Dhaka was a branch of the founded in the city of

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

in November 1905. Initially a group of eighty under the leadership of

Pulin Behari Das Pulin Behari Das (28 January 1877 – 17 August 1949) was a Bengali revolutionary and the founder-president of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti. Early life Pulin came from a middle class Bengali Hindu family. Though they held some landed propert ...

, it "spread like wildfire" throughout the province of

East Bengal East Bengal (; ''Purbô Bangla/Purbôbongo'') was the eastern province of the Dominion of Pakistan, which covered the territory of modern-day Bangladesh. It consisted of the eastern portion of the Bengal region, and existed from 1947 until 195 ...

. More than 500 branches were opened, linked by a "close and detailed organization" to Pulin's headquarters at Dhaka. It absorbed smaller groups in the province and soon overshadowed its parent organization in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

. Branches of Dhaka Anushilan emerged in the towns of

Jessore Jessore (, ), officially Jashore, is a city of Jessore District in Khulna Division. It lies in southwestern Bangladesh. It is home to the first flight training school of the Bangladeshi Air Force, established in 1971. Jessore city consists of 9 wa ...

Khulna Khulna (, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of the Khulna District and the Khulna Division. It is the divisional centre of 10 districts of the division. Khulna is also the seco ...

, Faridpur, Rajnagar, Rajendrapur, Mohanpur, Barvali, Bakarganj and other places. Estimates of 's reach show a membership of between 15,000 and 20,000 members. Within another two years, Dhaka Anushilan would devolve its aims from the

Swadeshi movement The Swadeshi movement was a self-sufficiency movement that was part of the Indian independence movement and contributed to the development of Indian nationalism. Before the BML Government's decision for the partition of Bengal was made public i ...

to the dedicated aim of political terrorism. The embarked on a radical program of political terrorism. It broke with the '' Jugantar group'' due to differences with Aurobindo's approach of slowly building a base for a revolution with a mass base. The Dhaka group saw this as slow and insufficient and sought immediate action and results. It was responsible for several political assassinations, most notably the murder of D.C. Allen. However, it reached a temporary halt after the arrest and deportation of Pulin Das and the Barisal Conspiracy Case in 1913. Dhaka Anushilan decided not to participate in the German plot of World War I. After the war, it continued in its violent movement, and some of its members went on to form the Neo-violence group.

References

* *. {{Indian Revolutionary Movement Anushilan Samiti