Dhaka Anushilan Samiti
Dhaka Anushilan Samiti was a branch of the Anushilan Samiti founded in the city of Dhaka in November 1905. Initially a group of eighty under the leadership of Pulin Behari Das, it "spread like wildfire" throughout the province of East Bengal. More than 500 branches were opened, linked by a "close and detailed organization" to Pulin’s headquarters at Dhaka. It absorbed smaller groups in the province and soon overshadowed its parent organisation in Calcutta. Branches of Dhaka Anushilan emerged in the towns of Jessore, Khulna, Faridpur, Rajnagar, Rajendrapur, Mohanpur, Barvali, Bakarganj and other places. Estimates of Dhaka Anushilan Samiti's reach show a membership of between 15,000 and 20,000 members. Within another two years, Dhaka Anushilan would devolve its aims from the Swadeshi to the dedicated aim of political terrorism. The "Dhaka Anushilan Samiti" embarked on a radical program of political terrorism. It broke with the "Jugantar group" due to differences with Aurobindo's approach of slowly building a base for a revolution with a mass base. The Dhaka group saw this as slow and insufficient, and sought immediate action and result. It was responsible for a number of political assassinations, most notably the murder of D.C. Allen. However, it reached a temporary halt after the arrest and deportation of Pulin Das and the Barisal Conspiracy Case in 1913. Dhaka Anushilan decided not to participate in the German plot of World War I. After the war, it continued in its violent movement, and some of its members went on to form the Neo-violence group.
Anushilan Samiti
The "Samiti" was influenced by the writings of the Bengalee nationalist author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. The name of the organisation, "Anushilan", itself is derived from Bankim's works espousing hardwork and spartan life. Bankim's cultural and martial nationalism exemplified in "Anandamath", along with his interpretations of the "Bhagavat Gita", are noted to be strong influences on the strain of nationalism that guided the early societies that merged into "Anushilan Samiti". To this was later added the philosophies and teachings of Swami Vivekananda. A search of the "Dacca Anushilan Samiti" library in 1908 showed that the"Gita" was the most widely read book in the library. Among the "rules of membership" books by Vivekananda were strongly recommended for reading, A recurring theme in these were emphasis on "Strong muscles and nerves of steel", which some historian identify as strongly influenced by Shakta Philosophy of Hinduism. The writings of the group's own leader Aurobindo Ghosh popularised "Shakti", specifically the concept of "Adya Shakti" that is exemplified in his work "Bhawani Mandir". 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. Peter Heehs, writing in 2010, notes the "Samiti" had three pillars in their ideologies: "cultural independence", "political independence", and "economic independence". In the latter, the "Samiti" differed from those engaging in the "Swadeshi" movement, which they decried solely as a "trader's movement".