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.
Anushilan Samiti
Shortly after its inception, the organisation became the focus of an extensive police and intelligence operation which led to the founding of the Special branch of the Calcutta Police. Notable officers who led the police and intelligence operations against the "Samiti" at various times included Sir Robert Nathan, Sir Harold Stuart, Sir Charles Stevenson-Moore and Sir Charles Tegart. The threat posed by the activities of the "Samiti" in Bengal during World War I, along with the threat of a Ghadarite uprising in Punjab, led to the passage of Defence of India Act 1915. These measures enabled the arrest, internment, transportation and execution of a number of revolutionaries linked to the organisation, which crushed the East Bengal Branch. In the aftermath of the war, the Rowlatt committee recommended extending the Defence of India Act (as the Rowlatt Act) to thwart any possible revival of the "Samiti" in Bengal and the Ghadarite movement in Punjab. After the war, the activities of the party led to implementation of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment in the early 1920s, which reinstated the powers of incarceration and detention from the Defence of India Act. However, the "Anushilan Samiti" gradually disseminated into the Gandhian movement. Some of its members left for the Indian National Congress then led by Subhas Chandra Bose, while others identified more closely with Communism. The "Jugantar" branch formally dissolved in 1938. In independent India, the party in West Bengal evolved into the Revolutionary Socialist Party, while the Eastern Branch later evolved into the "Shramik Krishak Samajbadi Dal" (Workers and Peasants Socialist Party) in present-day Bangladesh.