167-780: 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. 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
334-500: A bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from
501-660: A bomb was thrown into Tegart's car at Dalhousie Square but Tegart managed to shoot the revolutionary and escaped unhurt. His efficient curbing of the revolutionary movement earned praise from Lord Lytton and he was awarded the King's medal. In 1937 Tegart was sent to the British Mandate of Palestine , then in the throes of the Arab Revolt , to advise the Inspector General on security. In its fight against
668-625: A civil servant, H.L. Salkeld, uncovered the eastern branch of Anushilan Samiti, producing a four-volume report and placing 68 suspects under surveillance. However the Samiti evaded detailed intrusion by adopting the model of Russian revolutionaries. Until 1909, the police were unclear whether they were dealing with a single organisation or with a conglomeration of independent groups. The visit of King George V to India in 1911 catalyzed improvements in police equipment and staffing in Bengal and EBA. In 1912,
835-580: A concession to the desire of young men to act out romantic drama. Less is known about the Jugantar network, which took the place of the Manicktala society after the Alipore bomb case . It faced divisions similar to the Samiti. Historian Leonard Gordon notes that at least in the period between 1910 and 1915, the dals in the Jugantar network were separate units, led by a dada (lit: elder brother). The dada
1002-535: A condolence resolution after his death, as did Congress when Bhagat Singh was executed. As the Congress-led movement picked up its pace during the early 1930s, some former revolutionaries identified with the Gandhian political movement and became influential Congressmen (notably Surendra Mohan Ghose ). Many Bengali Congressmen also maintained links with the Samiti. Simultaneously with the nonviolent protests of
1169-399: A death sentence for Barin (later commuted to life imprisonment). The case against Aurobindo Ghosh collapsed after Naren Gosain, who had turned crown witness, was shot in Alipore jail by Satyendranath Basu and Kanailal Dutta , who were also being tried. Aurobindo retired from active politics after being acquitted. This was followed by a 1909 Dhaka conspiracy case, which brought 44 members of
1336-596: A different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west. Bengali exhibits diglossia , though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax : Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises
1503-480: A diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following: In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic ; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô -hô- jo -gi- ta "cooperation", where
1670-734: A firefight with police at Balasore , in present-day Orissa, which brought Jugantar to a temporary end. The Defence of India Act 1915 led to widespread arrests, internments, deportations and executions of members of the revolutionary movement. By March 1916, widespread arrests helped Bengal police crush the Dacca Anushilan Samiti in Calcutta. Regulation III and the Defence of India Act were enforced throughout Bengal in August 1916. By June 1917, 705 people were under house arrest under
1837-692: A large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore , which borders Odisha , have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar , some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari , Kaithi and Tirhuta . In Sylhet and Bankura , modified versions of
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#17327832467942004-682: A majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB. The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects. Even in SCB,
2171-633: A member of the All-India Muslim League resigned from the Imperial legislative council in protest against the act. The act also infuriated many other Indian leaders and the public, which caused the government to implement repressive measures. Gandhi and others thought that constitutional opposition to the measure was fruitless, so on 6 April, a hartal took place. This was an event in which Indians suspended businesses and went on strikes and would fast, pray and hold public meetings against
2338-528: A mission to Muzaffarpur to assassinate chief presidency magistrate D. H. Kingsford. They bombed a carriage they mistook for Kingsford's, killing two Englishwomen. Bose was arrested while attempting to flee and Chaki committed suicide. Police investigation of the killers connected them with Barin's country house in Manicktala (a suburb of Calcutta) and led to a number of arrests, including Aurobindo and Barin. The ensuing trial, held under tight security, led to
2505-821: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Rowlatt Act The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 , popularly known as the Rowlatt Act , was a law, applied during the British India period. It was a legislative council act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 18 March 1919, indefinitely extending
2672-679: A plot led by the Ghosh brothers. In the same month, the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti assassinated former Dhaka district magistrate D. C. Allen. The following year, the Samiti engineered eleven assassinations, seven attempted assassinations and explosions and eight dacoities in West Bengal. Their targets included British police officials and civil servants, Indian police officers, informants, public prosecutors of political crimes, and wealthy families. Under Barin Ghosh's direction,
2839-576: A rounded total of 280 million) worldwide. The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal , which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal . Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura , southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Bengali is also spoken in
3006-660: A significant populace at this time. 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. There he lived with independence activist Shyam Sundar Chakravarty , and had contacts with revolutionaries like Ram Prasad Bismil . James Popplewell, writing in 1995, noted that
3173-408: A special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্) , may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m] ). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô , may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in
3340-463: A special tribunal composed of three high-court judges. In December 1908 the Criminal Law amendments were passed under the terms of Regulation III of 1818, with the goal of suppressing associations formed for seditious conspiracies. The act was first applied to deport nine Bengali revolutionaries to Mandalay prison in 1908. Despite these measures however, the high standards of evidence demanded by
3507-581: A state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan . On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka ; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan. 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000. In 2010,
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#17327832467943674-463: A vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি) . A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form. In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô , three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are
3841-500: Is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram , a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it
4008-468: Is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs , and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words . Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra . Since
4175-520: Is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America, the Middle East and other regions. Bengali was accorded the status of a classical language by the government of India on 3 October 2024. It is the second most spoken and fourth fastest growing language in India , following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei ( Manipuri ), along with Gujarati , in
4342-400: Is an abugida , a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô ) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked. The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century). It
4509-707: Is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka ( Sri Lanka Matha ) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore , while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala . After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone ,
4676-492: Is believed to have influenced members of the Samiti by talking about their duties to the motherland and providing literature on revolutionary nationalism. She was a correspondent of Peter Kropotkin , a noted anarchist. A major section of the Anushilan movement had been attracted to Marxism during the 1920s and 1930s, many of them studying Marxist–Leninist literature whilst serving long jail sentences. A majority broke away from
4843-721: Is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata , a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District . There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use
5010-404: Is known as Apabhraṃśa , by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time. Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating. The local Apabhraṃśa of
5177-490: Is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme). Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs , combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable . Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/ , are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of
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5344-405: Is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language . Bengali is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It is the second-most widely spoken language in India . It
5511-686: Is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam . It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal , and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar , Arunachal Pradesh , Delhi , Chhattisgarh , Meghalaya , Mizoram , Nagaland , Odisha and Uttarakhand . Bengali
5678-600: The 10th Jat Regiment , garrisoned at Fort William in Calcutta, and Narendra Nath committed a number of robberies to raise money. Shamsul Alam, a Bengal police officer preparing a conspiracy case against the group, was assassinated by Jatin associate Biren Dutta Gupta. His assassination led to the arrests which precipitated the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy case . In 1911, Dhaka Anushilan members shot dead Sub-inspector Raj Kumar and Inspector Man Mohan Ghosh, two Bengali police officers investigating unrest linked to
5845-703: The 1912 attempt on the life of the Viceroy of India, led by Rash Behari Bose and Basanta Kumar Biswas , and the Seditious conspiracy during World War I, led by Jatindranath Mukherjee . 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
6012-509: The Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist . Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji , Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda , and Muhammad Enamul Haq . The Digital Revolution has also played
6179-615: The Arabic , Persian , and Turkic languages . The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist -ruling Pala Empire , from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including
6346-537: The Bhagavat Gita , were strong influences on the strain of nationalism that inspired the early societies that later became Anushilan Samiti. 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. The philosophies and teachings of Swami Vivekananda were later added to this philosophy. The "Rules of Membership" in
6513-496: The Calcutta High Court , insufficient investigations by police, and at times outright fabrication of evidence, led to persistent failures to tame nationalist violence. The police forces felt unable to deal with the operations of secretive nationalist organisations, leading to demands for special powers. The Indian press opposed these demands strenuously, arguing against any extension of the already wide powers enjoyed by
6680-949: The Communist International , helping to found the Communist Party of India. The majority of the Anushilanite Marxists hesitated to join the Communist Party. Instead, they joined the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), but kept a separate identity within the party as the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). The RSP held a strong influence in parts of Bengal. The party sent two parliamentarians to the 1952 Lok Sabha elections, both previously Samiti members. In 1969, RSP sympathizers in East Pakistan formed
6847-474: The Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 , made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh. It is also the de facto national language of
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7014-513: The Indian National Congress came out in favour of independence from Britain. Bengal had quietened over a four-year period, and the government released most of those interned under the Act of 1925 despite an unsuccessful attempt to forge an alliance between Jugantar and Anushilan Samiti. Some younger radicals struck out in new directions, and many (young and old) took part in Congress activities such as
7181-714: 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. 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. The movement in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and Poona, preceded most revolutionary movements in
7348-595: The Jugantar group (centred in Calcutta ). 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
7515-579: The Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra . Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c. 1869 . Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in
7682-723: The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire , and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit. Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam , and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi . Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what
7849-524: The Nadia region . Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia , with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian , Arabic , Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact. In
8016-550: The Pan-Asianism of Kakuzo Okakura . Ullaskar Dutta used to be the Jugantor group's principal bomb maker until Hemchandra Quanungo returned from Paris having learned bomb making and explosive chemistry. 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
8183-522: The Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). 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
8350-409: The Rowlatt Bills . Gandhi then led a protest, the Rowlatt Satyagraha , one of the first civil disobedience movements that would become the Indian independence movement . The protests included hartals in Delhi, public protests in Punjab, and other protest movements across India. In Punjab, the protests culminated in the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre in April 1919. After nearly three years of agitation,
8517-425: The Shramik Krishak Samajbadi Dal (SKSD). RSP and SKSD have maintained close ties ever since. The RSP is currently a minor partner in the Left Front , which ruled the Indian state of West Bengal for 34 uninterrupted years. It also holds influence in South India, notably in parts of Kerala . The SUCI , another left-wing party with a presence in Bengal, was founded in 1948 by Anushilan members. The revolutionaries of
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#17327832467948684-469: The Sunderbans for members who had gone underground. The group slowly reorganised, aided by Amarendra Chatterjee , Naren Bhattacharya and other younger leaders. Some of its younger members, including Taraknath Das , left India. Over the next two years, the organisation operated under the cover of two apparently-separate groups: Sramajeebi Samabaya (the Labourer's Cooperative) and S.D. Harry and Sons. Around this time Jatin attempted to establish contacts with
8851-679: The Swadeshi movement to that of political terrorism. The organisation's political views were expressed in the journal Jugantar , founded in March 1906 by Abhinash Bhattacharya , Barindra, Bhupendranath Dutt and Debabrata Basu . It soon became an organ for the radical views of Aurobindo and other Anushilan leaders, and led to the Calcutta Samiti group being dubbed the "Jugantar party". Early leaders were Rash Behari Bose , Bhavabhushan Mitra , Jatindranath Mukherjee and Jadugopal Mukherjee . Aurobindo published similar messages of violent nationalism in journals such as Sandhya , Navashakti and Bande Mataram . The Dhaka Anushilan Samiti broke with
9018-435: 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
9185-415: The United Provinces , including those later connected to Har Dayal . During the 1912 transfer of the imperial capital to New Delhi, Viceroy Charles Hardinge 's howdah was bombed; his mahout was killed, and Hardinge was seriously injured. As war between Germany and Britain began to seem likely, Indian nationalists at home and abroad decided to use the war for the nationalist cause. Through Kishen Singh,
9352-432: The University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh ) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature. The national anthems of both Bangladesh ( Amar Sonar Bangla ) and India ( Jana Gana Mana ) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore . Notuner Gaan known as " Chol Chol Chol"
9519-499: The boldface represents primary and secondary stress. Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters ; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school". The Bengali-Assamese script
9686-557: The phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti , Chittagonian and Chakma , have contrastive tone ; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong
9853-404: The " Rowlatt Act" which gave power to the police to arrest any person without any reason. The purpose of the Act was to curb the growing nationalist upsurge in the country. Mahatma Gandhi called upon the people to perform satyagraha against the act. Passed on the recommendations of the Rowlatt Committee and named after its president, Sir Sidney Rowlatt , the act effectively authorized
10020-418: The 'Black Act' as a sign of their opposition and civil disobedience would be offered against the law. Mahatma Gandhi bathed in the sea at Mumbai and made a speech before a procession to Madhav Baug temple took place. This event was part of the Non-cooperation movement . One of the largest protests occurred in Ambala, Punjab Province in early 1919 under the chairmanship of the lawyer Jhanda Singh Giani . It
10187-457: The 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of
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#173278324679410354-436: The 1920s and 1930s, many members of the Samiti began identifying with Communism and leftist ideologies. Many of them studied Marxist–Leninist literature while serving long jail sentences. A minority section broke away from the Anushilan movement and joined the Communist Consolidation , and later the Communist Party of India. Former Jugantar leader Narendranath Bhattacharya, now known as M. N. Roy , became an influential member of
10521-502: The 1928 anti- Simon Commission protests. Congress leader Lala Lajpat Rai died of injuries received when police broke up a Lahore protest march in October, and Bhagat Singh and other members of the HSRA avenged his death in December; Singh also later bombed the legislative assembly. He and other HSRA members were arrested, and three went on a hunger strike in jail; Bengali bomb-maker Jatindra Nath Das persisted in his strike until his death in September 1929. The Calcutta Corporation passed
10688-487: The 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali: In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement . This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh ), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as
10855-421: The 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty . During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa . Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by
11022-412: The Act and 99 were imprisoned under Regulation III. In Bengal, revolutionary violence fell to 10 incidents in 1917. According to official lists, 186 revolutionaries were killed or convicted by 1918. After the war, the Defence of India Act was extended by the Rowlatt Act , the passage of which was a prime target of the protests of M. K. Gandhi 's non-cooperation movement. Many revolutionaries released after
11189-436: The Anushilan Samiti and joined the Communist Consolidation the Marxist group in Cellular Jail , and they later the Communist Party of India (CPI). Some of the Anushilan Marxists were hesitant to join the Communist Party, few joined the RSP however, since they distrusted the political lines formulated by the Communist International . They also did not embrace Trotskyism , although they shared some Trotskyist critiques of
11356-405: The Bengal Samiti cell was introduced to Har Dayal when Dayal visited India in 1908. Dayal was associated with India House, then headed by V. D. Savarkar. By 1910, Dayal was working closely with Rash Behari Bose. After the decline of India House, Dayal moved to San Francisco after working briefly with the Paris Indian Society . Nationalism among Indian immigrants (particularly students and
11523-401: The Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra . The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example,
11690-426: The Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments , but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel , either [ɔ] as in মত [m ɔ t] "opinion" or [o] , as in মন [m o n] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ] . To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it,
11857-498: The C.I.D. (known as the "Special Department") was developed in September 1909, staffed by 23 officers and 45 men. The government of India allocated Rs 2,227,000 for the Bengal Police alone in the reforms of 1909–1910. By 1908 a Special Officer for Political Crime was appointed from the Bengal Police, with the Special Branch of Police working under him. This post was first occupied by C.W.C. Plowden and later by F.C. Daly. Godfrey Denham, then Assistant Superintendent of Police, served under
12024-557: The Dacca library strongly recommended reading his books. 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
12191-731: 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
12358-629: The Dhaka Anushilan Samiti to trial. Nandalal Bannerjee (the officer who arrested Khudiram) was shot and killed in 1908, followed by the assassinations of the prosecutor and informant for the Alipore case in 1909. After Aurobindo's retirement, the western Anushilan Samiti found a more prominent leader in Bagha Jatin and emerged as the Jugantar . Jatin revitalised links between the central organisation in Calcutta and its branches in Bengal , Bihar , Orissa and Uttar Pradesh , establishing hideouts in
12525-646: The Gandhi-led Salt March , in April 1930, a group led by Surya Sen raided the Chittagong Armoury. In 1930 eleven British officials were killed, notably during the Writer's Building raid of December 1930 by Benoy Basu , Dinesh Gupta and Badal Gupta . Three successive district magistrates in Midnapore were assassinated, and dozens of other actions were carried out during the first half of
12692-500: 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. The growth of the Indian middle class during the 19th century led to a growing sense of Indian identity that fed a rising tide of nationalism in India in the last decades of the 1800s. The creation of
12859-532: The Indian National Congress. 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. By 1902, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) had three secret societies working toward the violent overthrow of British rule in India: one founded by Calcutta student Satish Chandra Basu with
13026-473: 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
13193-572: The Indian political movement. The British war effort had received popular support within India and the act received support on the understanding that the measures enacted were necessary in the war situation. These measures enabled the arrest, internment, transportation, and execution of a number of revolutionaries linked to the organisation, which crushed the East Bengal branch of the Samiti. Its application led to 46 executions, as well as 64 life sentences given to revolutionaries in Bengal and Punjab in
13360-462: The Jugantar group in West Bengal due to disagreements with Aurobindo's approach of slowly building a mass base for revolution. The Dhaka group instead sought immediate action and results through political terrorism. The two branches of the Samiti engaged in dacoity to raise money, and performed a number of political assassinations. In December 1907, the Bengal branch derailed a train carrying Bengal Lieutenant Governor Andrew Henderson Leith Fraser in
13527-589: The Lahore Conspiracy Trial and Benares Conspiracy Trial, and in tribunals in Bengal, effectively crushing the revolutionary movement. By March 1916, widespread arrests had helped Bengal Police crush the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti in Calcutta. The power of preventive detention was used extensively in Bengal, and revolutionary violence in Bengal plummeted to 10 incidents in 1917. By the end of the war there were over 800 detainees under
13694-493: The Maharashtrian Vishnu Ganesh Pingle and Sikh militants planned simultaneous troop uprisings for February 1915. In Bengal, Anushilan and Jugantar launched what has been described by historians as "a reign of terror in both the cities and the countryside ... [which] ... came close to achieving their key goal of paralysing the administration". An atmosphere of fear severely affected morale in both
13861-456: The Raj perceived the Samiti in its early days as a serious threat to its rule. 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
14028-679: The Raj, the Samiti ' s members who turned approvers (i.e. gave evidence against their colleagues) and the Bengal Police staff who were investigating the Samiti were consistently targeted. A number of assassinations were carried out of approvers who had agreed to act as crown witnesses. In 1909 Naren Gossain, crown witness for the prosecution in Alipore bomb case , was shot dead within Alipore Jail by Satyendranath Boseu and Kanai Lal Dutt. Ashutosh Biswas, an advocate of Calcutta High Court in charge of prosecution of Gossain murder case,
14195-666: The Samiti also 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. 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 , along with his reinterpretation of
14362-513: The Samiti became household names in Bengal. Many of these educated and youthful men were widely admired and romanticised throughout India. 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. 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
14529-549: The Samiti diverged from the Swadeshi movement, which they decried as a "trader's movement". When the Samiti first came into prominence following the Muzaffarpur killings, its ideology was felt to be influenced by European anarchism . Lord Minto resisted the notion that its action might be the manifestation of political grievance by concluding that: Murderous methods hitherto unknown in India ... have been imported from
14696-554: The Samiti included the Japanese artist Kakuzo Okakura and Margaret Noble, an Irish woman known as Sister Nivedita . Okakura was a proponent of Pan-Asianism . He visited Swami Vivekananda in Calcutta in 1902, and inspired Pramathanath Mitra in the early days of the Samiti. However the extent of his involvement or influence is debated. Nivedita was a disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She had contacts with Aurobindo, with Satish Bose and with Jugantar sub-editor Bhupendranath Bose. Nivedita
14863-506: The Samiti spread its influence to other parts of the country, particularly north India, it began to draw in people of other religions and of varying religious commitments. For example, many who joined the Hindustan Republican Socialist Association were Marxists and many were militant atheists . By the late 1930s, members with a more secular outlook were beginning to participate. Some components of
15030-928: The Samiti to acquire the support of educated, politically conscious and disaffected members of local youth societies. The Samiti's program emphasized physical training, training its recruits with daggers and lathis (bamboo staffs used as weapons). The Dhaka branch was led by Pulin Behari Das , and branches spread throughout East Bengal and Assam. More than 500 branches were opened in eastern Bengal and Assam , linked by "close and detailed organization" to Pulin's headquarters at Dhaka. This branch soon overshadowed its parent organisation in Calcutta. 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. Within two years, Dhaka Anushilan changed its aims from those of
15197-597: 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. Bengali intellectuals were already calling for indigenous schools and colleges to replace British institutions, and seeking to build indigenous institutions. Surendranath Tagore , of
15364-541: The Samiti's members also 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. In 1907 Hem Chandra Kanungo (Hem Chandra Das) went to Paris by selling his land property to learn bomb-making from Nicholas Safranski, a Russian revolutionary in exile. In 1908, young recruits Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki were sent on
15531-723: The Special Officer. Denham was credited with uncovering the Manicktala safe house of the Samiti, raiding it in May 1908, which ultimately led to the Manicktala conspiracy case. This case led to further expansion of the Special Branch in Bengal. The CID in Eastern Bengal and Assam (EBA) were founded in 1906 and expanded from 1909 onwards. However, the EBA police's access to informers and secret agents remained difficult. In EBA,
15698-497: The West, ... which the imitative Bengali has childishly accepted. However others disagreed. John Morley was of the opinion that the political violence exemplified by the Samiti was a manifestation of Indian antagonism to the government, although there were also influences of European nationalism and philosophies of liberalism. In the 1860s and 1870s, large numbers of akhras (gymnasiums) arose in Bengal that were consciously designed along
15865-480: The act in Bengal under the act. However, indiscriminate application of the act made it increasingly unpopular with the Indian public. The 1915 act was designed to expire in 1919, and the Rowlatt Committee was appointed to recommend measures to continue to suppress the revolutionary movement. The committee recommended an extension of the provisions of the Defence of India Act for a further three years with
16032-626: The act successfully curtailed a resurgence in nationalist violence in Bengal, at a time when the Hindustan Republican Association was rising in the United Provinces. After the 1920s, the Anushilan Samiti gradually dissolved 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. In independent India,
16199-574: The act, including Subhas Chandra Bose , curtailing the resurgence of nationalist violence in Bengal. Branches of Jugantar formed in Chittagong and Dhaka, in present-day Bangladesh. The Chittagong branch, led by Surya Sen , robbed the Chittagong office of the Assam-Bengal Railway in December 1923. In January 1924 a young Bengali, Gopi Mohan Saha, shot dead a European he mistook for Calcutta police commissioner Charles Tegart . The assassin
16366-439: The act. The act also provides a penalty for disobedience of any order promulgated under sections 22 and 27 of the act, which is imprisonment for a maximum of six months or a fine of Rs. 500 or both. Mahatma Gandhi , among other Indian leaders, was extremely critical of the Act and argued that not everyone should be punished in response to isolated political crimes. Madan Mohan Malaviya , Mazarul Haque and Muhammad Ali Jinnah ,
16533-489: 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
16700-506: The agreement, it sponsored no major actions between 1920 and 1922. During the next few years, Jugantar and the Samiti became active again. The resurgence of radical nationalism linked to the Samiti during the 1920s led to the passage of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance in 1924. The act restored extraordinary powers of detention to the police; by 1927 more than 200 suspects were imprisoned under
16867-551: The basis of a 1977 Bengali language film, Sabyasachi , with Uttam Kumar playing the lead role of the protagonist. Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ), is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, Bengali
17034-536: The basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh ( Barisal , Chittagong , Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives . Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [ tɕɔ ] , ছ [ tɕʰɔ ] , জ [ dʑɔ ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ] , ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ] , জ [dzɔ~zɔ] . The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on
17201-435: The colonial British government to imprison any person suspected of terrorism living in British India for up to two years, and gave the colonial authorities power to deal with all revolutionary activities. The unpopular legislation provided for stricter control of the press, arrests without warrant, indefinite detention without trial, and juryless in camera trials for proscribed political acts. The accused were denied
17368-583: The colonial administration of British 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
17535-469: The consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in
17702-507: The country. In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam . Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. In Pakistan , Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan . The Department of Bengali in
17869-526: 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
18036-428: The decade. By 1931 a record 92 violent incidents were recorded, including the murders of the British magistrates of Tippera and Midnapore. However, soon afterwards, in 1934, the revolutionary movement in Bengal ended. A large portion of the 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 . During
18203-604: The development of Dobhashi . Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah . Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali, allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate. Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian , which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on
18370-412: The division of the organisation in Bengal, which largely followed British administrative divisions. Samiti membership was predominantly made up of Hindus, at least initially, which was ascribed to the religious oath of initiation being unacceptable to Muslims. Each member was assigned to one or more of three roles: collection of funds, implementation of planned actions and propaganda. In practice, however,
18537-638: The east to Meherpur in the west. The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam , composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet . After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan ; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement. In
18704-553: The eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages , the Bihari languages , and the Odia language . The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around
18871-505: The emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the language movement. Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit . These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit ", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji , as
19038-634: The emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention , imprisonment without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War . It was enacted in the light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as had occurred during the war which the Government felt the lapse of the Defence of India Act would enable. The British Colonial Government passed
19205-466: The final ন in মন [m o n] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla] ). A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures . These allographs, called কার kar , are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example,
19372-500: The financial backing of Subodh Chandra Mallik , the Bengal National College was established with Aurobindo as Principal. 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
19539-752: The fundamental division was between military work and civil work. Dals (teams) consisting of five or ten members led by a dalpati (team leader) were grouped together in local Samiti led by adhyakshas (executive officers) and other officers. These reported to district officers appointed by and responsible to the central Dhaka organization, commanded by Pulin Das and those who deputised for him during his periods of imprisonment. Samitis were divided into four functional groups: violence, organisation, keepers of arms, and householders. Communications were carried by special couriers and written in secret code. These practices and others were inspired by literary sources and were partly
19706-549: The government finally repealed the Rowlatt act and its component sister acts. A resurgence of radical nationalism linked to the Samiti after 1922 led to the implementation of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment in 1924, which reinstated the powers of incarceration and detention from the Defence of India Act. The act re-introduced extraordinary powers of detention to the police, and by 1927 more than 200 suspects had been imprisoned, including Subhas Chandra Bose . The implementation of
19873-670: The government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002. In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations . Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum . Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi , Vangiya , Kamrupi and Varendri ; but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects ( Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form
20040-499: The graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i] , where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar ) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma] , মী [mi] , মু [mu] , মূ [mu] , মৃ [mri] , মে [me~mɛ] , মৈ [moj] , মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures,
20207-412: The graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden. Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi –
20374-690: The group, in Mymensingh and Barisal . This was followed by the assassination of CID head constable Shrish Chandra Dey in Calcutta. In February 1911, Jugantar bombed a car in Calcutta, mistaking an Englishman for police officer Godfrey Denham. Rash Behari Bose (described as "the most dangerous revolutionary in India") extended the group's reach into north India , where he found work in the Indian Forest Institute in Dehra Dun . Bose forged links with radical nationalists in Punjab and
20541-546: 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
20708-523: The investigation in the aftermath of the Dalhi-Lahore Conspiracy and identified Chandernagore as the main hub for the Samiti. Tegart remained in the Bengal police until at least the 1930s, earning notoriety amongst the Samiti for his work, and was subjected to a number of assassination attempts. In 1924, Ernest Day, an Englishman, was shot dead by Gopinath Saha at Chowringhee Road in Calcutta, due to being mistaken for Tegart. In 1930,
20875-494: The language as: While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However,
21042-547: The language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in
21209-483: The latter's 1912 visit to Calcutta and obtained an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied to them. Jatin learned about Bose's work from Niralamba Swami on a pilgrimage to Brindavan . Returning to Bengal, he began reorganising the group. Bose went into hiding in Benares after the 1912 attempt on Hardinge but he met Jatin towards the end of 1913, outlining prospects for a pan-Indian revolution. In 1914 Bose,
21376-490: 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'". The founders of
21543-439: The leadership of Joseph Stalin . Shortly after its inception, the Samiti became the focus of extensive police and intelligence operation. Notable officers who led the police and intelligence operations against them at various times included Sir Robert Nathan , Sir Harold Stuart , Sir Charles Stevenson-Moore and Sir Charles Tegart . The CIDs of Bengal and the provinces of Eastern Bengal and Assam were founded in response to
21710-428: The letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra , as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e , also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô . The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between
21877-557: The lines of the Italian Carbonari . These were influenced by the works of Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini and his Young Italy movement . Aurobindo himself studied the revolutionary nationalism of Ireland, France and America. Hem Chandra Das , during his stay in Paris, is also noted to have interacted with European radical nationalists in the city, returning to India an atheist with Marxist leanings. Foreign influences on
22044-519: The mass detentions of the 1930s surrounding the civil-disobedience movement, many members joined Congress. Jugantar was formally dissolved in 1938; many former members continued to act together under Surendra Mohan Ghose, who was a liaison between other Congress politicians and Aurobindo Ghose in Pondicherry. During the late 1930s, Marxist-leaning members of the Samiti in the CSP announced the formation of
22211-566: The nationalist publications Jugantar , Karmayogin and Bande Mataram . 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. 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. Post-independence and Cold War Contemporary history Through
22378-605: The neighbouring states of Odisha , Bihar , and Jharkhand , and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi , Mumbai , Thane , Varanasi , and Vrindavan . There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East , the United States , Singapore , Malaysia , Australia , Canada , the United Kingdom , and Italy . The 3rd article of
22545-517: The parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language. As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India. In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language . Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming
22712-575: The party in West Bengal evolved into the Revolutionary Socialist Party , while the Eastern Branch later evolved into the Sramik Krishak Samajbadi Dal (Workers and Peasants Socialist Party) in present-day Bangladesh . The nationalist publication Jugantar , which served as the organ of the Samiti, inspired fanatical loyalty among its readers. By 1907 it was selling 7,000 copies, which later rose to 20,000. Its message
22879-580: The patronage of Calcutta barrister Pramatha Mitra , another led by Sarala Devi , and the third founded by Aurobindo Ghose . Ghose and his brother Barin were among the strongest proponents of militant Indian nationalism at the time. Nationalist writings and publications by Aurobindo and Barin, including Bande Mataram and Jugantar Patrika (Yugantar) , had a widespread influence on Bengal youth and helped Anushilan Samiti to gain popularity in Bengal. The 1905 partition of Bengal stimulated radical nationalist sentiments in Bengal's Bhadralok community, helping
23046-525: The police and courts. In August 1914, Jugantar seized a large amount of arms and ammunition from the Rodda company , a Calcutta arms dealer, and used them in robberies in Calcutta for the next two years. In 1915, only six revolutionaries were successfully tried. Both the February 1915 plot and a December 1915 plot were thwarted by British intelligence. Jatin and a number of fellow revolutionaries were killed in
23213-499: The police forces in India, which they claimed were already being used to oppress the Indian people. 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 . The act received universal support from Indian non-officiating members in the Governor General's council and from moderate leaders within
23380-478: The police to search a place and arrest any person they disapproved of without warrant. Despite much opposition, the Rowlatt Act was passed on 18 March 1919. The purpose of the act was to curb the growing nationalist upsurge in the country. Under the Rowlatt act 1919, the chief justice was empowered to decide on the immediate custody of the accused between the trial and release on bail for smooth implementation of
23547-595: The political branch of the Bengal CID was renamed the Intelligence Branch, staffed with 50 officers and 127 men. The branch had separate sections dealing with explosives, assassinations, and robberies. It was headed by Charles Tegart , who built up a network of agents and informers to infiltrate the Samiti. Tegart would meet his agents under cover of darkness, at times disguising himself as a pathan or kabuliwallah . Assisting Denham and Petrie, Tegart led
23714-615: The protest movement was very strong, and on 10 April two leaders of the congress, Dr. Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew , were arrested and taken secretly to Dharamsala . On 13 April people from neighbouring villages gathered for Baisakhi Day celebrations and to protest against their deportation in Amritsar . Subsequently, the army was called into Punjab, which resulted in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. Accepting
23881-422: The removal of habeas corpus provisions. However this was met with universal opposition by the Indian members of the Viceroy's council, as well as the population in general, and Gandhi called the proposed act "The Black Bills". Mohammed Ali Jinnah left the Viceroy's council in protest, after having warned the council of the danger of enacting such an unpopular bill. Nevertheless, the recommendations were enacted in
24048-425: The revolutionary movement led by the Samiti. By 1908, political crime duties took the services of one deputy Superintendent of Police, 52 Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors, and nearly 720 constables. Foreseeing a rise in the strength of the revolutionary movement, Sir Harold Stuart (then Secretary of State for India ) implemented plans for secret service to fight the menace posed by the Samiti. A Political Crime branch of
24215-645: 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
24382-510: The right to know the accusers and the evidence used in the trial. Those convicted were required to deposit securities upon release, and were prohibited from taking part in any political, educational, or religious activities. On the report of the committee, headed by Justice Rowlatt, two bills were introduced in the Central Legislature on 6 February 1919. These bills came to be known as "Black Bills". They gave enormous powers to
24549-435: 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
24716-427: The so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ] . The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent
24883-536: The superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ) , denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow"). The Bengali consonant clusters ( যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn ) are usually realised as ligatures, where
25050-474: The third place, according to the 2011 census of India . Bengali has developed over more than 1,400 years. Bengali literature , with its millennium-old literary history, was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to
25217-399: The trial, and Jugantar responded with defiant editorials. 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
25384-484: The visible matra and an invisible baseline). There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem. Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on
25551-435: The vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit ( tadbhava ), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit). For example: The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels . The inventory
25718-442: The war escaped to Burma to avoid repeated incarceration. The first non-cooperation movement, the Rowlatt Satyagrahas led by Gandhi, was active from 1919 to 1922. It received widespread support from prominent members of the Indian independence movement. In Bengal, Jugantar agreed to a request by Chittaranjan Das (a respected leader of the Indian National Congress) to refrain from violence. Although Anushilan Samiti did not adhere to
25885-426: 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
26052-409: 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
26219-418: The working class) was gaining ground in the United States. Taraknath Das, who left Bengal for the United States in 1907, was among the Indian students who engaged in political work. In California, Dayal became a leading organiser of Indian nationalism amongst predominantly-Punjabi immigrant workers and was a key member of the Ghadar Party . With Naren Bhattacharya , Jatin met the crown prince of Germany during
26386-446: Was aimed at elite politically conscious readers and was essentially a critique of British rule in India and justification of political violence. 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. The Samiti responded by attempting to assassinate Douglas Kingsford, who presided over
26553-526: Was also guru , teaching those under his command practical skills, revolutionary ideology, and strategy. Gordon suggests that the dada system developed out of pre-existing social structures in rural Bengal. Dadas both co-operated and competed with each other for men, money, and material. Many members of the Samiti came from upper castes. By 1918, nearly 90% of the revolutionaries killed or convicted were Brahmins , Kayasthas or Vaidyas ; rests are from agricultural or pastoral castes like Mahishya or Yadav . As
26720-433: Was founded in Benares by Sachindranath Sanyal and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee , helping to radicalise north India. It soon had branches from Calcutta to Lahore . A series of successful dacoities in Uttar Pradesh were followed by a train robbery in Kakori, and subsequent investigations and two trials broke the organization. Several years later, it was reborn as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). In 1927,
26887-413: Was overshadowed by tensions running high, which resulted in rioting in the Punjab , Delhi and Gujarat. Deciding that Indians were not ready to make a stand consistent with the principle of nonviolence , an integral part of satyagraha (disobeying the British colonial government's laws without using violence), Gandhi suspended the resistance. The Rowlatt Act came into effect on 21 March 1919. In Punjab
27054-409: Was power and quivering shadow of action and a determination not to submit to a wrong...This was something very different from our daily politics of condemnation and nothing else, long speeches always ending in the same futile and ineffective resolutions of protest which nobody took very seriously. This was the politics of action, not of talk. However, the success of the hartal in Delhi , on 30 March,
27221-422: Was praised by the Bengali press and, to Gandhi's chagrin, proclaimed a martyr by the Bengal branch of the Congress. Around this time, Jugantar became closely associated with the Calcutta Corporation , headed by Das and Subhas Chandra Bose, and terrorists (and ex-terrorists) became significant factors in local Bengali government. In 1923 another group linked to Anushilan Samiti, the Hindustan Republican Association,
27388-416: Was shot dead within Calcutta High Court in 1909. In 1910, Shamsul Alam, Deputy Superintendent of Bengal Police responsible for investigating the Alipore bomb case, was shot dead on the steps of Calcutta High Court. The failures of a number of prosecutions of violence linked to the Samiti under the Criminal Procedures Act of 1898 led to a special act that provided for crimes of nationalist violence to be tried by
27555-427: Was somehow different from others. It was quiet and low, and yet it could be heard above the shouting of the multitude; it was soft and gentle , and yet there seemed to be steel hidden away somewhere in it; it was courteous and full of appeal, and yet there was something grim and frightening in it; every word used was full of meaning and seemed to carry a deadly earnestness. Behind the language of peace and friendship there
27722-409: 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. 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,
27889-432: Was the Rowlatt Act which brought Gandhi to the mainstream of the Indian struggle for independence and ushered in the Gandhian Era of Indian politics. Jawaharlal Nehru described Gandhi's entry into the protests in his Glimpses of World History : Early in 1919 he was very ill. He had barely recovered from it when the Rowlatt Bill agitation filled the country. He also joined his voice to the universal outcry. But this voice
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