The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-04-05
Significance of Meerut Trial

Bombay unions, including the Girni Hangar
Union and the Great India Peninsula Railway
mems Union, Jogekar, Nimbkar and Miradj-
kar; Muzaffar Ahmed, the chairman of the
Worker-Peasant Party of Bengal, Thengdl,
Executive Committee member of the Trade
Union Congress and many others. Besides
the Indian Comrades charged in Meerut, there
are several representatives of the revolution
airy wing of the British Trade Union Move
ment-Bradley, Spratt and Hutchinson-who
are also accused of conspiring 'to overthrow
the sovereignty of the King Emperor in Bri-
fish India" This is clear example of the
growing ties of solidarity springing up be-
tween the workers in the imperialist coun-
tries and the oppressed colonies who join
ing forces today to smash imperialism and
capital, their common enemy.
All the men arrested on the Meerut charges
were grounded up' at the same time, with
the exception of Comrade Hutchinson. who was
arrested later On the night of March 20,
when the arrests and searches were made in
Bombay, Calcutta and the other towns, troops
were moved into the factory districts, for the
authorities feared possible disturbances"
Searches were made everywhere the comrades
who had to be arrested being hunted down like
beasts.
The Meerut trial began when Baldwin's Con-
sentative Government was yet in power, still
continued under the labor government, with
Macdonald at its head. So far from any
change in the Cabinet improving the situa-
ton, find that two other comrades were
arrested in connection with the Meerut trial.
The authorities bluntly refused to have the
case tried by jury. The prisoners were put
far severer regime than previously. While
Comrade Campbell, the representative of the
Communist Party of Great Britain, who in
tended to be present at the trial as the poll
teal adviser of the arrested men, was refused
a passport to India.
The Indian nationalist bourgeoisie, who
fear the revolutionary working class move
r,ent far than Imperialism, completely
support all the terrorist measures instituted
by the Anglo-Indian Government and well
coined the Meerut trial. As matter of
fact it is the Indian bourgeoisie who are
increasingly urging repressiOns against the
working class movement.
Reformst Tools of Imperialism.
Instead, the responsibility for the Meerut
trial must be laid wholly to the door of the
reformists in the labor movement. Together
with the imperasts and Indian bourgeoisie
they have been shouting from the house-tops
that the danger of Communism was threaten
ing India, that Moscow was getting control of
the trade union movement, that lnsurgent ele-
ments in the country were receiving Moscow
gold" etc. With their continued lies and mis-
representation the reformists prepared the
ground for the terroristic measures instituted
by the government.
Having arrested all the leaders of the new
left wing unions in accordance with a care
fully laid plan, the government had hoped to
aisrupt the whole movement and leave the
masses without leadership when the strug-
RE vast at its height. But all these care
ful plans fell through for the working class of
India has reached stage of development to-
LAY when the arrest of few individual lea1-
ers cannot stay the development of the move
ment as a whole. Despite the outrageous at
tacks of rabid reaction, the masses did not
lose their heads. A wave of protest strikes,
mass demonstrations and meetings swept the
country This was the workers reply to the
Meerut trial. New leaders, from the rank and