The Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case was a controversial

court case Legal proceeding is an activity that seeks to invoke the power of a tribunal in order to enforce a law. Although the term may be defined more broadly or more narrowly as circumstances require, it has been noted that " e term ''legal proceedings'' ...

initiated in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

in 1924. After Peshawar in 1922, two more conspiracy cases were instituted by the British government, one in Kanpur (1924) and another in Meerut (1929). The accused in the cases included, among others, important communist organisers who worked in India, such as S. V. Ghate, S. A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmad, and Akshay Thakur, and members of the émigré émigré Communist Party of India (Tashkent group), such as Rafiq Ahmad and Shaukat Usmani. On 17 March 1924, S. A. Dange, M. N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Malayapuram Singaravelu, Ghulam Hussain, and others were charged as communists seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from Britain by a violent revolution" in what was called the

Cawnpore Kanpur ( Hindustani: ), originally named Kanhapur and formerly anglicized as Cawnpore, is the second largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after Lucknow. It was the primary financial and commercial centre of northern India. Founded ...

(now spelt Kanpur) Bolshevik Conspiracy case. The case attracted interest of the people towards Comintern plan to bring about violent revolution in India. "Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned such a large scale about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India".Ralhan, O.P. (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Political Parties'' New Delhi: Anmol Publications p.336 Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M. N. Roy was out of the country and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmed, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for four years of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to the Indian masses. After Kanpur, Britain had triumphantly declared that the case had "finished off the communists".Stevenson, Graham, ''Shaukat (Shavkat) Usmani''
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060815041715/http://graham.thewebtailor.co.uk/archives/000090.html , date=2006-08-15 Compendium of Communist Biographies But the industrial town of Kanpur, in December 1925, witnessed a conference of different communist groups, under the chairmanship of Singaravelu Chettiar. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani were among the key organizers of the meeting. The meeting adopted a resolution for the formation of the Communist Party of India with its headquarters in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

(now Mumbai). The British government's extreme hostility towards the Bolsheviks, made them to decide not to function openly as a communist party, but they chose a more open and non-federated platform, under the name the Workers and Peasants Parties.

References

Indian independence movement Communist Party of India 1924 in India 1924 in case law History of Uttar Pradesh Political repression in British India History of Kanpur Indian case law

See also

References