Meerut Conspiracy Case - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Meerut Conspiracy Case was a controversial court case, in which several trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

ists, including three Englishmen were arrested for organizing Indian-rail strike, this immediately caught attention back home in England, inspired the 1932 play titled Meerut, by Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

street theatre

Street theatre

Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are...

group, the 'Red Megaphones', highlighting the detrimental effects of colonisation and industrialisation.

Background

The British Government was clearly worried about the growing influence of the Communist International. Its ultimate objective, so the government perceived, was to achieve "complete paralysis and overthrow of existing Governments in every country (including India) by means of a general strike and armed uprising."
The government's immediate response was to foist yet another conspiracy case—the Meerut Conspiracy Case.

In more than one way the Meerut Conspiracy case trial helped the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

The Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...

to consolidate its position among workers. Dange along with 32 persons were arrested on or about March 20, 1929 and were put on trial under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code

Indian Penal Code

Indian Penal Code is the main criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code, intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law. It was drafted in 1860 and came into force in colonial India during the British Raj in 1862...

, which declares:

Whoever within or without British India conspires to commit any of the offenses punishable by Section 121 or to deprive the King of the sovereignty of British India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

or any part thereof, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, the Government of India or any local Government, shall be punished with transportation for life, or any shorter term, or with imprisonment of either description which may extend to ten years.

The charges

The main charges were that in 1921 Dange, Shaukat Usmani

Shaukat Usmani

Shaukat Usmani was an early Indian communist, who was born to artstic USTA family of Bikaner and a member of the émigré Communist Party of India, established in Tashkent in 1920, and a founding member of the Communist Party of India when it was formed in Kanpur in 1925...

and Muzaffar Ahmad entered into a conspiracy to establish a branch of Comintern in India and they were helped by various persons, including the accused Philip Spratt

Philip Spratt

Philip Spratt was a British writer and intellectual. Initially a communist sent by the British arm of the Communist International , based in Moscow, to spread Communism in India, he subsequently became a friend and colleague of M.N...

and Benjamin Francis Bradley, sent to India by the Communist International. The aim of the accused persons, according to the charges raised against them was under section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code

Indian Penal Code

(Act 45 of 1860)

to deprive the King Emperor of the sovereignty of British India, and for such purpose to use the methods and carry out the programme and plan of campaign outlined and ordained by the Communist International.

The Sessions Court in Meerut awarded stringent sentences to the accused in January 1933. Out of the accused 27 persons were convicted with various durations of 'transportation'. While Muzaffar Ahmed was transported for life, Dange, Spratt, Ghate, Joglekar and Nimbkar were each awarded transportation for a period of 12 years. On appeal, in August 1933, the sentences of Ahmed, Dange and Usmani were reduced to three years by Sir Shah Sulaiman Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, on the grounds that the accused had already spent a considerable part of their sentence while waiting for the trial to be decided and because

in the case of political offenses, arising out of the beliefs of the accused, severe sentences defeat their object. In practice such sentences confirm the offenders in their beliefs and create other offenders, thus increasing the evil and the danger to the public.

Sentences of convicted others were also reduced.

The convictions of Desai, Hutchinson, Mitra, Jhabwala, Sehgal, Kasle, Gauri Shankar, Kadara and Alve were also overturned in this appeal.

Impact of Meerut Conspiracy Case

Though all the accused were not communists, the charges framed against them betrayed the British government's fear for growth of communist ideas in India. In the trial the accused were all labeled as Bolsheviks. During the trial of four and a half years, the defendants turned the courtroom into a public platform to espouse their cause. As a result, the trial saw strengthening of the communist movement in the country. Harkishan Singh Surjeet

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

Harkishan Singh Surjeet was a communist politician from Punjab, India. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India from 1992 to 2005 and was a member of the party's Political Bureau from 1964 to 2008.-Pre-1947 career:Born to a Basi Jat family in Bundala, Jalandhar district,...

, a former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

The Communist Party of India is a political party in India. It has a strong presence in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI is leading the state government in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of...

wrote about the aftermath of the Meerut Conspiracy case thus:

a Party with a centralized apparatus, came into being only after the release of the Meerut prisoners, in 1933. The Meerut Conspiracy Case, though launched to suppress the communist movement, provided the opportunity for Communists to propagate their ideas. It came out with its own manifesto and was affiliated to the Communist International in 1934.

External links

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Background

The charges

Impact of Meerut Conspiracy Case

Further reading

External links