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.
Anushilan Samiti
The founders of the "Samiti" were among the leading luminaries of Bengal at the time, who drove social changes far removed from the violent nationalist works that identified the "Samiti" in later years. The young men of Bengal were amongst the most active in the Swadeshi movement, and the participation of university students drew the ire of the Raj. R.W. Carlyle prohibited the participation of students in political meetings on the threat of withdrawal of funding and grants. The decade preceding these decrees had seen Bengali intellectuals increasingly calling for indigenous schools and colleges to replace British institutions, and sought to build indigenous institutions. Surendranath Tagore, of the Tagore family of Calcutta financed the establishment of Indian-owned banks and insurance companies. The 1906 Congress session in Calcutta established the National Council of Education as a nationalist agency to promote Indian institutions with their own independent curriculum designed to meet skills in technical and technological education that its founders felt necessary for building indigenous industries. With financial backing of Subodh Chandra Mallik, the Bengal National College (which later grew to be Jadavpur University) was established with Aurobindo as Principal. Aurobindo participated in the Indian National Congress at the time. He used his platform in the Congress to present the "Samiti" as conglomeration of youth clubs, even as the Raj raised fears that it was a revolutionary nationalist organisation. It was during his time as Principal that Aurobindo started his nationalist publications "Jugantar", "Karmayogin" and "Bande Mataram". The Student's mess at the College was frequented by students of East Benal who belonged to the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti, and was known to be hotbed of revolutionary nationalism, which was uncontrolled or even encouraged by the college. Students of the college who later rose to prominence in the Indian revolutionary movement include M. N. Roy. The "Samiti"s ideologies further influenced patriotic nationalism. Sumit Sarkar notes that revolutionary terrorism resulted in "a wealth of patriotic songs" and "a new interest in regional and local history and folk traditions, the scientific works of J. C. Bose and P. C. Ray, and the Calcutta school of painting founded by Abanindranath Tagore".