 They cultivated relations with British officials in order to seek benefits for low caste groups and saw the British government as the most likely power to offer low caste groups fair treatment.In fact, when Phule was criticized by Brahmans about his unwillingness to fight for national liberation, he responded that Shudras should expand their scope of freedom by directing their complaints to a benevolent, if misguided, British government.The Samaj's critiques of Brahmanical tradition in Maharashtra formed the basis for a peasant-based mass movement against the "shetji-bhatji" class of intelligentsia and the moneylender-landlord.