41 Facts About Anushilan Samiti

From its foundation to its dissolution during the 1930s, the Samiti challenged British rule in India by engaging in militant nationalism, including bombings, assassinations, and politically motivated violence.

The Anushilan Samiti collaborated with other revolutionary organisations in India and abroad.

The Anushilan Samiti was involved in a number of noted incidents of revolutionary attacks against British interests and administration in India, including early attempts to assassinate British Raj officials.

The 1905 partition of Bengal stimulated radical nationalist sentiments in Bengal's Bhadralok community, helping the Anushilan Samiti to acquire the support of educated, politically conscious and disaffected members of local youth societies.

The Anushilan Samiti's program emphasized physical training, training its recruits with daggers and lathis.

Related searches

Branches of Dhaka Anushilan Samiti emerged in Jessore, Khulna, Faridpur, Rajnagar, Rajendrapur, Mohanpur, Barvali and Bakarganj, with an estimated membership of 15,000 to 20,000.

Dhaka Anushilan Samiti broke with the Jugantar group in West Bengal due to disagreements with Aurobindo's approach of slowly building a mass base for revolution.

The following year, the Anushilan Samiti engineered eleven assassinations, seven attempted assassinations and explosions and eight dacoities in West Bengal.

Under Barin Ghosh's direction, the Anushilan Samiti's members attempted to assassinate French colonial officials in Chandernagore who were seen as complicit with the Raj.

Anushilan Samiti established early links with foreign movements and Indian nationalists abroad.

Anushilan Samiti's assassination led to the arrests which precipitated the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case.

In 1911, Dhaka Anushilan Samiti members shot dead Sub-inspector Raj Kumar and Inspector Man Mohan Ghosh, two Bengali police officers investigating unrest linked to the group, in Mymensingh and Barisal.

Large portion of the Anushilan Samiti movement was attracted to left-wing politics during the 1930s, and those who did not join left-wing parties identified with Congress and the Congress Socialist Party.

The Anushilan Samiti was centrally organised, with a rigid discipline and vertical hierarchy.

The regulations of the central Dhaka organization of the Anushilan Samiti were written down, and reproduced and summarised in government reports.

Past members of the Anushilan Samiti asserted that the groups were interconnected with a vast web of secret societies throughout British India.

Anushilan Samiti membership was predominantly made up of Hindus, at least initially, which was ascribed to the religious oath of initiation being unacceptable to Muslims.

Some components of the Anushilan Samiti included prominent participation from women, including Pritilata Waddedar who led a Jugantar attack during the Chittagong Armoury raid, and Kalpana Dutta who manufactured bombs at Chittagong.

Anushilan Samiti was influenced by the writings of the Bengali nationalist author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

The name of the organisation, Anushilan Samiti, is derived from Bankim's works espousing hard work and spartan life.

In terms of economic independence, the Anushilan Samiti diverged from the Swadeshi movement, which they decried as a "trader's movement".

John Morley was of the opinion that the political violence exemplified by the Anushilan Samiti was a manifestation of Indian antagonism to the government, although there were influences of European nationalism and philosophies of liberalism.

Foreign influences on the Anushilan Samiti included the Japanese artist Kakuzo Okakura and Margaret Noble, an Irish woman known as Sister Nivedita.

Anushilan Samiti visited Swami Vivekananda in Calcutta in 1902, and inspired Pramathanath Mitra in the early days of the Samiti.

Anushilan Samiti had contacts with Aurobindo, with Satish Bose and with Jugantar sub-editor Bhupendranath Bose.

Related searches

Nivedita is believed to have influenced members of the Anushilan Samiti by talking about their duties to the motherland and providing literature on revolutionary nationalism.

Anushilan Samiti was a correspondent of Peter Kropotkin, a noted anarchist.

Major section of the Anushilan Samiti movement had been attracted to Marxism during the 1920s and 1930s, many of them studying Marxist–Leninist literature whilst serving long jail sentences.

Some Anushilan Samiti Marxists were hesitant to join the Communist Party, few joined the RSP however, since they distrusted the political lines formulated by the Communist International.

Shortly after its inception, the Anushilan Samiti became the focus of extensive police and intelligence operation.

Denham was credited with uncovering the Manicktala safe house of the Anushilan Samiti, raiding it in May 1908, which ultimately led to the Manicktala conspiracy case.

Salkeld, uncovered the eastern branch of Anushilan Samiti, producing a four-volume report and placing 68 suspects under surveillance.

However the Anushilan Samiti evaded detailed intrusion by adopting the model of Russian revolutionaries.

Several young men who joined the Anushilan Samiti credited Jugantar with influencing their decisions.

The Anushilan Samiti responded by attempting to assassinate Douglas Kingsford, who presided over the trial, and Jugantar responded with defiant editorials.

However, historian Sumit Sarkar noted that the Anushilan Samiti never mustered enough support to offer an urban rebellion or a guerrilla campaign.

Heehs argued that the actions of the revolutionary nationalists exemplified by the Anushilan Samiti forced the government to parley more seriously with the leaders of the legitimate movement, and that Gandhi was always aware of this.

Founders of the Anushilan Samiti were among the leading luminaries of Bengal at the time, advocating for social change in ways far removed from the violent nationalist works that identified the Anushilan Samiti in later years.

Anushilan Samiti used his platform in the Congress to present the Samiti as a conglomeration of youth clubs, even as the government raised fears that it was a revolutionary nationalist organisation.

The student's mess at the college was frequented by students of East Bengal who belonged to the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti, and was known to be a hotbed of revolutionary nationalism, which was uncontrolled or even encouraged by the college.

Many of the Anushilan Samiti's members are known in India and abroad, and are commemorated in different forms.