Anushilan Samiti
Anushilan Samiti (Bengali: অনুশীলন সমিতি, lit. 'Practice Association') was an Indian fitness club, which was actually used as an underground society for anti-British revolutionaries.[1] In the first quarter of the 20th century it supported revolutionary violence as the means for ending British rule in India. The organisation arose from a conglomeration of local youth groups and gyms (akhara) in Bengal in 1902. It had two prominent, somewhat independent, arms in East and West Bengal, Dhaka Anushilan Samiti (centred in Dhaka), and the Jugantar group (centred in Calcutta).
Formation
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 Samiti collaborated with other revolutionary organisations in India and abroad. It was led by the nationalists Aurobindo Ghosh and his brother Barindra Ghosh, influenced by philosophies like Italian Nationalism, and the Pan-Asianism of Kakuzo Okakura. Ullaskar Dutta used to be the Jugantor group's principal bomb maker until Hemchandra Quanungo returned from Paris learning bomb making and explosive chemistry.[2] The 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. These were followed by the 1912 attempt on the life of the Viceroy of India, led by Rash Behari Bose and Basanta Kumar Biswas,[3] and the Seditious conspiracy during World War I, led by Jatindranath Mukherjee.[4]
The organisation moved away from its philosophy of violence in the 1920s due to the influence of the Indian National Congress and the Gandhian non-violent movement. A section of the group, notably those associated with Sachindranath Sanyal, remained active in the revolutionary movement, founding the Hindustan Republican Association in north India. A number of Congress leaders from Bengal, especially Subhash Chandra Bose, were accused by the British Government of having links with the organisation during this time.
The Samiti's violent and radical philosophy revived in the 1930s, when it was involved in the Kakori conspiracy, the Chittagong armoury raid, and other actions against the administration in British-occupied India.
Shortly after its inception, the organisation became the focus of an extensive police and intelligence operation which led to the founding of the Special branch of the Calcutta Police. Notable officers who led the police and intelligence operations against the Samiti at various times included Sir Robert Nathan, Sir Harold Stuart, Sir Charles Stevenson-Moore and Sir Charles Tegart. The threat posed by the activities of the Samiti in Bengal during World War I, along with the threat of a Ghadarite uprising in Punjab, led to the passage of Defence of India Act 1915. These measures enabled the arrest, internment, transportation and execution of a number of revolutionaries linked to the organisation, which crushed the East Bengal Branch. In the aftermath of the war, the Rowlatt committee recommended extending the Defence of India Act (as the Rowlatt Act) to thwart any possible revival of the Samiti in Bengal and the Ghadarite movement in Punjab. After the war, the activities of the party led to the implementation of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment in the early 1920s, which reinstated the powers of incarceration and detention from the Defence of India Act. However, the Anushilan Samiti gradually disseminated into the Gandhian movement. Some of its members left for the Indian National Congress then led by Subhas Chandra Bose, while others identified more closely with Communism. The Jugantar branch formally dissolved in 1938.
Background[edit]
The growth of the Indian middle class during the 19th century led to a growing sense of Indian identity[5] that fed a rising tide of nationalism in India in the last decades of the 1800s.[6] The creation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 by A.O. Hume provided a major platform for the demands of political liberalisation, increased autonomy and social reform.[7] The nationalist movement became particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal and, later, in Punjab. Notable, if smaller, movements also appeared in Maharashtra, Madras and other areas in the South.[7] The movement in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and Poona, preceded most revolutionary movements in the country. This movement was supported ideologically by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who may also have offered covert active support. The Indian Association was founded in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in 1876 under the leadership of Surendranath Banerjee. The Association became the mouthpiece of an informal constituency of students and middle-class gentlemen. It sponsored the Indian National Conference in 1883 and 1885, which later merged with the Indian National Congress.[8] Kolkata – formerly Calcutta was at the time the most prominent centre for organised politics, and some of the students who attended the political meetings began to organise "secret societies" that cultivated a culture of physical strength and nationalist feelings.
Organisation[edit]
Structure[edit]
Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were organised on different lines, reflecting their divergence. The Samiti was centrally organised, with a rigid discipline and vertical hierarchy. Jugantar was more loosely organised as an alliance of groups under local leaders that occasionally coordinated their actions. The prototype of Jugantar's organisation was Barin Ghosh's organisation set up in 1907, in the run-up to the Manicktala conspiracy. It sought to emulate the model of Russian revolutionaries described by Frost. The regulations of the central Dhaka organization of the Samiti were written down, and reproduced and summarised in government reports.
According to one estimate, the Dacca Anushilan Samiti at one point had 500 branches, mostly in the eastern districts of Bengal, and 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 show a primary division between the two active leaders, Barin Ghosh and Upendranath Bannerjee, and the rank-and-file. Higher leaders such as Aurobindo were supposed to be known only to the active leaders. Past members of the Samiti asserted that the groups were interconnected with a vast web of secret societies throughout British India. However, historian Peter Heehs concluded that the links between provinces were limited to contacts between a few individuals like Aurobindo who was familiar with leaders and movements in Western India, and that relationships among the different revolutionary groups were more often competitive than co-operative. An internal document of circa 1908 written by Pulin Behari Das describes the division of the organisation in Bengal, which largely followed British administrative divisions.
Ideologies[edit]
Indian philosophies[edit]
The Samiti was influenced by the writings of the Bengali nationalist author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. The name of the organisation, Anushilan, is derived from Bankim's works espousing hard work and spartan life. Bankim's cultural and martial nationalism, exemplified in Anandamath,[35] along with his reinterpretation of the Bhagavat Gita, were strong influences on the strain of nationalism that inspired the early societies that later became Anushilan Samiti.[36] A search of the Dacca Anushilan Samiti library in 1908 showed that Bankim's Bhagavat Gita was the most widely read book in the library.[37]
The philosophies and teachings of Swami Vivekananda were later added to this philosophy. The "Rules of Membership" in the Dacca library strongly recommended reading his books.[37] These books emphasised "Strong muscles and nerves of steel", which some historians consider to be strongly influenced by the Hindu Shakta Philosophy. This interest in physical improvement and proto-national spirit among young Bengalis was driven by an effort to break away from the stereotype of effeminacy that the British had imposed on the Bengalis. Physical fitness was symbolic of the recovery of masculinity, and part of a larger moral and spiritual training to cultivate control over the body, and develop national pride and a sense of social responsibility and service.[38][39] Peter Heehs, writing in 2010, notes the Samiti had three pillars in their ideologies: "cultural independence", "political independence", and "economic independence". In terms of economic independence, the Samiti diverged from the Swadeshi movement, which they decried as a "trader's movement".[40]
Influence[edit]
Revolutionary nationalism[edit]
The nationalist publication Jugantar, which served as the organ of the Samiti, inspired fanatical loyalty among its readers.[53][54] By 1907 it was selling 7,000 copies, which later rose to 20,000. Its message was aimed at elite politically conscious readers and was essentially a critique of British rule in India and justification of political violence.[55] Several young men who joined the Samiti credited Jugantar with influencing their decisions. The editor of the paper, Bhupendranath Datta, was arrested and sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment in 1907.[56] The Samiti responded by attempting to assassinate Douglas Kingsford, who presided over the trial, and Jugantar responded with defiant editorials.[56] Jugantar was repeatedly prosecuted, leaving it in financial ruins by 1908. However, the prosecutions brought the paper more publicity and helped disseminate the Samiti's ideology of revolutionary nationalism. Historian Shukla Sanyal has commented that revolutionary terrorism as an ideology began to win at least tacit support amongst a significant populace at this time.[54]
Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was an alumnus of the Anushilan Samiti. He was sent to Calcutta by B. S. Moonje in 1910 to study medicine, and to learn techniques of violent nationalism from secret revolutionary organizations in Bengal.[57] There he lived with independence activist Shyam Sundar Chakravarty,[58] and had contacts with revolutionaries like Ram Prasad Bismil.
Indian independence movement[edit]
James Popplewell, writing in 1995, noted that the Raj perceived the Samiti in its early days as a serious threat to its rule.[59] However, historian Sumit Sarkar noted that the Samiti never mustered enough support to offer an urban rebellion or a guerrilla campaign. Both Peter Heehs and Sumit Sarkar have noted that the Samiti called for complete independence over 20 years before the Congress adopted this as its aim. A number of landmark events early in the Indian independence movement, including the revolutionary conspiracies of World War I, involved the Samiti, as noted in the Rowlatt report. Later the ascendant left-wing of the Congress, particularly Subhas Chandra Bose, was suspected of having links with the Samiti. Heehs argued that the actions of the revolutionary nationalists exemplified by the Samiti forced the government to parley more seriously with the leaders of the legitimate movement, and that Gandhi was always aware of this. "At the Round Table Conference of 1931, the apostle of non-violence declared that he held 'no brief for the terrorists', but added that if the government refused to work with him, it would have the terrorists to deal with. The only way to 'say good-bye to terrorism' was 'to work the Congress for all it is worth'".[60]
Social influences[edit]
The founders of the 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 Samiti in later years. The young men of Bengal were among the most active in the Swadeshi movement, prompting R.W. Carlyle to prohibit the participation of students in political meetings on the threat of withdrawal of funding and grants.[61] Bengali intellectuals were already calling for indigenous schools and colleges to replace British institutions,[61] and seeking to build indigenous institutions. Surendranath Tagore, of the Tagore family of Calcutta financed the establishment of Indian-owned banks and insurance companies. The 1906 Congress session in Calcutta established the National Council of Education as a nationalist agency to promote Indian institutions with their own independent curriculum designed to provide skills in technical and technological education that its founders felt would be necessary for building indigenous industries. With the financial backing of Subodh Chandra Mallik, the Bengal National College was established with Aurobindo as Principal.[61] Aurobindo participated in the Indian National Congress at the time. He 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. During his time as Principal, Aurobindo started the nationalist publications Jugantar, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram.[61] 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.[62] Students of the college who later rose to prominence in the Indian revolutionary movement include M. N. Roy. The Samiti's ideologies further influenced patriotic nationalism.
In popular culture[edit]
The revolutionaries of the Samiti became household names in Bengal. Many of these educated and youthful men were widely admired and romanticised throughout India.[33] Ekbar biday de Ma ghure ashi (Bid me farewell, mother), a 1908 lament written by Bengali folk poet Pitambar Das that mourns the execution of Khudiram Bose, was popular in Bengal decades after Bose's death.[30] The railway station where Bose was arrested is now named Khudiram Bose Pusa Railway Station in his honour.
The 1926 nationalist novel Pather Dabi (Right of the way) by Bengali author Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay tells the story of a secret revolutionary nationalist organisation fighting the Raj. The protagonist of the novel, Sabyasachi, is believed to have been modelled after Rash Behari Bose, while the revolutionary organisation is thought to have been influenced by the Bengali Samiti. The novel was banned by The Raj as "seditious", but acquired wild popularity. It formed the basis of a 1977 Bengali language film, Sabyasachi, with Uttam Kumar playing the lead role of the protagonist.
Do and Die is a historical account of the Chittagong armoury raid published in 2000 by Indian author Manini Chatterjee. It was awarded the Rabindra Puraskar, the highest literary award in Bengal. The book formed the basis of Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey (We Play with Our Lives), a 2010 Bollywood film with Abhishek Bachchan playing the role of Surya Sen.
A marble plaque marks the building in Calcutta where the Samiti was founded. A plaque at the site of Barin Ghose's country house (in present-day Ultadanga) marks the site where Ghosh and his group was arrested in the Alipore bomb case. Many of the Samiti's members are known in India and abroad, and are commemorated in different forms. A number of Calcutta suburbs are today named after revolutionaries and nationalists of the Samiti. Grey Street, where Aurobindo Ghosh's press office stood, is today named Aurobido Sarani (Aurobindo Avenue). Dalhousie Square was renamed B.B.D Bag, named after Benoy, Badal, and Dinesh who raided the Writer's Building in 1926. Mononga lane, the site of Rodda & Co. heist, houses the busts of Anukul Mukherjee, Srish Chandra Mitra, Haridas Dutta, and Bipin Bihary Ganguly who participated in the heist. Chashakhand, a location 15 km east of Balasore where Bagha Jatin and his group made their last stand against Tegart's forces, commemorates the battlefield in Jatin's honour. The locality of Baghajatin in Kolkata is named after Jatin. In Bangladesh, the gallows where Surya Sen was executed are preserved as a historical monument.