In 1917 the Government of India, brought out a confidential publication entitled Political Trouble in India 1907-1917, written by J.C. Ker of the Indian Civil Service, Personal Assistant to the Director of Criminal Intelligence. The present book compiled twenty years after that by H.W. Hale of Indian Police is in a way its sequel when need was felt to review the course of the terrorist movement over the whole period. The volume sets out to give a connected account of seditious and revolutionary activity in India between the years 1917 and 1936.

It was purely accidental that this book was published at a time when introduction of the new Constitution embodied in the Government of India Act 1935 and the assumption of the reins of the government in six Indian Provinces by the Congress party had caused a fundamental reorientation of political agitation as it was felt that a popularly elected government would mean the elimination of guns and bombs by the revolutionaries.

The present narrative, it was felt at the time, would be of considerable value to those interested in the administration of Colonial India. The Appendices were meant to assist those, mainly police officers, whose duties required them to make a detailed study of the past history of terrorism.