Anushilan Samiti
By 1902, Calcutta had three secret societies working toward the violent overthrow of British rule in India. One was founded by Calcutta student Satish Chandra Basu with the patronage of Calcutta barrister Pramatha Mitra, another was led by Bengali woman Sarala Devi and the third was founded by Aurobindo Ghosh. Ghosh was one of the strongest proponents of militant Indian nationalism at the time. By 1905 the work of Aurobindo and his brother, Barin, enabled Anushilan Samity to spread throughout Bengal. Nationalist writings and publications by Aurobindo and Barin, including "Bande Mataram" and "Jugantar", had a widespread influence on Bengal youth. The 1905 partition of Bengal stimulated radical nationalist sentiments in Bengal's Bhadralok community, helping Anushilan acquire a support base of educated, politically-conscious and disaffected members of local youth societies. Its program emphasized physical training, training its recruits with daggers and "lathis" (bamboo staffs used as weapons). The Dhaka branch of Anushilan was led by Pulin Behari Das, and branches spread throughout East Bengal and Assam. More than 500 branches were opened in eastern Bengal and Assam, linked by "close and detailed organization" to Pulin's headquarters at Dhaka. It absorbed smaller groups in the province, soon overshadowing its parent organisation in Calcutta. Branches of Dhaka Anushilan emerged in Jessore, Khulna, Faridpur, Rajnagar, Rajendrapur, Mohanpur, Barvali and Bakarganj. Estimates of Dhaka Anushilan Samiti's reach indicate a membership of 15,000 to 20,000. Within two years, Dhaka Anushilan devolved its aims from the Swadeshi to that of political terrorism.
History of the Anushilan Samiti
Bengal itself was relatively quiet during the 1857 uprising, although minor uprisings broke out in Chittagong, Dhaka and a number of other places. However, by the last quarter of the century, the Raj was firmly established in the Bengal Presidency and educated Bengali "Babu", the middleclass "Bhadralok" community were amongst the largest numbers who filled civil and administrative offices throughout British India. In traditional British stereotype, the Bengali race was considered "feeble even to effeminacy" and the least martial of all Indian races. However, the Bengalee propensity to form public bodies and organised protests were noted from early on, which piqued the British observers. 1876 saw the foundation of The Indian Association in Calcutta under the leadership of Surendranath Banerjea. This organisation successfully drew into its folds students and the urban middle–class, for which it served as a mouthpiece. The Association became the mouthpiece of an informal constituency of students and middle-class gentlemen. The Association sponsored the Indian National Conference in 1883 and 1885, which later merged with the Indian National Congress. Calcutta was at the time the capital of British India, and the most prominent centre for organised politics, and some of the same students who attended the political meetings began at the time to organise "secret societies" which cultivated a cultural of physical strength and nationalist feelings. 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 writings of the Bengalee nationalist author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and by the works of Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini and his Young Italy movement. To this was later added the philosophies and teachings of Swami Vivekananda, which emphasised a "Strong muscles and nerves of steel". This marked the beginnings of interest in physical improvement and proto-national spirit among young Bengalees, and was driven by an effort to break away from the colonial stereotype of effeminacy imposed on the Bengalee. Physical fitness was symbolic of the recovery of masculinity, and part of a larger moral and spiritual training to cultivate control over the body, and develop national pride and a sense of social responsibility and service.