The Meerut Conspiracy Trial, 1929-1932

Catalogue record

Notes

Part 1 of the BOA series, People and Protest in Britain and Abroad, 1800-2000. The Meerut Conspiracy Trial sheds light on the activities of the Communist International and, in particular, of the Communist Party of Great Britain in India. The subcontinent was regarded in Moscow as the ‘Achilles heel’ of British imperialism because of the strength of nationalist agitation there after the First World War. British Communists were given responsibilities to actively intervene in India to assist in the formation of a Communist Party of India. Meerut demonstrated that they had established a record of doing this by helping to create militant trade unions and workers’ and peasants’ parties behind which a nascent Communist Party sought to pull the strings from a position of concealment. Meerut brought them out into the open. But, as the trial dragged on, it served to publicise their activities throughout the country, identifying them as martyrs in the cause of ‘depriving the King-Emperor of his sovereignty of India’. The documents in this unique collection give a comprehensive insight into all aspects of this prolonged legal case and the political machinations which accompanied it in Britain, India and Soviet Russia. Accompanied by a scholarly introduction by John Callaghan, professor of Politics and Contemporary History, University of Salford.

Also available on microfilm.

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This collection has been digitised and is available to read online in British Online Archives.