Case, 1924

Case, Kanpur Conspiracy Case Prisoners The colonial administrators did not take the spread of communist ideas lightly. Radicalism spread across the British Provinces – Bombay, Calcutta and Madras - and industrial centres like Kanpur in United Province (UP) and cities like Lahore where factories had come up quite early. As a result, trade unions emerged in the jute and cotton textile industries, the railway companies across the country and among workers in the various municipal bodies. In order to curb the radicalisation of politics, especially to check what was then called Bolshevism, repressive measures were adopted by the British administration. The Kanpur Conspiracy case of was one such move. Those charged with the conspiracy were communists and trade unionists. The accused were arrested spread over a period of six months. Eight of them were charged under Section -A of the Indian Penal Code – ‘to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution’, and sent to various jails. The case came before Sessions Judge H.E. Holmes who had earned notoriety while serving as Sessions Judge of Gorakhpur for awarding death sentence to peasants for their involvement in the Chauri Chaura case. In the Kanpur Conspiracy case, Muzaffar Ahmed, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini Gupta and S. A. Dange were sent to jail, for four years of rigorous imprisonment. The trial and the imprisonment, meanwhile, led to some awareness about the communist activities in India. A Communist Defence Committee was formed in British India persons were originally accused in the Kanpur case: ( ) M.N. Roy, ( ) Muzaffar Ahmad, ( ) Shaukat Usmani, ( ) Ghulam Hussain, ( ) S.A. Dange, ( ) M. Singaravelar, ( ) R.L. Sharma, ( ) Nalini Gupta, ( ) Shamuddin Hassan, ( ) M.R.S Velayudhun, ( ) Doctor Manilal, ( ) Sampurnananda, ( ) Satyabhakta. persons were charge-sheeted: M.N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, S.A. Dange, Nalini Gupta, Ghulam Hussain, Singaravelar, Shaukat Usmani, and R.L. Sharma. Ghulam Hussain turned an approver. M.N. Roy and R.L. Sharma were charged in absentia as they were in Germany and Pondicherry (a French Territory) respectively. Singaravelar