History of the Anushilan Samiti
Around 1902, Aurobindo Ghosh arranged for Bannerjee to return to Calcutta to begin organisational work, where he began a gymnasium and a youth society. It was at this time that Bannerjee came in touch with Vibhuti Bhushan Bhattacharya, Sarala Devi Ghoshal and Pramathanath Mitra. In Calcutta, a few clubs and societies were still active at the time. Most notable was a gymnasium in Ballygunge Circular Road run by Sarala Devi herself, a second was an organisation named "Anushilan Samiti" founded by Satish Chandra Basu with the patronage of Pramathanath Mitra. A third one was a youth club called "Attōnnōti Samiti" (Self-improvement society) in central Calcutta.
Anushilan Samiti
When the "Samiti" first came into prominence following the Muzaffarpur killings, its ideology was felt to be influenced by European anarchism. Lord Minto resisted the notion that its action may be the manifestation of political grievance by concluding that: 
However others disagreed. John Morley was of the opinion that political violence exemplified by the "Samiti" were manifestations of Indian antagonism to the government, and was running a natural course which was culminating in assassinations. Historians conclude that although there were influences of European nationalism and philosophies of liberalism. In Bengal at large, through the decades 1860s and 1870s, there arose large numbers of "akhras", or gymnasiums consciously designed along the lines of the Italian Carbonari which drew the youth. These were influenced by the works of Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini and his Young Italy movement. Aurobindo himself studied the revolutionary nationalism of Ireland, France and America. Hem Chandra Das, during his stay in Paris, is also noted to have interacted with European radical nationalists in the city, returning to India an atheist and Marxist.