Political history of Sri Aurobindo
Anushilan Samiti was founded as an attempt to organize Bengali youth through a program of physical fitness and spiritual training for a nationalist program. By 1902, Calcutta had three societies working under the umbrella of Anushilan Samity, a society earlier founded by a Calcutta barrister by the name of Pramatha Mitra. These included Mitra's own group, another led by a Bengali lady by the name of Sarala Devi, and a third one led by Aurobindo Ghosh. The Anushilan Samiti had Aurobindo and Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das as the vice-presidents, Suren Tagore the treasurer. Jatindra Nath Banerjee (Niralamba Swami), Bagha Jatin, Bhupendra Nath Datta (Swami Vivekananda's brother), Barindra Ghosh were among other initial leaders.
By 1905, the work of Aurobindo and his brother Barin Ghosh allowed Anushilan Samity to spread through Bengal.
Emperor vs Aurobindo Ghosh and others
The hearings against the accused had continued through May with intermittent recesses. However, despite a considerable body of evidence against most of the accused, very little evidence existed against Aurobindo himself. The structure of "Anushilan samiti" prevented the higher echelons of the organisation from becoming familiar to the junior ranks, and Aurobindo's involvement in the organisation and its activities were hard to pinpoint, except for a few letters and correspondences confiscated at Barin's Manicktolla garden house. These included letters Bain had written in 1907, initialled "A.G." proclaiming the time to distributing "sweets" across India, a euphemism for bombs of which the technology Hem Chandra had learnt in Paris. On the other hand, much of the aim of the prosecution was to gain conviction against Aurobindo, who was seen as the most dangerous individual driving the "Samiti" against the Raj. Unable to identify stronger material evidence, the prosecution began an effort to obtain witnesses who may be able to implicate Aurobindo. Their target became a young Anushilanite by the name of Naren Goswami. Goswami belonged to the family of a landowner in Bengal, of a wealthy background and social standing. He had been arrested at Maniktala with Barin and others on the initial raid. On 22 June, Prosecutor Norton announced to the court that Narendranath Goswami had turned "King's witness", or prosecution witness, in return for a pardon. By the middle of August, Birley had heard evidence against the accused. He twice rejected the defence's requests to cross-examine Goswami, using discretionary powers granted to him by the government of Bengal. On 19, 31 August prisoners were committed to stand trial at Alipore Sessions Court for waging war against the King. On the evidence against Aurobindo, Birley concluded that letters and correspondences from members of the group- particularly one letter from Barin where he had referred to "distributing sweets" across India- indicated prima facie involvement on Aurobindo's part.