Dr. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar had spent much space in his book "History of Freedom Movement of India ( Page 265-327 = 62) to explain this subject.
The idea of nationalism and militant nationalism had been a matter of discussion since eighteenth century from the time of French revolution upto this date. An attempt was made to discuss the issue in two stages,
1. Indian nationalism,
2. Marxian interpretation.
1. At the begining of the twentieth century Indian nationalists, rose against the British exploitation to make the country free from foreign domination. During Swadeshi movement there was an attempt of armed revolution against the British rule with the help of ammunitions colected byway of snatching or purchased from other foreign powers, i.e. Germany.
Anusilan Samity :
It was purely an exercise club for training youths of Bengal in all sorts of physical drill and exercises such as lathi, sword, dagger-play, riding, swiming, and in some cases boxing. These were open activities and young men were attracted to have these sorts of training. There was an inner circle, consisting of a selected few who organised the militant revolutionary organisation. There were two opinions for this operation,
i) One believed in armed conflict against the British with help of the Indian soldiers, and pinned its faith on the development of international situation which might create a favourable oppurtunity and bring necessary help from outside.
ii) The second opinion was terrorising and murdering the officials the machinary of the govt. be paralysed so that the govt. was forced to bow down.
The political terrorism began taking an organised form in Bengal by 1902, under the umbrella of Anushilan Samity founded by barrister Pramatha Mitra. There were three groups. 1. Led by Mitra himself,2. led by a Bengalee lady Sarala devi and 3. Led by Aurobindo Ghosh. The Anushilan Samity had its vice-president as Aurobindo Ghosh and Chittaranjan Das, Suren Ghosh was the treasurer. Jatindra nath Banerjee, Jatindra nath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin), Bhupendra nath Dutta , Barindra Ghosh were among other leaders. Aurobindra and Barin Ghosh allowed the organisation to spread throughout Bengal. Pulin Bihari Das, once a teacher of Dhaka Govt.College and founder Headmaster of National School at Dhaka was the leader of Dhaka unit. Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal took the charge of organising the publication of a paper JUGANTAR. they also used to collect funds by dacoites.
In april 1908, Khudiram Bose and Prafuulla Chaki attempted to kill Chief magistrate Kingford but by mistake they killed two European ladies. Khudiram was arrested but Prafuula had killed himself. Narendra nath Bhattacharya, later on, killed Nandalal banerjee who arrested Khudiram.
Bagha Jatin
Aurobindo Ghosh
On 16 Dec. 1908, Govt. of India issued orders for deporting the following nine Bengalee Hindus,
1.Aswini Kumar Dutta
2.Krishna Kumar Mitra
3. Satis Chatterjee
4. Subodh Mallik
5. Monoranjan Guha Thakurta
6. Shamsundar Chakraborty
7. Pulin Behari Das
8. Bhupesh Chandra Nag
9. Sachindra Prasad Basu.
Pulin Bihari Das, in charge Dhaka Anusilan Samity, opened several branches all acrosthe eastern Bengal and by 1932 it had 500 branches. The members of the samity were mostly school and college students and of middle-class family. Pulin Bihari Das was soon arrested and his successor Makhanlal Sen became in charge of the Samity.
Jugantar party was the leading revolutionary group in Colonial Bengal. Hemchandra Kanungo went to Paris on behalf of the Party to get military and political training. He came back after having trained in JAN. 1908.
Activities of the Organisation:
During 1908 to 1916, atleast 34 govt. officials , Indian and European were killed by the revolutionaries.
From 1909 to 1917, The revolutionaries earned money by Dacoities from bank and other sources, on 37 occasions amounting to Rs. 6,57, 315/-.
Sedition committees report said that the following activities of the revolutionaries during the period mentioned below were noted,
Year...Bomb Outrages...Murder....Dacoity..Misc.
1907..................................1....................3.........39(Attempt)
1908...6...........................9....................8
1909...1............................2...................10
1910................................1....................7
1911..................................6.................11
1912...1............................3.................10
1913...3..........................3...................10
1914...1.........................3.....................13
1915.............................17....................23
1916.............................9......................11
1917............................7........................6
The revolutionary activities also spread in other parts of the country and abroad. But ultimate result was nil.
