Centring the colonised

With hearings that began in June 1929, a verdict delivered in 1933, and another six months of appeal hearings, the Meerut Conspiracy Case in colonial India turned out to be one of the most expensive legal cases in the history of the British Empire. 31 trade unionists and activists were arrested for organising strikes and charged with conspiring to "deprive the King of the sovereignty of British India". The accused were picked up from Bombay, Calcutta, and Punjab and taken to the city of Meerut for the trial – far from the support bases of the defendants and from the trade union centres of Bombay and Calcutta. The detainees were refused bail and subjected to trial without a jury – though jury trial was the practice at the time. One defendant died during the protracted trial and most others received harsh sentences – a decade or more of imprisonment and transportation.

The case gained international attention, not least because among the accused were two British activists working on organisation of labour in India. The colonial prosecution argued that the 'head' of the conspiracy to overthrow the King was no less than the Communist International (Comintern), the Moscow-based organisation coordinating communist parties worldwide. The protests against the trials were also international, best illustrated by the Meerut Sketch – an adaptation of the story of the defendants performed by the London-based Hammer and Sickle group. The sketch was an appeal to anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, and anti-racist groups worldwide to show solidarity with the Meerut prisoners. It connected British imperialist oppression in the Meerut Conspiracy Case to the dire circumstances in the French penal colony, the American chain gangs, and the tyranny of Czarist Russia. It concluded with a collective call to action: "Force the release of the Meerut Prisoners! Comrades, hands across the sea! Comrades, solidarity!" The defence of the Meerut prisoners became a preeminent cause for transnational alliances between anti-imperialists worldwide.