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
The nationalist publication "Jugantar", which served as the organ of the "Samiti", inspired fanatical loyalty among its readers and made a deep impression on this group. By 1907 it was selling 7,000 copies which later rose to 20,000. Its message, aimed at elite politically conscious readers was essentially critique and defiance of British rule in India, and justification of political violence. The publication inspired a proportion of the young men who joined "Anushilan Samiti" cited the influence of "Jugantar" in their decisions. The editor of the paper, Bhupendranath Datta was arrested and sentenced to one-year's rigorous imprisonment in 1907. The "Samiti" responded with the attempt on the life of Douglas Kingsford who presided over the trial. "Jugantar" itself responded with defiant editorials. The defiance of "Jugantar" saw it face five more prosecutions that left it in financial ruins by 1908. These prosecutions brought the paper more publicity, and helped disseminate the "Samiti"'s ideology of revolutionary nationalism. Shukla Sanyal notes in 2014 that revolutionary terrorism as an ideology began to win support amongst a significant populace in Bengal, tacitly even if not overt.
Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), learned from the Anushilan Samiti. He was sent to Calcutta by B. S. Moonje in 1910 to study medicine, and to learn techniques of violent nationalism from secret revolutionary organizations in Bengal. There he lived with independence activist Shyam Sundar Chakravarthy, and had contacts with revolutionaries like Ram Prasad Bismil.