Aurobindo formed the secret society —"Lotus and Dagger" — while in England. This is not correct. The Indian students in London did once meet to form a secret society called romantically the "Lotus and Dagger" in which each member vowed to work for the liberation of India generally and to take some special work in furtherance of that end. Aurobindo did not form the society, but he became a member along with his brothers. But the society was still-born. This happened immediately before the return to India and when he had finally left Cambridge. Indian politics at that time was timid and moderate and this was the first attempt of the kind by Indian students in England. In India itself Aurobindo's maternal grandfather Raj Narayan Bose formed once a secret society — of which Tagore, then a very young man, became a member, and also set up an institution for national and revolutionary propaganda, but this finally came to nothing. Later on there was a revolutionary spirit in Maharashtra and a secret society was started in Western India with a Rajput noble as the head and this had a Council of Five in Bombay with several prominent Maharatta politicians as its members. This society was contacted and joined by Aurobindo somewhere in 1902-3.
Aurobondo wrote an essay, titled New Lamps for Old, published in 'Induprakash' an weekly magazine of Bombay, analysing in detail the activity of the then Congress asked it to open for the people and working class of India.He wrote another article in 1894, titled "Bankim Chndra Chattopadhyay analysing the thoughts of Bankim Chandra for the youths and intellectuals of Bengal.
He inducted jatindranath Bandyopadhyay to form Anushilan samity in which Pramatha Nath Mitra was the President, Aurobindo Ghose and Chittaranja das as vice-president, and Surendra Nath Thakur as general secretary.At the end of nineteen century, the cooperation between the revolutionary of Bengal and that of Maharashtra was increased. In 1897, Tilak was arrested for expressing some opinion against British Administration.
When Aurobondo took the leadership of Anushilan Samity, he conducted the activities of the organisation both openly and secretly. Rabindranath Thakur had close contact with this open section of the organisation and he participated in several meetings of Anushilan Samity.
