The opening of the 20th century was the most important landmark in the history of freedom movement in India. The world events such as Russo-Japanese War, Russian revolution (1905), struggle for self-government in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkey, China and other countries, which took place at the beginning of the century, accelerated the pace of Indian liberation movement.

The Indian National Congress till 1905 had been dominated by the moderate leaders who believed in the sense of justice of the British people and their task was limited to political education, modest demand for enlargement of legislative councils and removal of certain grievances. There was another section in the Congress under the leadership of Lokamanya Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghose, which later came to be known as extremist and which had set the attainment of Swaraj as its goal. There was a third section of the nationalists, known as revolutionary, which drew inspirations from extremists and wanted complete independence for India but they tried to achieve the goal through revolutionary violence. The revolutionaries realised that the freedom of the country would not be achieved without sacrifices. They were, therefore, prepared to lay down their lives for expelling the English from India.