The Nationalist agenda

In 1906 Bipin Chandra Pal launched the English daily Bande Mataram, and Aurobindo Ghose joined him and soon took charge.

Its writing was remarkably direct for the time. One article of September 1906 said the Partition's obvious aim was "to sow discord between the Hindus and the Mahomedans in a Province that had never known it".

And then it went further than the Partition: "This agitation is not an agitation merely against Partition … The attainment of absolute national autonomy—it is this alone that will settle down this movement."

Read that carefully. It says the problem is not the border but British rule itself. Nothing short of full self-rule would end the movement.

The paper also added a fourth plank to Swadeshi and boycott: National Education, to counter what it called the denationalising effects of English education. And it spelt out a 'doctrine of passive resistance'.

Earlier that year, leading citizens created a National Council of Education and launched the Bengal National College, meant to give a truly Indian education: none of the modern subjects missing, but with roots in Indian thought and values as a main focus.

Aurobindo Ghose became its first principal. (It later became part of Jadavpur University.)

In December 1906 the Congress session at Calcutta, with Dadabhai Naoroji presiding, adopted Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education as its goals. But 'Swaraj' was left undefined: it could mean anything from self-rule within the British Empire to full independence.