Meerut Conspiracy Case and the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny

The Meerut conspiracy case (1929-33) and the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny 1946 (henceforth RIN mutiny) are two historic events in British India whose tremors shook the foundation of the colonial government.

Read this to know more about these important events of the Indian Independence movement from a class and labor laws perspective.

Introduction

Meerut conspiracy case (1929-33) and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny 1946 (henceforth RIN mutiny) are two historic events in British India whose tremors shook the foundation of the colonial government.

The former is considered a sham trial initiated by the British government against some of the prominent communist leaders of India to contain the rising revolutionary activities and the growing influence of Bolshevik ideology amongst Indian industrial workers.

Alarmed by the fear of an armed uprising, the government on March 20, 1929, arrested 33 trade union leaders including SA Dange, Shaukat Usmani, and Muzaffar Ahmed, and charged them under S.121A of the Indian Penal Code 1860 for sedition and the offense of conspiracy against the King.

Though the trial court convicted most of the accused and awarded them stringent punishments higher courts gradually reduced the sentences over a period of time. 

As opposed to the Merrut conspiracy trial in which communists were involved, Royal India Navy (RIN) mutiny was initially a strike by Indian Navy personals in 1946 in Bombay against the poor living conditions and the unfair treatment meted out to them by superior British officers.

The strike later took the form of a rebellion and spread to other ports, ships, and cities of British India. The British were able to suppress this as well with their superior naval power and all mutineers were court marshaled.

Though their lives were spared after public pressure they were never reinstated back even after the departure of Britishers from the subcontinent a few years later.

The strange thing is that both the top political parties of British India namely the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League condemned the revolt and tacitly supported the British government for the fear of losing negotiated constitutional settlements on the eve of the looming independence. 

Both these events also reveal the growing ideological and class consciousness amongst the two biggest classes of workers of British India namely the Industrial workers and the Army.

Though the British government was able to suppress them physically it failed to contain the rising socialism which gradually spread amongst all classes of workers.

In both these events, there was a common thread of oppression, dictatorial attitude, and exploitative tendencies of the British rule towards Indians, especially the working class.

Both these cases also reflect the change in strategy of the British government in dealing with those who raised voices against their exploitative practices.

Through this article, we intend to take a purposive look into the ideological connection between these two historic events and their relationship and ideological divide with other political stakeholders of British India.

We also intend to analyze the reactions and strategies of the British government towards containing these events.

Research Questions

• Whether the Meerut conspiracy case was a result of the growing influence of the Russian Bolshevik movement and other external ideological forces on the Indian working class and Trade Unions? 
• Whether there is an ideological connection between the Meerut conspiracy case and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny? 

Hypothesis

The Meerut conspiracy case and the RIN mutiny helped in the consolidation of the growing class consciousness amongst the workers as both the cases garnered wide support and sympathies from the public despite a severe crackdown by the British government. 

Growth of Trade Unionism in British India

Various labor organizations and trade unions representing the Indian working classes began to take shape with the advent of modern industries (based on the collective workforce for mass production) in India during the 19th century.

Labor conditions in British India were pathetic and were based on the capitalist principle of maximum exploitation of the labor force even to a degrading extent.

Almost all of the manual laborers came from marginalized communities incapable of organizing themselves in those circumstances and were also not articulate enough to raise demands for welfare. 

In many instances, the conditions of laborers were akin to bonded laborers and slaves. They were beaten by their masters mercilessly and all of this has been documented in various books written on this subject and on the subject of indentured laborers.

Whereas the conditions of laborers in British-owned establishments were worse, their position in entities controlled by Indians was completely inhumane due to the peculiar caste-based structure of Indian society. Most of the time, debt-ridden people and lower castes were forced to do begar in the homes and farms of rich moneylenders and landlords. 

However, the workers in factories and big industrial establishments such as railways slowly started to organize themselves during the late 19th century against the poor living and work conditions.

Influenced by labor developments in Europe and Russia, they began organizing strikes and protests for better wages and living conditions.

Some influential Indian leaders of that time such as SS Bengali and S. Banerjee tried to pressurize the government to bring worker welfare legislation to reduce working hours for workers in many establishments.

Many amongst the intelligentsia also tried to bring various journals such as “Bharat Shramjeevi” and “Deen Bandhu” for the ideological strengthening of the labor movements and to bring in the elements of class consciousness.

All this was happening in India long before the Russian revolution in 1917 and the subsequent arrival of Bolsheviks on the world communist platform. 

Meerut Conspiracy case and the Congress

Initially, the labor movement had little to do with the political movement going on against the British rule in India, and the divide between the labor leaders and political leaders is quite evident. 

Whereas the labor leaders had grievances with both the British and Indian capitalist classes, the political leaders at that time were focused only on the British government and its policies.

Unfortunately, they perceived labor mobilizations as a threat to the political movement against the British on the misconceived notion that it will invite a government crackdown on all political organizations.

Their fear was not totally unjustified given that the British in those times were constantly living under the fear of communist and socialist uprisings in Europe and their ruthless global ambitions.

This fear was complimented in India with the threat of Russian invasion from the North-West as Afghanistan was the only bulwark between British India and the massive Russian Empire whose borders were reaching the north of Kashmir in those times. 

Congress leaders also thought that there should be a common struggle against the British rule in India and were apprehensive that any division on Indian lines would weaken the collective struggle of all classes of Indians against British rule.

This lackadaisical attitude of Congress for social reforms led to huge resentment amongst the lower castes leaders who were of the opinion that war against British and social injustices such as castes system and discrimination should go hand-in-hand.

But in the Congress Session of 1886, Dadabhai Naoroji by his explicit declaration made it clear that Congress must prioritize the National struggle against the British over social and labor reforms concerning class and caste questions. 

It was only decades later when the Congress leaders felt threatened by the power of worker mobilization on separate lines and their growing closeness with the lower caste centric politics and Muslims, that they started paying heed to their grievances and started taking on labor issues through their subsidiary organizations in order to secure better bargaining position for themselves and workers vis-a-vis other political movements against the imperial British government.

This change in the attitude of Congress was reflected in other areas as well when many of its leaders started to espouse the cause of social reforms in Indian society.

Indian National Congress also realized that it cannot afford to continue the independence movement against the British rule at the cost of labor welfare and socio-economic justice for a large part of the Indian public who were being constantly exploited, discriminated and abused in all walks of life at the hands of rich and high-caste Hindu Indians. 

But even at this time, the mainstream congress leaders were skeptical in confronting Indian employers over labor issues and even opposed labor welfare statutes that were inimical to the interest of the Indian business community.

It has been recorded in history that Congress leaders actively opposed the Factories Act of 1881 and 1891 which tried to ameliorate and regulate the working conditions of workers in all industrial establishments. 

However, they actively voiced their support for labor issues in British-owned establishments which was witnessed in the tea plantation case of Assam and strikes in the Railway sector in the 1890s. 

As the 19th century came to an end, there was a change in the attitude of Congress and it started supporting and demanding Labour-friendly statutes. G Subramania Iyer supported the unionization of workers in many establishments and requested the general public to support them in their collective organization.

In the coming decades, strikes and hartals became a common occurrence on questions of both labor reforms and political struggle against British rule.

In 1905 over 12000 workers employed in the Burn Company Shipyard (Howrah) refused to work when they were not granted leave to attend swadeshi meetings called by political parties in the wake of the Partition of the Bengal Province on religious lines. 

All India Trade Union Congress

After the decline in nationalist upsurge after 1908 due to the split in Congress, labor movements were also adversely affected and could be revived only after the Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and Congress and subsequent Home Rule League movements and the non-cooperation and Khilafat movements towards the end of the decade.

It was in this context that the working class started creating its own mass organizations to protect its peculiar class interest which at times conflicted with the independence struggle.

The watershed moment of this was witnessed in the formation of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in 1920 in which extremist leaders Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai (first president), and Dewan Chaman Lal played an important role.

In its meetings and addresses, all of them emphasized the organization and mobilization of workers at the National level and through various manifestos, they were also asked to intervene in national politics. 

The underlying idea was that political freedom or liberty has no value without economic freedom. With the passage of time, the communist ideology of Karl Marx came to be heavily incorporated in the worker’s organizations including AITUC.

Labor assertions forced Congress to give primacy to labor and peasant issues which are witnessed in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi taking up a host of peasant-centric and labor issues in the United Province, Bengal, Bihar, and Gujarat (Ahmedabad).

In Ahmedabad Gandhi founded the Textile Labour Association (TLA) and it had over 14000 workers on its roll and later TLA secured the highest spike in wages and Mohandas formulated his concept of Trusteeship in the context of TLA. 

In the 1920s the worker’s movement got heavily influenced by Communist ideologies which protruded at the world stage after Bolsheviks seized power in the vast Russian Empire by the November Revolution 1917.

Unions influenced by communism and socialism started to organize themselves under Workers and People’s Parties (WPPs) which led to the emergence of influential leftist leaders such as Muzaffar Ahmed, SA Dange, PC Joshi, etc and under their leadership WPPs soon took a central stage within Congress at provincial levels and also All India levels. 

Under communist-controlled unions, strikes and hartals against the British Government and Indian Capitalists became a common occurrence and some of these strikes used to last as long as 6 months.

AITUC also came to be controlled by the communists and this sent alarm bells ringing in the Congress High Command for the first time. 

Rise of Bolsheviks and Comintern

Once the Communists/Bolsheviks had consolidated themselves in political power in the newly established Soviet Union after the Russian revolution, they started underground cells of Bolsheviks known as Comintern to promote Marxism in other countries as well and especially in European Colonies.

As early as in 1917, the Council of People’s Commissars in Russia made an emphatic appeal to Muslims of the East to rally behind Bolshevism to secure freedom for all suppressed people and with this, it became clear to Colonial Powers that the Soviet Union would work for the freedom of European Colonies. 

Bolshevik activities and their active collaborations with Indian revolutionaries have been aptly discussed by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta in his book, Comintern and the Destiny of Communism in India: 1919-1943.

MN Roy was one of the first few Indian communists in whom Russia took keen interest and he famously disagreed with Lenin when the latter advised him that Indian communists should cooperate with the Nationalists.

Many prominent leaders of the national movements such as Periyar, Nehru, Ambedkar, SC Bose, etc were not only the members of the League Against Imperialism, whose roots lay in the Second Congress of the Comintern.

The British government also became concerned over the growing power of communists in India when various secret service reports repeatedly highlighted the threat from communism to the British government in India.

It became too much for the British rulers of India in 1927 when AITUC not only boycotted the Simon Commission through a series of Hartals and strikes but also started celebrating and commemorating other events associated with Marxism such as Russian Revolution, Lenin Day, etc.

The government decided to contain the rising tide of communists in two ways which have been discussed in the subsequent chapters. 

Government crackdown on Trade Unions and the Meerut Conspiracy case

In the previous chapter, we discussed that the British Indian government became alarmed at the growing influence of socialism in India and Bolshevik-inspired trade unions taking control of almost every worker organization of the country including the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC).

When the AITUC chose to boycott the Simon Commission in 1927, the British became suspicious and fearful over the possible repercussion of mainstreaming Bolshevik inspired socialism in the political plane and when these organizations started recruiting from the British ranks in British India as well from England, the government decided to contain this rising tide of socialism in India by using both hard and soft power. 

Suppression through legislative modes

Demonstrating its soft power, the government gave tacit support to moderate factions over the extremists and revolutionary groups within labor unions and political parties.

Using hard power the government tried to forcefully crush the revolutionary activities and using soft power they came up with various labor legislation such as Public Safety Act and Trade Disputes Acts in order to both dilute and punish the too enthusiasts amongst the labor unions and also to bring the laborers into the fold of constitutional and corporate mold.

It was in this context that the government came up with the Meerut Conspiracy to suppress and neutralize revolutionary trade union leaders across India.

Communist Party of India states that the attack was planned at the highest level of the British Establishment in India as well as in the United Kingdom and is evident in the secret telegram sent from the Viceroy Irwin to the Home Secretary for India in London and which stated that Indian political situation had appreciably taken a leftward shift and a large-scale disturbance is apprehended in the near future.

Meerut Conspiracy Case Trial

On March 20, 1929, a horde of trade union leaders including those belonging to AITUC was arrested across India, and raids were conducted in their homes and offices and a plethora of documents, letters, pamphlets, and other materials were seized and taken into control by the British government and were later presented as evidence from the prosecution side.

There were many Englishmen too amongst the ones who were arrested and included Bradley, Philip Spratt, and Lester Hutchinson who were actively working with the worker’s movement to resuscitate Marxism in workers of England.

British Archives mention that “ever since the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, there grew a ubiquitous fear within the West of the spread of communism via Moscow’s chief manifestation, the Comintern (Communist International). Indeed, it had long been suspected by the India Office that the Comintern had instructed the three Britons charged in the trial – Philip Spratt, Ben Bradley, and Lester Hutchinson – to travel to India with the specific task of engendering a revolutionary esprit de corps within India’s own growing trades union movements.

All arrested persons were charged and prosecuted under S.121A of the Indian Penal Code 1860 which provided for the offense of conspiracy against Monarch to deprive him/her of his/her sovereignty over India. British could have opted for a Jury trial but they deliberately chose Meerut for the courtroom trial as they were aware that Jury might get influenced by public sentiments. 

However the British could achieve little with the Meerut conspiracy case trial and in fact, the communists were more successful in gaining wide public sympathy and support and Meerut soon became a hub of communist propaganda. 

Courtroom and the Communist Propaganda

The communists actively used the courtroom drama to disseminate their views to the general public and this also used to get widely reported in media and newspapers. There was also an outpouring of support from political leaders including Nehru and Gandhi who visited the Meerut Jail to meet the revolutionaries.

Two prominent lawyers of the time MC Chagla and KF Nariman agreed to become the counsel for the accused side and appeared on behalf of them in the courtroom. After a protracted trial, many of the accused were convicted and were given sorts of punishments including transportation of life.

The trial court decisions were appealed in High Court which after 8-day continuous sittings acquitted many others. The sentences of all other accused were also reduced with the interference by the British Trade Union Congress and other worker organizations of the world. 

However, due to their internal differences, the communists failed to use this opportunity to assert themselves properly as a predominant force in India given the immense limelight they garnered by the Meerut case conspiracy.

Certain fissures also arose within AITUC during the trial of the Meerut case conspiracy which split during the very first year of the case and the divisions fragmented further as the case progressed.

There were many disputes as to whether include International Trade Union bodies in the indictment and the dispute was also regarding the manner of political mobilization. Some leaders believed that Trade unions should be brought under the constitutional setup of British India but there were others who believed in extreme Marxism to uproot the British government using all means and might. 

Stolte’s article views Meerut as a case in which trade unionism itself was put on trial. It made emerging (re)definitions of revolutionary and reformist trade unionism explicit, and it was situated both in an international environment and on divergent international trajectories.

During the Meerut case, trade union politics were debated inside and outside the courtroom. This worsened the tensions between reformist and revolutionary trade unionism. 

First, the indictment created “good” and “seditious” international interlocutors for the unionists. Second, the reformist methods of seeking inclusion in the ILO and other existing European bodies were vocally attacked by the Meerut accused.

Finally, the accused stayed in conversation with the revolutionary leadership of the AITUC throughout the trial. The debates on trade unionism thus created were decisive in making the Nagpur split permanent.

Royal Indian Navy Mutiny and its connections with previous labor movements

The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) Mutiny of 1946 is a well-known incident in the annals of subcontinental history. RIN Mutiny happened almost 15 years after the Meerut conspiracy case.

RIN Mutiny was not purely a labor issue though the underlying reasons behind the mutiny were quite similar to the worker’s issues including better living and work conditions, dignified treatment, etc.

The naval mutiny was also motivated by political considerations in the immediate aftermath of the second world war. 

Mutineers and the mainstream Politicians

Unlike the Meerut conspiracy case, the mutineers and the accused in this case did not get any support from the mainstream political parties of the country who had their own peculiar concerns at the penultimate time of Independence.

Rather than supporting the accused navy personals, politicians across the national arena unequivocally condemned the acts of mutineers even though the mutineers had declared their allegiance to the National leadership of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League.

They even unfurled the flags of both political parties along with black flags on their docks and ship masts after removing the British insignia and Union Jack.

Despite this, the mainstream Indian leaders across various political and ideological spectrums condemned the revolt and tacitly supported the British government under the fear of losing a negotiated constitutional settlement with Britain on the eve of the looming independence. 

Much like the 1857 mutiny, the immediate cause behind the RIN mutiny was also the mistreatment of Indian personals by British officers and alleged discrimination on various unfair grounds.

There was a common feeling amongst Indian navy personals that they were being neglected and oppressed by the British officers who had an extreme dictatorial and racist attitude.

Then there was also the issue of poor living conditions for Indian navy personals which included poor quality of foods, discriminatory wages, arbitrary assignment to remote locations, very little time for rest and recovery, etc. 

On 18 February 1946, naval personals posted on HMIS Talwar in Bombay (now Mumbai) protested against the poor quality of meals served to them and the discriminatory and high-handed attitudes of the British officers.

Indians soon overpowered the British and declared strikes which soon spread to over 22 ships stationed at Bombay harbor and later spread to other ports as well including Karachi and Madras.

The general counsel of the strike was hurriedly elected the following morning which took direct control of the docks and ships.

The strike soon turned into mutiny and n unparalleled rebellion since 1857 as British flags were removed and combined flags of major Indian political parties were unfurled. The mutineers raised several demands including some which had national and political color.

Public reactions to the Naval Mutiny

Though there was an immediate outpouring of support from the general public, top political leaders did not make favorable remarks.

Instead, most of them condemned the mutiny and asked the mutineers to surrender their arms before forces loyal to the British Indian government.

As per a report published in mint, “The city of Bombay, especially the laboring classes, also went on strike on 22 February in solidarity. The public transport network was brought to a halt, trains were burnt, roadblocks were erected and commercial establishments were shut down. An army battalion was inducted to control the situation. Three days later Bombay was quiet, but 228 civilians had died and 1,046 were injured. Meanwhile, following assurances of sympathetic treatment from Vallabhbhai Patel and M.A. Jinnah, the ratings in Bombay surrendered on 23 February.”

Though the mutiny was suppressed there was wide discontentment amongst many quarters of the Indian public and communists openly criticized the indifferent attitude of the Congress and said that had there been political support to the mutiny by Indian leaders, we would be having real independence rather than the symbolic and in-dignified transfer of powers.

The US and British intelligence reports hinted at the involvement of communists and the Soviet Union behind the mutiny which they described as “characterized by unexampled savagery” and as an “orgy of bloodshed and destruction.”

Anyway, today it is accepted as an undisputed fact that the RIN mutiny expedited the transfer of power and British withdrawal from the Subcontinent. 

Impact of these events on Trade Unionism in India

The Meerut conspiracy case and the resulting persecution of communists by the British Colonial government projected the communists as brave freedom fighters and the wide attention that the trial gained also helped in gaining public sympathy and dissemination of communist ideology amongst a large section of Indians and in particular amongst the workers.

A rapid growth in a number of left-leaning trade unions and their membership was also observed after this case and within years major trade unions of India including AITUC came to be occupied and controlled by the communists and the socialists inspired by Congress gradually lost the sway.

These developments had considerable impacts on post-independent India as which was going to be governed by Congress for a long time. 

Replacement of the British government by Congress leadership brought them in confrontation with the communists who for a long time continued to view the Congress government as the agent of the bourgeois class and no different than the former British dispensation and this resulted in some of the huge scuffles lead by Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narayan but communists despite their so much efforts were not able to offer a national alternative to Congress despite forming government in some of the prominent states like West Bengal and Kerala.

The Congress government at the center also grew suspicious of Communists and was careful in giving more powers to trade unions.

Conclusion

The Meerut conspiracy case and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny are two important events in the history of British India as well as in the history of the labor movements as they helped in the consolidation of the growing class consciousness amongst the workers.

Both these events are also considered a watershed movement in giving a glimpse of the power of a collective and united labor force.

They garnered wide support and sympathies from the public despite a severe crackdown by the British government.

Though both were separate events and there was a gap of over 15 years between their happening yet they were bound by the common thread of the feeling of oppression against the dictatorship of the ruling bourgeois class.

In both cases, the masters were common i.e. the exploitative British regime and its institutions spread across India. Both these events were also inspired by the communist ideology and had the direct support of the Soviet Union-a communist nation established by Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution of 1917.

The Labour movement in India went through different shades and phrases. It often wavered in its support to Congress and Communist-centric trade unions.

Initially, they all had their independent existence but gradually they came to be associated with the Indian National Congress.

However, after independence, they again drifted away from Congress as left-centric trade unions became stronger and came to control the majority of Trade unions in India.