Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

48 I Ramnath
groups, including both open and secret "student organizations
inspired by the Carbonari and [Giuseppe] Mazzini's
Young Italy:' which is to say by the form of mid-nineteenthcentury
romantic republicanism that played such a prominent
role in the development of international revolution.
·n1e newly politicized Anusilan Samiti emerged around
1902 or 1903 from a consolidation of several akharas, with
Aurobindo Ghose as one of the key movers. Born and
educated in England, Ghose idolized figures like Mazzini
and Charles Stewart Parnell, the hero of Irish home
rule. Philosophically, he morphed over the years from
agnosticism to spiritual leadership as a Hindu mystic.
After the Bengal partition, he along with his younger
brother Barindra Kumar Ghose and a few of their friends
began energetically recruiting and training young men
in lathi (wooden staff) and martial arts, swimming, and
horseback and bicycle riding. Students also received lectures
on political and military history including such topics
as the Sikh Khalsa, the French Revolution, and the Italian
Resorgimento. Anglo-Irish transplant Sister Nivedita (born
Margaret Noble) lectured on "patriotic fe elings and a sense
of duty to the country:' and donated her library, including a
well-known Mazzini biography, whose chapter on guerrilla
warfare was extensively copied and circulated.2
Nivedita also introduced a conscious connection with
ideological anarchism. She had followed the famous sage
Swami Vivekananda to India intending to work at the
Ramakrishna Mission, but once there threw herself into
the cause ofIndian national liberation, eventually separating
herself from the mission in order to pursue her political