"Idolaters." The Mohammedans had no love for the British, but they hated the Hindus, and they saw in the British Raj a bulwark against the potential menace of hereditary enemies who outnumbered them nearly five to one. Thus the Mohammedans denounced Hindu nationalism and proclaimed their loyalty to the Raj. To be sure, the Indian Moslems were also affected by the general spirit of unrest which was sweeping over the East. They too felt a quickened sense of self-consciousness. But, being a minority in India, their feelings took the form, not of territorial "patriotism," but of those more diffused sentiments, Pan-Islamism and Pan-Islamic nationalism, which we have already discussed.[196] Early Indian nationalism was not merely Hindu in character; it was distinctly "Brahminical" as well. More and more the Brahmins became the driving-power of the movement, seeking to perpetuate their supremacy in the India of the morrow as they had enjoyed it in the India of the past. But this aroused apprehension in certain sections of Hindu society. Many low-castes and Pariahs began to fear that an independent or even autonomous India might be ruled by a tyrannical Brahmin oligarchy which would deny them the benefits they now enjoyed under British rule.[197] Also, many of the Hindu princes disliked the thought of a theocratic regime which might reduce them to shadows.[198] Thus the nationalist movement stood out as an alliance between the Brahmins and the Western-educated _intelligentsia_, who had pooled their ambitions in a programme for jointly ruling India. Quickened by this ambition and fired by religious zeal, the nationalist movement rapidly acquired a fanatical temper characterized by a mystical abhorrence of everything Western and a ferocious hatred of all Europeans. The Russo-Japanese War greatly inflamed this spirit, and the very next year (1905) an act of the Indian Government precipitated the gathering storm. This act was the famous Partition of Bengal. The partition was a mere administrative measure, with no political intent. But the nationalists made it a "vital issue," and about this grievance they started an intense propaganda that soon filled India with seditious unrest. The leading spirit in this agitation was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who has been called "the father of Indian unrest." Tilak typified the nationalist movement. A Brahmin with an excellent Western education, he was the sworn foe of English rule and Western civilization. An able propagandist, his speeches roused his hearers to frenzy, while his newspaper, the _Yugantar_, of Calcutta, preached a campaign of hate, assassination, and rebellion. Tilak's incitements soon produced tangible results, numerous riots, "dacoities," and murders of Englishmen taking place. And of course the _Yugantar_ was merely one of a large number of nationalist organs, some printed in the vernacular and others in English, which vied with one another in seditious invective.