Anushilan Samiti
Anushilan and Jugantar each were organised on different lines, reflecting their divergence. "Anushilan Samiti" was centrally organised, with a rigid discipline and vertical hierarchy. Jugantar, was more loosely organised as an alliance of groups, acting under local leaders that occasionally coordinated their actions together. The prototype of Jugantar's organisation was Barin Ghosh's organisation set up in 1907, in the run-up to the Manicktolla conspiracy. It sought to emulate the model of Russian revolutionaries that was described by Frost. The regulations of the central Dhaka organization of the "Anushilan Samiti" were written down, and reproduced and summarised in government reports. According to one estimate, the Dacca Anushilan Samiti had at one point 500 branches, mostly in the eastern districts of Bengal, with 20,000 members. Branches were opened later in the western districts, Bihar, and the United Provinces. Shelters for absconders were established in Assam and in two farms in Tripura. Organisational documents shows a primary division between, on the one hand the two active leadersBarin Ghosh and Upendranath Bannerjee, and the rank-and-file on the other. Higher leaders including Aurobindo were supposed to be known only to the active leaders. Erstwhile members of "Anushilan", particularly those of the Maniktala group, had suggested that the each group were interconnected with a vast web of secret societies throughout British India. However historian Peter Heehs concludes the links between provinces were limited to contacts between a few individuals like Aurobindo who was familiar with leaders and movements in Western India. He concludes the Maniktala society had links between the other groups and the Manicktalla society, such as the Anushilan and Atmannati Samitis, were more often competitive than co-operative. An internal circular of circa 1908 written by Pulin Behari Das, describes the division of the organisation in Bengal, which largely followed British administrative divisions, with central "Samitis" linked with a few small Samitis.
History of the Anushilan Samiti
Nonetheless, the campaign by Anushilan continued. In 1911, Dhaka Anushilan shot dead two Bengali police officers, sub-inspector Raj Kumar and Inspector Man Mohan Ghosh, who had been investigating the unrest, were shot dead at Mymensingh and Barisal respectively. This was followed by the assassination of the CID head constable Shrish Chandra Dey in Calcutta. In February 1911, "Jugantar" bombed a car with an Englishman in it who was mistaken for Godfrey Denham. The activities of the group was marked most famously in 1912 when an attempt was made by Anushilan led by Rash Behari Bose, in coordination with Har Dayal's group in Punjab, to assassinate the Viceroy of India, Charles Hardinge on the occasion of transfer of the national capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy, as it came to be called, culminated on 23 December 1912 when Basant Kumar Biswas successfully bombed the Viceroy's Howdah as the ceremonial procession moved through the Chandni Chowk suburb of Delhi. Although wounded in the attempt, the Viceroy escaped with his injuries, along with Lady Hardinge, but his Mahout was killed in the attack. The following investigations uncovered Rash Behari Bose as one of the Kingpins of political extremisms, and further, brought to light the extent of coordination between the extremist cells in Punjab and Bengal.