Attempt to explain the freedom struggle of India in terms of influence of a single organization or movement or any single factor would present an incomplete picture since it was a cumulative effort of various people belonging to different ideologies and ranks. Some of the important factors that gave rise to revolutionary tendencies were:
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1. Revolutionaries were highly motivated nationalist youth, whose creative energies failed to find adequate room for expression within the existing political trends.
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2. They symbolized the desperate will of the nation to be free and felt that the moderate politics of trying to convert the British rulers by petitioning and reasonable argument was futile and that the Extremist methods of agitation such as boycott, passive resistance etc., would not bring the British Government to its knees.
3. Failure of the Swadeshi Movement and non reversal of the partition of Bengal led to a growing sense of impatience and frustration among the youth who began to feel that perhaps something even more dramatic was needed to arouse the people on the one hand to generate fear in the government.
4. Arrest /deportation of prominent Extremist leaders further strengthened the trend that believed in violent and revolutionary activities.
Some sections of the leadership, such as Aurobindo Ghosh, infact supported the new trend.
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5. Another factor that helped the growth of the trend of revolutionary terrorism was due to the fact that barbaric punishments were given to the freedom fighters and these occasional brutalities of the imperial rulers, provoked the Indian youth to undertake acts of desperate revengefulness.
Moreover, the brutal repression of the Swadeshi Movement by the Government like unprovoked assault on the peaceful crowd at the Barisal Political Conference on 27th April, 1906 led to the popular call: “Force must be stopped by force.”
6. After split of Congress at Surat in 1907, the government proceeded to launch an all-out attack on the Extremists.
During this period a whole generation of nationalist youth was angered, impatient and prepared to adopt the path of individual heroic action or revolutionary terrorism.
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7. The economic destitution and political slavery of the country was a dreadful sight for revolutionaries.
Hence through their self-immolation they wanted to make people detest slavery. They wanted to set example through the daring acts and organize people against the colonial rule and achieve independence through people’s revolution.
8. Revolutionaries were inspired by the Irish revolutionaries and the Russian nihilist on the one hand and by different popular revolutions of 18th and 19th century on the other.