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.
Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti
The samiti started its work with a missionary zeal and began to collect inscriptions, puthis, ethnographical objects, relics, and manuscripts from the Pragjyotisha-Kamarupa region. The preservation of these collections necessitated the construction of a building. When all early efforts to persuade the government to immediately establish a museum to store these objects failed, the samiti decided to construct its own building. The estimated cost of construction, ₹ 20,000, was raised with contributions from various donors, the principal contributor being Raibahadur Naupat Rai Kedia of Dibrugarh. When Lt Col P.R.T. Gordon, then the commissioner of the Assam Valley and honorary provincial director of Ethnography, Assam formally inaugurated the samiti’s building on November 19, 1917.
The samiti’s activities attracted the attention of Indologists throughout eastern India. A branch of the Kamarupa Anusandhana Samiti was established at Rangpur (now in Bangladesh) with Babu Surendra Chandra Roychoudhury as its secretary. The Asiatic Society of Calcutta organized exhibitions of the samiti’s collections and kept a close link with it until 1950. Assam did not have any museum until 1940, but the purpose of a museum was being served by Kamarupa Anusandhana Samiti.