ABSTRACT
The First World War, the plans of Indian revolutionaries based in North America to raise the Punjab represented the most dangerous immediate threat to the Raj. But, overall, the protracted terrorist campaign in Bengal was a far more serious challenge to British rule. Bengali terrorists enjoyed far greater popular support than the Punjabi revolutionaries and their war of attrition was far more effective than Ghadr's attempt at open revolt. The Bengali revolutionaries seized the opportunity offered by the war, and started a campaign of unprecedented violence. The Germans had taken great care in selecting a trustworthy revolutionary, Jotindra Nath Mukherji, to carry out the Indian end of their schemes. The security of both the British administration in Bengal and, ultimately, in India as a whole, that weapons should be kept away from Bengali revolutionaries. A crucial task of the British secret service and of Indian intelligence in the Far East and North America was to isolate Bengal from the Germans.
