolhapur and outside, was only temporarily checked.