RAS question
The Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929-1933) was the trial of:
Correct answer: (D) Communist and trade union leaders charged with conspiracy against the Crown.
The Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929-1933 tried communist and trade union leaders accused of conspiring against the Crown.
Explanation
The case belongs to the history of Left-wing and labour politics, not to Congress civil disobedience or revolutionary dacoity. eGyanKosh, Unit 16: Left-Wing Movements says the government arrested Communists in March 1929 and tried them at Meerut on a charge of conspiracy against His Majesty's Government; it also notes that the accused included Philip Spratt, B.F. Bradley and Lester Hutchinson, with the rest being Indian Communists. Leaders such as S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmad and P.C. Joshi were among those proceeded against, and the trial lasted four years. That is why option D captures the substance: communist and trade union leadership was being prosecuted for an alleged anti-Crown conspiracy.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) INA officers were tried at the Red Fort in 1945 after the Second World War, not in the Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929-1933.
- (B) Congress leaders connected with Civil Disobedience faced separate proceedings, while the Meerut case targeted communist and labour-linked leadership.
- (C) The train-robbery charge points to the Kakori Case, whereas Meerut was about an alleged communist conspiracy against the colonial government.
Concept
This tests the Left-wing and trade union strand of the freedom movement. RAS repeats it because it separates labour-communist politics from better-known Congress, INA and revolutionary-terrorist episodes.