Meerut and A Hanging

Meerut and a Hanging
Young India, Popular Socialism, and the Dynamics of Imperialism

Franziska Roy and Benjamin Zachariah
his article addresses the wider meanings of Meerut, focusing on the period extending from the
run-up to the Meerut Conspiracy Case, which was directed against the communists supposedly
conspiring to deprive the king- emperor of his sovereignty in India, up until the hanging of Bhagat
Singh of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha. Through a study of youth movements and the attempted mobilization of youth, it explores the impact of Meerut on a wider public and the wider meanings that the trial
acquired for India and an international public opinion, for a burgeoning popular appreciation for socialist ideas and ideals, and for the administration of the Empire.
The Meerut Conspiracy Case, as is well known, was directed largely at the emerging radical trade
union and workers and peasants movements in India, while aiming its blow more speciically at an internationalist communism or socialism, which was perceived as providing a foothold for foreign radicals
(such as Lester Hutchinson, Philip Spratt, and Benjamin Francis Bradley) and Russian inluences.1 The
prosecution also targeted the rising youth movement in India, though this is often forgotten. In the
Meerut case, youth igured large in the minds of the prosecution as it had for colonial oicials ever
since the (however inept) exploits of Maharashtrian and Bengali terrorism, associated as they were with
the Youngmans Association, a group that, during this period, exhibited marked socialist tendencies and
had a militant wing, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), and whose members were sometimes mere college students or even schoolboys.
The public impact of Meerut, however, was not unidirectional or conined to leftists. Outside the
circle of prisoners and communist sympathizers, Meerut came to epitomize the arbitrariness of imperial authority, and it was part of a larger process that created divisions and solidarities at the same time.
Intended by the government to drive a wedge between legitimate nationalists and fanatical communists
in the eyes of an Indian and imperial public, the staged trials ended up creating public sympathy for the
prisoners and a legitimation of a broad language of civil liberties that even conservatives had to pretend
to believe. The trials attracted international attention, became the focal point of international public
opinion of a liberal civil liberties variety, and were condemned by French intellectual Romain Rolland
and German physicist Albert Einstein, among others.2
1. See Ghosh, Meerut Conspiracy Case.

2. On international impact see Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich,
146 70.
36 0
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Vol. 33, No. 3, 2013 doi 10.1215/1089201x-2378139 2013 by Duke University Press
Three trends are signiicant in regard to this

public impact of the Meerut case. First, the state,
in a long period of preparation and thereafter in
the staging of the trial as an act of political theater,
used Meerut as a means to persecute leftists, to deine communism, and to separate the antinational
communists from the more palatable nationalists,
a move that seemed to legitimize nationalism as
long as it was delinked from radical politics of any
description.3 The state targeted internationalists
in particular: those who linked India with a wider
world and with solidarities beyond the boundaries
of India or the British Empire.
Second, the statist repression that was demonstrated at Meerut had, at least for a while, the
contrary efect of bringing together a wide variety of anti-imperialist activists, within and outside
India, in a nonsectarian manner, as the very visible fact of a show trial demonstrated that colonial
justice worked less through a harmonious rule of
law and more through the creation of exceptional
powers.4
Third, at the same time as a wider international public opinion moved toward antiimperialist solidarities with the Meerut prisoners,
the Cominterns message regarding the proper
cause of action with regard to the nationalist
(petty) bourgeoisie in the Cominterns class
against class line of 1928, and therefore its deining and separating proper communists from noncommunists at the beginning of Stalinism, seemed
to reinforce the governments aim. In many ways,
Indian communists responses to Meerut, backed
in part by their British communist comrades,
showed that a top- down directive from Moscow did
not in fact have the impact that it was supposed to.
Meerut was thus the pivotal point that went a
long way toward deining the politics of the 1930s,
both within and outside India. From the late 1920s,
hastened along by the Meerut Conspiracy Case,
one can see a sharper drawing of political boundaries. If the Cawnpore (Kanpur) Conspiracy Case
3. See the other essays in this issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the
Middle East, esp. Raza, Separating the Wheat
from the Chaff; Stolte, Trade Unions on Trial;
and Louro, Meerut and the League against
Imperialism.
Meerut Conspiracy Case
a few years earlier elicited much interest and communists themselves ascribed the popularization
of their ideology to the case, Meerut did so to a
greater extent. The trial was held in much grander
style, and the accusations essentially amounted
to thought crimes more than anything concrete,
which of course resulted in ideological matters
being discussed threadbare over the course of the
trial. At the same time, the orthodox Comintern
and Soviet attempts to divide communists from
noncommunists, combined with the Indian governments attempts to do the same, meant that the
resistance to both their agendas often created the
very transpolitical solidarities against imperialism
and imperialist repression that were to be feared.
At the same time, there paradoxically emerged
into prominence in Indian politics persons who
spoke with Marxist voices and from the perspective
of Marxist world views, without being members of
the Communist Party.
The aims of such groups provide insight into
the developments and conventions of public debate at a time when the division of politics in India
was starting to be shaped more clearly around notions of progress and a political Left. A macabre
logic connected the Meerut case, where the severest punishment on offer was transportation for
life, to a hanging that deined the parting of ways
of Left and Right. The wedge that the government
created through Meerut was successful in ensuring
that Mohandas Gandhi refused to put the question of clemency for Bhagat Singh on the agenda
of his talks with the viceroy after he unilaterally
withdrew his own civil disobedience movement in
March 1931. The crucial role of organizing youth
and fears about loss of control as related to this
demographic segment are thus the subjects of this
essay, which illustrates the wider trends described
above. This essay, therefore, examines the three
dynamics identiied here in connection with their
relevance to the youth movement in India.
4. For a perspective on the fragmentation of

these solidarities, see Louro, Meerut and the
League against Imperialism, in this volume.
361
362
Background to the Meerut Case
A reminder of the contexts in which the Meerut

case operated is in order here. From the perspective of the government, Meerut was a necessary
measure to combat an increasingly militant and
well- organized antiimperialist movement that
was assuming radical proportions. The language
of self- expression of much of the political debate
that was becoming increasingly self-assertive by the
end of the 1920s was even when vaguely articulated and unsystematically understood that of
socialism. S. A. [Shripad Amrit] Dange, one of the
Meerut accused, had written Gandhi versus Lenin
in 1921,5 and across a large section of a politically
aware public, a burgeoning interest in the principles of the Russian revolution threatened to overcome the by- now Gandhian Congress insistence
on nonviolence. It is by now clear how much Gandhis own mobilization in the noncooperation/
Khilafat movement of 1920 22 relied on his subcontracting groups with no more than a necessary
strategic commitment to ahimsa (nonviolence),
such as the Bengali terrorist groups whom Chittaranjan Das delivered to the Gandhian movement
at Calcutta.6 After the loss of momentum following
the end of the noncooperation movement, arguably the only really successful movement Gandhi
ever led, alternatives were more actively sought.
In the late 1920s, politics was pulling away
from the so- called constructive program. A wave of
industrial strikes took place all across the country
and was particularly efective in the Bombay cotton mills, under the leadership of the Communistdominated Girni Kamgar Union.7 1927 was the
year of the Brussels Congress of Oppressed Peoples, which established the League against Imperialism (LAI); many international solidarities were
built there. The Congress, and later the All- India
Trade Union Congress, established ailiations to
the LAI, with Jawaharlal Nehru as the link igure
who brought this about.8 The Nehrus, father and
son, visited the Soviet Union in November 1927 on
the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Oc-
33:3
2013
tober Revolution, and Nehru junior returned to

India with great enthusiasm for the Soviet experience.9 What might be called a second wave of communism in India can be dated to this period, with
sympathizers rather than recruited activists taking
the lead in promoting a more leftist politics: intellectuals as well as trade unionists and activists. This
was more a Menshevik situation than a Bolshevik
one, as many realized, where good intentions and
broad sympathies rather than vanguardist positions predominated, and the problem of mobilization and of numbers of ideologically sound followers still had to be solved.
From the point of view of the emergent Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Comintern,
the way forward was through front organizations
such as the LAI itself, where communists took the
lead in organizations that were coalitions with
noncommunists and then gradually took over the
organizations. To this end, Workers and Peasants
Parties (WPPs) were formed across India.10 But
their aims were not that simple to carry out. From
1927 the burgeoning Youth Leagues that came into
being were often proclaimedly socialist, but what
socialism meant in this context varied strongly.
An element of communist and socialist thinking
could be found in many public statements. Bhagat Singhs Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) had
been drawn into the politics of the Left and the
language of Marxism,11 and crossovers into a more
Marxist orientation from unlikely beginnings were
not uncommon, as Ali Raza shows for the Kirti
Kisan Partys Sohan Singh Josh, former Akali and
latterly communist.12 Many other groups and activists began to embrace languages and positions inluenced by Marxism or the Soviet model, including M. A. (Abdul) Majid (of the Hijrat movement,
the Tashkent school, the Peshawar Conspiracy
Case, and again the Meerut Conspiracy Case), a
communist sympathizer and member of the NBS
from the latters founding in 1926, 13 and Kedar
Nath Sehgal, another NBS activist and co- accused
at Meerut.14
5. See Dange, Gandhi versus Lenin.
9. See Nehru, Soviet Russia.
13. Petrie, Communism in India, 294.
6. See Zachariah, Gandhi, chap. 3.
10. See Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism in India, 10121.
14. On Sehgal, see Habib, To Make the Deaf

Hear, 141.
7. See Chandavarkar, Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India.

8. See Louro, At Home and in the World.
11. See Habib, To Make the Deaf Hear.

12. See Raza, Separating the Wheat from the
Chaff.
In the run-up to the Meerut trial, the government contemplated how to deal with British subjects who were not Indians and had been agitating
in India against imperialism via the Public Safety
Bill or the trial itself. In 1928 the Public Safety
Bill, intended to exclude undesirable British subjects from India, had failed by one vote. The government attempted to reintroduce the bill in the
House with some changes in March 1929, shortly
after the Meerut arrests had been made. The
speaker of the assembly, Vithalbhai Patel, was irm
in his view that either the Meerut case be dropped
and the Public Safety Bill passed, or the Meerut
case continue and the bill dropped. The government refused to drop the case, and Patel ruled
that as the bill afected the sub judice Meerut case,
it therefore could not be discussed.15 Hutchinson,
one of the accused who was in fact arrested not
in March but in June, summarizes the reasons behind the timing of the Meerut Conspiracy Case.
The arrests on 20 March came just a day before the
second legislative assembly sitting over the Public
Safety Bill. An opportunity had arisen to divide
nationalists from communists in the Public Safety
Bill debate and to deter European communists
from getting involved in Indian afairs. The next
strike was expected at Bombay after the soon- tobe- published Fawcett Commission indings, and
there was a need to ind a legal reason to outlaw
the communist movement in India.16 But although
the government was in a hurry, things did not entirely go according to plan. Alongside and after
the arrests, so much (mostly written and printed)
material had been coniscated in various raids on
organizational and private premises that it was impossible to process them in time for a swift start to
the trial.17 The prosecutor appointed by the government, Langford James, urged patience Did
the government want a swift start to the case or a
speedy conclusion? You may say that the earlier
the case can be started the better from your point
of view, [and] you later speak of an earlier decision. I am not at all sure that an earlier start means
an earlier decision, but I most certainly do feel that
in this case we must at any rate know what stuf we
have got before we can start.18
Langford James did not live to see the end of
the trial, which lasted until 1933, and the ban on
the Communist Party of India and of its organizations was not achieved until 1934. That was the year
of the founding of the Congress Socialist Party,
which swiftly became another united front organization, this time the lead being given by nonCommunist Party members with a Marxist background,
such as the former Communist Party of the United
States of America (CPUSA) member from Madison, Wisconsin, (and the future Gandhian) Jayaprakash Narayan.19 The Comintern followed with
the Popular Front line in 1935, a year later.20
That Meerut was going to be a form of political theater on both sides was soon clear. The British imperial power was intent on using the trial as
a theatrical gesture. CPI members responded in
kind: the trial was bound to be long and sentences
probably severe. So why not use this public opportunity to present their cause? They believed that
they had missed a trick earlier, by failing to turn
the Cawnpore Conspiracy Case into a stage for
the trial of British imperialism, and they were able
to agree that the mistake should not be repeated
at Meerut.21 Theatrical conditions thus prevailed
on a world stage, but unfortunately without a jury
(which is why the trial was at Meerut rather than
Bombay or Calcutta, where, given that there was
a high court, there would be trial by jury). Meerut
had a branch of the WPP and so could plausibly
be the venue for the trial. Englishmen Spratt and
Bradley, the government reasoned, would be unlikely to ask for a separate trial from their Indian
comrades and so would accept being treated on
par with their Indian comrades even if it meant
forgoing the beneit of trial by jury.22
15. Muzaffar Ahmad, Documents of the Communist Movement, 2:10.
18. Langford James to Haig, 2 May 1929, Documents of the Communist Movement, 2:58.
16. See Hutchinson, Conspiracy at Meerut, 7980.
19. See Narayan, Why Socialism?
17. Haig to Langford James, confidential, 29

April 1929, Documents of the Communist Movement, 2:56 57.
20. See Carritt, A Mole in the Crown.

21. Muzaffar Ahmads discussions with G. Adhikari, Documents of the Communist Movement, 2:4.
22. H. G. Haig, Secy, Home Dept Pol Br. 20 February 1929, note, Documents of the Communist
Movement, 2:5153. On the question of applying the Public Safety Bill to Spratt and Bradley,
see ibid., 9092. A suitable European committing magistrate and sessions judge also had
to be found. See ibid., 91.
363
36 4
The prosecution was of the opinion that

since communists talked freely about revolution in
India, the phrase depriving of the King- Emperor
of his sovereignty in Section 121a of the Indian
Penal Code could easily be made to apply. The
intention to use secret evidence from Home,
i.e., Britain, was a sticking point in the preparations for the trial: the home authorities were uncomfortable that they would be on dubious legal
grounds in providing material gathered via underhand intelligence methods, but under a certain
amount of pressure they have agreed to do what is
required.23
The Centrality of Youth
The Meerut trial, at the time and in hindsight, is

most commonly interpreted as a British reaction
against the early Red Scare and a blow aimed at the
nascent labour and peasant movement. A third pillar, equally important in the nationalist attempts
at mass mobilization as well as the trial, has so far
been ignored: the youth movement. The day after
the arrest of the Meerut accused (minus Hutchinson, who was arrested later), Jawaharlal Nehru
stated publicly that the conspiracy case (and the
related house searches) was mounted to strike
terror in the hearts of those who worked for the
labour or youth movement and that it was primarily directed against the Labour movement and the
Youth League.24 I believe in Youth Movements so
much that I am prepared to sacriice all other work
to the organisation of youths in India, Nehru had
written in 1928,25 and it was clear that the mobilization of youth was the work of the future. Members
of the nascent youth (league) movement also interpreted the Meerut arrests as a countermeasure
to the political awakening and crystallizing unity
of youth.26 Among the reams of material collected
from the raids accompanying the Meerut arrests
were pamphlets and lealets connected with the
23. Documents of the Communist Movement,
2:94 95.
24. Tribune, 24 March 1929, 5; cited in Ghosh,
Meerut Conspiracy Case, 110.
25. J. Nehru to Venkatachari, 28 March 1928, F.
No. O-3, 1928, f. 65, All-India Congress Committee Papers (AICC), Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library, New Delhi (hereafter NMML).
33:3
2013
mobilization of youth. A not untypical one, reproduced below, came in fact from a trade union
organization:
As we take our bold stand on the threshold of the
inception of the second quarter of the twentieth
century a century replete with tremendous upheaval in world factors a century when phenomenal problems are passing through kaleidoscopic
changes a century rich in the recalcitrant impetuosity of the proletariat to break away from the
fetters of oppression and dogmatism a century
ushering in a new innovation in the realm of science; we discern before our eyes that the whole
world [is] on the march of a mighty onrush, and
everything rotten, superanuated [sic], superstitions is [sic] shattered to pieces with iconoclastic
zeal of a stupenduous [sic] magnitude.
New ideas and ideals completely radical in their
outlook are surging through the masses with torrential force and rapidity, the whole world being
in a state of unstable equilibrium....
To- day youth is the prime factor in heralding the
dawn of a new era, unfurling the standard of revolt against the old, breaking the barriers of customs, restrictions thereby raising the moral force
of the world on a plane of ethereal efulgence.
The history of the modern world is the history of
and awakening of the Youth Movement.27
Youth leagues and study circles had taken of in

India in a big way around 1927 and mushroomed
over the next few years, with the Meerut trial and
Bhagat Singhs trial and hanging forming the high
point, before the typically vaguely socialistic youth
leagues faded and were absorbed into the broader
volunteer movement. The leagues were built,
however, on a longer- standing discourse about
the particular propensities of youth and a movement in India and the world by and large.28 A selfconscious, nationalist Indian youth movement had
begun to emerge from the time of the Gandhian
26. See, i.a., Joachim Alwa, Law College,

Youths, be prepared, Bombay Chronicle, 24
March 1929, file 724, A (I), 1929, S-29, Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai (hereafter MSA).
27. Idea of To-Day, a minute book of the Bengal
Jute Mill Workers Association, Meerut Conspiracy Case (MCC) Exhibits, P. 284. The document
was likely penned by Gopal Basak, one of the
Meerut accused, who was the secretary of the
Bengal Jute Mill Workers Association and president of the Socialist Youth Congress.
28. Study circles were a feature of practically
all youth leagues and similar organizations, including trade unions, to train up a cadre of the
organization well-versed in the theory and organisation of progressive politics. See, e.g., The
Workers and Peasants Party, A Call to Action,
Organisation, Exhibits, P. 523, MCC.
mass campaigns in the early 1920s, when bodies

such as an auxiliary Congress youth wing (the Hindustani Seva Dal, 1924), young mens conferences
(about 1922), and, in 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were set up.
Whereas Hindu Mahasabhaites such as B.S.
Moonje admired Mussolinis Italy for the military
education and discipline among the youth and the
Black Shirts especially and tried to set up movements modelled along those lines, Congress organizers such as N. S. Hardikar, who organized
the de facto youth wing of the Indian National
Congress (INC), the Hindustani Seva Dal, drew
inspiration from examples as varied as the Czech
Sokols, the Russian Pioneers, and the Kuomintang
(Guomindang).29 As we shall see, especially in popular political discourse, political distinctions that
seem apparent in retrospect, such as that between
fascism and Bolshevism, were not always clearly
drawn. The cognizance of a world spirit of revolt
and change permeated all of these movements
to an unusually high extent. Near ecstatic or, less
often, dystopian invocations of the special place
destined for youth in this tide of change were commonplace. Globally, the irst half of the twentieth
century was, indeed, the age of youth.
Youth, more generally, functioned as the
corporeal link between present and future, and
thus it connected notions about historic failure or
a golden age with utopias or dystopias in a more
concrete way.30 Youth, in the interwar period especially, came to carry a variety of attributes that, as a
signiier, functioned irrespective of the actual age
of the individuals concerned. These included energy, physical vigor, bravery, zeal, a broad outlook
or world-mindedness, desire for national renewal
and change, and purity of intent as well as passion,
lack of self- control, a volatile temper, malleability, a
tendency to violence, and impatience. Youth, then,
was a relational and near-metaphysical category for
the active and politicized layers of society, which
29. Cf. Roy, Torchbearers of Progress.
30. On youth and age as a category, see Hawes
and Hiner, Hidden in Plain View, 4349 ;
Mintz, Reflections on Age, 91 94; and Mintz,
Why the History of Childhood Matters.
31. See Record of Proceedings of a Meeting
Relating to the Meerut Conspiracy Case, 6
June 1929, Home, Poll. 10/IV, 1929, National Ar-
swayed from accepted frameworks for engaging in

the public sphere or challenged the more conservative sections of their own parties. Youth was to be
feared because it deviated from the norms of social
behavior and the status quo; its particular propensity for change and renewal could adapt to a rapidly changing world and no one doubted that it
was just that, especially after the Great War and
an India that needed to change just as rapidly if it
dared hope to win freedom.
Among the Meerut accused, a number were
intimately linked with the youth movement and
held important positions. Hutchinson, himself not
a card- carrying member of the Communist Party
but rather a fellow traveller (poputchik), was included in the trial at the express wishes of Langford James in order to better establish the connection between the Bolshevik conspiracy and the
Indian Youth Movement via the then prominent
study circles (referred to as Circle Studies).31
Study circles gained prominence in connection
with Jawaharlal Nehrus involvement in the Allahabad Youth League and were an important area
of organization and mobilization. In this period,
concerns in the youth movement shifted toward
hitherto rather un(der)explored ields of concrete
economic and social problems. Internationalism
always had formed the broader horizon for many
youth organizations left, Congress, and right
albeit with different models. The three English
accused in the Meerut case, Spratt, Bradley, and
Hutchinson, were all involved in the organization of youth leagues and study circles. Sehgal
and Majid were principal organizers of the NBS.
Gopal Basak, described as Spratts agent in Eastern Bengal, 32 doubled as secretary of the Bengal
Jute Mill Workers Association (cited above) and
youth organizer in his function as president of the
Socialist Youth Congress. The young Puran Chand
Joshi was the principal organizer of the Allahabad
Youth League.
chives of India (NAI). Cited in Documents of the

Communist Movement, 2:6165. This was the
consideration material to the evidence for the
trial, but there were other pragmatic judicial
reasons for including Hutchinson in the conspiracy case. James thought extraditing him or
prosecuting him under other laws might have
undermined the case.
32. Intelligence Report of the Government

of British India about the activities of Communists in India, prior to the Institution of the
Meerut Conspiracy Case, Documents of the
Communist Movement, 2:28.
365
36 6
The two functions, labour and youth organizer, cannot thus be clearly delineated in many
cases one was seen as an adjunct to the other as
far as communists as well as noncommunists were
concerned. Organizing and educating the young
workers in study circles was of primary importance
for the progress of the labour movement and for
creating a conscious, avant- garde cadre of workers
not hidebound by old customs, traditions, and superstitions, while youth and students were seen as
the potential (petty bourgeois) vanguard.
The Contest for Youth
The years from late 1927 to 1929 were busy all

around, closely followed by the civil disobedience
movement. These were the watershed years, when
distinctions among political groups were clearly
drawn to those who wished for that clarity. In the
contest for organizing and appropriating youth to
one side or another, the Meerut Conspiracy Case
was pivotal.
In many ways, it was events in China that
changed the game. With the breakdown of the
united front between the Kuomintang and the
Communists in China, the Sixth Congress of the
Communist International met, and its executive
committee (ECCI) put forward the new line on
the relationship between the national (petty) bourgeoisie and the working class. As Josef Stalin gradually took control of the international communist
movement in the name of socialism in one country, and the Cominterns Third Period, responding to the Chinese debacle of 1927, pitted class
33. See Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism in India, 101 121.
34. See Ghosh, Meerut Conspiracy Case, esp.
26 31.
35. The Chinese struggle, a nation people in
India could identify with as Asian, ancient,
and cultured thanks to the wide circulation of
Pan- Asian sentiments, was a powerful symbol for the worldwide uprising against imperialism. The medical mission scheme made
its way into Congress debates, where it got
remodeled (Hardikar envisioned the mission
on the same lines as a volunteer movement
in India he wanted to take 2000 people to
China) and severely downsized to a few doctors and nurses by Nehru and Goswami, MLA
from Calcutta, who took over the lead. It was
based on the earlier medical mission to Turkey
33:3
2013
against class from 1928, the Workers and Peasants

Parties in India found themselves theoretically redundant at their moment of inception.33 Before
they had had a chance to adjust to the situation,
they were in the throes of the Meerut Conspiracy
Case. As a result, the Cominterns directives were
diicult for them to follow, and indeed they were
not followed.34
A planned Indian National Congress medical mission to China, organized under the aegis
of the Congress youth wing, fell through around
this time because the government would not hand
out passports to the small troupe. The move to
organize a medical mission to China came after
the Shanghai massacre on 12 April 1927 against
communists by Chiang Kai Shek and the rightwing Kuomintang. The massacre was followed by
a systematic purge that ultimately led to a split in
the Kuomintang, ending the alliance with Soviet
Russia forged by Sun-Yat Sen in 1923, and to a civil
war. The move was pioneered by Hardikar of the
INCs Seva Dal and then taken on board by the
INC under the lead of Nehru, freshly returned
from the Brussels conference, and T. C. Goswami,
a member of the legislative assembly.35
In 1928, the Punjab NBS was started at Amritsar, its launch taking place from the platform of
a Punjabi youth conference, announced as Punjabi
Young Mens Associations, a term then Indianized
to make up the NBS.36 And, as is well known, this
in turn was the front for the Hindustan (Socialist)
Republican Army. 1928 also saw a veritable lurry
of youth conferences. The major ones were the
under Dr. Ansari (and under the banner of The

Red Crescent) in 1912. See Minault, The Khilafat
Movement, 2223. The sympathies were quite
clear for these two. Nehru had just returned
from the1927 Brussels Oppressed Peoples Congress and Goswami freely acknowledged that
the Chinese struggle was at once communist
and nationalist since they were fighting the
most barbarous form of capitalist exploitation
known to man (Goswami, Voice of Humanity, 25961.) The government immediately got
extremely suspicious of the intention behind
such a mission despite the fervent public display of strict neutrality by the Congress and the
pledge to abide by all the rules laid down for a
medical mission by the Red Cross. Ultimately
they rejected to provide passports for the mission despite the Congress having raised money
and volunteers (the response was enthusiastic,
see for the governmental correspondence and

newspaper reports: Home Dept. [Spcl], 355
[58] A, 1927, MSA). An Indian medical mission
to China, consisting of five doctors, was ultimately organised in 1938, under the aegis of
Congress President S. C. Bose, following the
Japanese invasion. On that mission, see Bose,
Congress President, 9:3638 (for his public appeal and farewell message to the mission). On
the engagement of the international Left with
the Chinese struggle, see Petersson, We Are
No Visionaries. See 6386 on the Hands Off
China campaign from 1925 and 98 100 for the
wider importance for the LAI; and 13537 for
Nehru at the Brussels Conference.
36. Statement of Sohan Singh Josh in Meerut
Court, 304 7, MCC.
(All-India) youth conferences that grew out of the

First and Second Bombay Presidency Youth Conferences in January and December 1928. The Bombay Youth Conference in January 1928 set up by a
resolution the Bombay Presidency Youth League.
The attendees on that occasion overlap to
some extent with the Meerut accused: Shaukat Usmani is there, the elderly Dhundiraj Thengdi, and
Philip Spratt. And then there were the emerging
youth leaders in Bombay: K. F. [Kurshed Framji]
Nariman and Yusuf Meherally. The conference
set the tone for the new incarnation of the Indian
youth movement. I. K. Yajnik, chairman of the reception committee, spoke on the new ideas and
morality emerging among youth who were promising to change the earth; the young blood was
setting out to change the relations between men
and women, aspired to internationalism, and proclaimed war on communalism. It was at the same
time a challenge to the old political and social
leaders with their high talk and little action, their
dangerous sophistications and puerile quibblings. Yajnik took to task a ventriloquist but lethargic patriotism that was apt to be radical in
politics and conservative in social matters and,
referring to the noncooperation movement, a prevailing dangerous mixture of religion with politics
and its reactionary economic outlook. 37 Bombay
Presidency, especially Bombay city, and Allahabad
formed special nodal points for the outwardly radiating appeal of the socialist hype among youth.
These conferences were followed by the
All- India Youth Conference at Calcutta and the
All-India Congress Committee (AICC) session in
December, which was presided over by Nariman,
with Subhas Chandra Bose as chair. That congress
was noteworthy not least for Boses martial display,
with himself on horseback in full military fantasy
uniform (modeled on Mussolini) and his new
37. Youths Rush to New Ideals Warning to
Elderly Leaders, Bombay Chronicle, 22 January
1928, Home Dept. (Spcl.) 724, 1927 1928, S-23,
MSA.
38. See Roy, Torchbearers of Progress, chap. 3.
39. Prepare for Grim Struggle Ahead [summary of Boses speech at the Midnapur Youth
Conference], Bombay Chronicle, 25 December
1929, Home Dept. (Spcl.), 724 (Z), 1929, S- 61,
MSA.
band of volunteers in their uniforms.38 The display

of volunteers was not meant as idle demonstration
of strength. At the Midnapur Youth Conference in
December 1929, Bose wove an entire speech about
a new programme to be launched during the
next national campaign without ever spelling out
what that program entailed. He stated that the old
noncooperation program had failed but that a new
band of workers was needed for a new program to
be put into efect. It would be better, Bose claimed,
to remain silent to avoid the attacks by the old
Congress guard that would follow, but all of his energies were directed into building this new band
of workers.39 This sounded dangerously like an internal coup detat, and that was what the (mostly)
tactfully staged battle for predominance between
the young hotheads and the old guard within the
Congress of those years was indeed.
Not a week seemed to go by in those years
without multiple youth meeting or parades. The
usual messages were delivered about holistic
change and youth as the discontent factor in society, as a separate organization, and as a rebel
against the old institutions that had failed to deliver. The trend was so stark in India that it held
sway in the wider world, with youth camps and conferences held in many places, at times on a striking scale. In August 1928, the World Youth Peace
Congress took place in Eerde, Netherlands, with
some 150 youth from 27 diferent groups, claiming to represent some 32 nations and more than
100,000 youths in all. The Congress was organized
by a conglomerate of youth organizations, not least
of which was the British Federation of Youth under
Harold F. Bing. 40 It aimed to establish world
brotherhood and peace fueled by a utopianism
born out of the cataclysm of the Great War.41 India
would remain a member of the connected World
Youth Congress Movement until such endeavors
40. Bing was the editor of the British magazine Youth. For more details, see Bing, British
Youth, esp. 278. See also Bings report highlighting the need for youth to work for peace
after they had stumbled blindly into the disaster of the Great War, cf. Report on the World
Youth Peace Conference, F. No. O- 3, 1928 f.
179, AICC, NMML. For a vivid overview of participants and organization at the camp, as well
as the prevailing spirit, see Matthews, Youth
Looks at World Peace.
41. General report, World Youth Peace Congress, Eerde, 1626 August 1928 by Nalinaksha
Sanyal, F O-3, 1928, ff. 181203, AICC, NMML.
See also the invitation and program, aims, and
objects of the conference as well as the youth
charter by the British Federation of Youth (one
of the principal organizers) and the World
Youth League (Weltjugendliga) who inspired
the movement. See F. No. O- 3, 1928, AICC,
NMML. Youths Charter aimed at establishing a sound body in a sound mind, the oppor-
367
36 8
were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World

War.42 A number of Indian delegates partook of
the Eerde proceedings; Rajendra Prasad came and
went in a hurry but delivered public messages from
the Mahatma and C. F. Andrews.43 The writing of
one of the delegates to the conference, B. C. Guha,
can stand for the general admixture of sentiments
and ideas that youth was supposed to represent.
Youth, he wrote, realized amid the misery of the
postwar period that the future of the world rested
on them. This was the driving force of the global
youth movement. A youth movement did exist before, in particular in Germany, but not one that
realized it would have to take over leadership of
the world. As a result, in future international complications, youth would be a force to reckon with.44
From 1929, the AICC called on the people
of the country to organize youth, workers, and
peasants for an impending nationwide campaign.45
After the lapsing of the Congress- dictated deadline for the Nehru Report, Purna Swaraj (complete
independence) was declared the goal of the INC.
From 1928, the insult delivered by the composition of the all- white Simon Commission, which
consisted of members of the British Parliament
who were sent to India to assess the state of constitutional reform in the colony, the heated atmosphere prevailing in the country due to public outrage and political opposition to the commission,
tunity to serve, the elimination of war, and the
construction of peace. See ibid., f. 232.
42. This episode and the fascinating international connections that emerge from this are
outside of the purview of the current study
merely for lack of space. On the Youth Congress Movement, however, see FD 10, pt. I, 1936,
AICC, NMML.
43. See Report by Sanyal, in F. No. O-3, 1928,
f. 189, AICC, NMML. His detailed report of the
proceedings is fascinating given his close engagements with the problems of peace, world
brotherhood, and the task of youth in building
a more stable future with equality and justice
for all. He wrote with verve about the effortlessly desexualized nature of European nudism
and the importance of the Wandervogel movement for the self-understanding of the Youth
Peace Conference, where it was portrayed as
the mother of all youth movements. See General report, World Youth Peace Congress, Eerde,
1626 August 1928, by Nalinaksha Sanyal, F. No.
O-3, 1928, ff. 181203, AICC, NMML.
33:3
2013
and the death of Lajpat Rai had made for a daring

attitude among some, notably the HSRA and the
youth by and large.46 Material on the campaign
around the Simon Commission turned up in the
Meerut case exhibits time and again. A new wave
of terrorism, as the Intelligence Bureau was wont
to call it, was gathering momentum around the
same time, in part in reaction to the governmental repression of these years. The radical factions
were unraveling as the newly formed violent revolt groups (in the police iles often appearing as
the revolted groups) were not satisied with sitting still any longer or partaking in the internal
Congress ights.47 Surjya Sen, the lieutenant of the
Chittagong Armoury Raid (which featured, prominently, teenage boys), and other such splinter
groups, along with the HSRA under Bhagat Singh,
demonstrated the disafection with the older terrorist leadership through a new series of attacks.48
Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutts murder of
Deputy Commissioner of Police Saunders (on 17
December 1928) was supposed to avenge the death
of Lala Lajpat Rai, who died some weeks after
being hit with a lathi- charge of the police at an
antiSimon Commission demonstration at Lahore
on 30 October 1928. The intended victim, Police
Chief Scott, feared for his life and was lying low, so
Saunders had to do. The legislative assembly bomb
detonated to make the deaf hear, as the accom-
44. B. C. Guha [Indian delegation to the World

Youth Peace Congress], World Youth MovementIts Ideals, Hopes, and Achievement[s],
Bombay Chronicle, 18 December 1928, Home
Dept. (Spcl.) 724, A, 1928, S-209, MSA.
45. Resolutions of the AICC, December 1929, F.
No. 32, 1929, f. 106, AICC, NMML.
46. See Sarkar, Modern India, esp. 26162,
26669.
47. On the workings of the revolted group
through youth associations in Bengal, see
WBSA, Office of DIG of Police, CID, IB, file 1324,
1932 (Dinajpur branch of the Jugantar and the
local Young Mens Association as its front); on
the Youth Association in Jessore and its varied
connections to revolutionaries, see WBSA, Office of DIG of Police, CID, IB, 271Y, 1928. For a
brief summary of the trend, see Sarkar, Modern India, 26669. The Revolt Groups or New
Violence Party were a reaction to the march
through the institutions by Anushilan and Jugantar leaders who were so busy playing power
games within the Congress that they had lost

touch with the base of the younger generation,
who grew up with the romantic image of daring dacoits and, much more pragmatically, suffered from the economic conditions and continued high academic unemployment.
48. The actual Chittagong Armoury Raiders
were mostly boys (the youngest being thirteen
years) under the leadership of Surjya Sen and
his lieutenants. The boys had been recruited
as Congress volunteers through the District
Congress Committee (DCC) after Sen and his
group had taken over the body in 1929. From
among the volunteers for the local Congress
session that year, drill master Bidhu Bushan
Bhattacharjee siphoned off likely adolescents
for the secret group while Ananta Singh had
become instructor to the local akharas on the
lines of the well- established success formula
for such recruitment. On the Chittagong Armoury Raid, see Chatterjee, Do and Die, esp.
4144, and chap. 3.
panying lealet was titled, was thrown on 8 April

1929, at the session debating the reintroduced Public Safety Bill, shortly after the Meerut arrests on
20 March.49
These years, overall, were marked by a widespread fascination with and use of socialist and
communist rhetoric and symbols. When one looks
at progressive media and leaders of the late 1920s
and early 1930s, one might be forgiven for thinking that everyone was a socialist. A number of inluences and strands conspired to bring about this
shift toward the designated Left in these years.
There was, of course, the economic crisis leading
to the strike wave. The arrests of the accused in the
Meerut Conspiracy Case were the governments
inal attempt to crush the burgeoning communist
and socialist (and labour) movement by a series of
show cases.50 It is not too astonishing that in 1929,
even before the arrests of left-leaning labour leaders in March at the onset of the Meerut Conspiracy
Case, members of some youth leagues were also arrested (members of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha
and the Student Union in Punjab, among others),51
and raids on youth leagues continued in the wake
of the initial Meerut arrests along with the tide of
searches conducted in the days after.
At this stage, the raids and arrests made the
leagues more attractive as they became framed by
the halo of anti- imperialism. There are instances
of youths from far- out places who had no organization but felt moved to establish youth leagues in
an answer to the challenge the British had thrown
at Young India with Meerut. In the beginning
49. See Habib, To Make the Deaf Hear, 3334,
9196.
50. The earlier attempts were the Peshawar
and Kanpur Conspiracy cases. For details on
the Peshawar Conspiracy Cases, see Adhikari,
Documents of the History of the Communist
Party, 2641; on Kanpur see Petrie, Communism in India, 762.
51. Copy of resolution from Calcutta AICC, letter dated 18 January 1929, G-35, 1928, f. 7, AICC,
NMML.
52. See letter to Nehru by one Lakshman Singh,
Jubbulpore, who wants to join his league
after he heard of the arrests. Letter dated 23
March 1929, G-39, 1928, f. 173, AICC, NMML. See
also the letter to Nehru by two youths from
Nawargrahi, Dhulia (West Khandesh) who
wanted to attempt to start a youth league
the case was perceived as a conspiracy trial not

only of communist and trade unionists but also of
Youth.52 A host of youth leagues in various places
came into being from May 1929 on. These leagues
were often more decidedly anticommunalist, politically radical, and socially progressive than other
amorphous youth groups, but we ind among them
groups close to the Servants of India or those with
moderate political views as well.53
The question, at this point, was not so much
between Left and Right (there was no self- deined
Right as yet and the Left prior to Meerut was still
whipping itself into a distinct shape). Those who
were labeled radicals and moderates, which
contemporaries like Subhas Bose equated with
Left and Right, were further designated as communist, socialist, or neither. It was in the early 1930s
that these distinctions became more important.
Both Nehru and Bose at their various speeches
at youth conferences articulated their visions of
a socialist future, a socialist commonwealth, and
a republic of youth in very similar terms.54 But
nothing in these speeches could be distinguished
at this point from the almost universal proclamations of speakers regarding the tasks of youth at
the time.
In 1931, just after Bhagat Singhs execution in
May, Bose, at a speech at a Naujawan Bharat Sabha
conference, referred to this battle within the
Congress. He spoke about the disputes between
the youth movement and the Congress and the
counterproductive mistrust of the elders against
the young radicals (for the youth movement was
even though their town was out of the way

and therefore not susceptible to the social and
political currents that swept through India. But
having heard of the challenge of the government, they intended to start a league immediately and asked Nehru for guidance. Letter by
S. W. Paliskar and B. S. Shandarkar [?] to Nehru,
dated 13 May 1929, ibid., f. 191. See also the letter by a student who had been a member of
the Seva Dal and now organized a youth league
in Bangalore and who had been visited by a
CID officer purporting to interview him for a
job just before the Meerut case. He felt more
defiant after the event, which he reported to
Nehru (whom he addressed as Comrade) in
great detail and described the arrests at aimed
against labour leaders and youth. See letter by
A. L. N. DiEugar [??], ibid., f. 18183. A host of
requests to Nehru to send the rules and regula-
tions of the youth league after the beginning of

the Meerut case arrived, but since many were
just stating the request or sending postcards,
we cannot draw a definite connection.
53. See, e.g., the rules of the Lucknow Youth
League. For a conference to be held in August
of all youth and student groups in the area,
communal organizations were specifically excluded. G-39, 1928, f. 207, AICC, NMML.
54. See, i.e., Nehrus famous presidential address at the Second Bombay Presidency Youth
Conference, Poona, 1213th December, Home
Dept. (Spcl.), 724, A, 1928, S-185, esp. S-185 G
(p. 4), MSA.
369
3 70
deined by its impatience, the will to destroy, and

its radicalism) despite those radicals being their
future. At the same time, Bose called on youth
not to undermine the Congress, since it stood for
and was coterminous with the nation. The INC
had to move slowly to take the nation with it. The
Naujawan which Bose saw not as a local or national group but as a broad movement under different names representing a universal phenomena [sic] should understand itself as a feeder
movement for the INC, and youth should act in
a spirit of helpfulness, and if they so desire... may
act as a lever inside the Congress, in order to inluence the Right wing or the conservative section in
the Congress.55
On the other side of the fence gathered those
who claimed to place national harmony above
everything else and feared any kind of internal
struggle: the Congress elders and Gandhians, who
believed in trusteeship and the paternal responsibility of the capitalists, and the self- consciously
Hindu elements who saw socialism as a Western
fad that had nothing to do with India. As the later
1920s marked the progressive shift in the Indian
nationalist movement overall, it was in many ways
the idealistic and activist high point of the progressive Indian (youth) movement. It was a time when
the organizational structure was actually geared
toward implementing the rhetorical demands for a
Republic of Youth, before the later 1930s dashed
those hopes with the looming war, rising communal tension, and the crystallization of politics, and
when sharper lines between ideological communists (in accordance with the current Comintern
line) and others would be drawn.
Left and Right thus remained, for a longish
time, a happy and fuzzy 56 tangle. A good example one of an entire legion of similar utterances
epitomizing the wider popular political imaginaire
55. Speech by Bose at Karachi Naujawan
Bharat Sabha Conference, 27 March 1931. Bose
expressed the need to organize peasants and
workers, women, and youth in volunteer organizations, among others. Bose claimed that
socialism, too, was a universal principle. As
humankind in the East and West had always
dreamed about an ideal society, there were
common principles in their different sociopolitical ideals, namely justice, equality, freedom,
discipline, and love. The sum of these universal
principles was the essence of socialism. Logi-
33:3
2013
of the times published in the socialist Vanguard

is the letter by J. J. Vakil regarding the need for
a revolutionary party in India. After a scathing
(if not wholly unjustified) attack on the INC,
who are characterized as a xenophobic, capitalist, zamindar- led body, or an anti-revolutionary
body playing at revolution in the interests of indigenous vested interests, the author refers to
Russia, China, and those Indian leaders who understood how to truly organize whereas the INC
was blatantly incapable of organizing or leading
the masses. The crying need of the hour is the
formation of a party to implement this revolutionary ideology in all spheres of life, religious, social,
economical and political. Not the kind of parties
which we have in this country but a disciplinarian
organisation like that of the Fascisti in Italy or the
Bolsheviki in Russia. The world forces may bring
India freedom sooner rather than later, Vakil
stated, and if no well- organized party existed by
then, there would be a long spell of anarchy similar to the one following Mughal rule or the Manchu Empire.57
While condemning Jawaharlal Nehrus remarks about the structural similarity between fascism and Bolshevism, which merely offered the
choice between Lenin and Mussolini but were
similar in their insensate violence and intolerance, 58 M. N. [Manabendra Nath] Roy warded
of such glimmerings of a totalitarian analysis by
opposing the contention that the mere use of violence rendered fascism and Bolshevism similar,
on the grounds that the latter defended the rights
of the people and had turned to violence merely
to defend its program against external violence.
Roy asserted that Bolshevism was no more violent
than Gandhism, and he pointed out that fascist
tendencies were inherent in the Indian nationalist movement by way of its reactionary jingoist
cal corollaries to these principles were equal

opportunities, a living wage, and fair distribution of wealth. The youth movement existed to
destroy the old order and create a new one by
carrying their utopian ideals into society. Thus,
training centers for human mental and physical development and a widespread network
were necessary. Presidential Address at the
Karachi Conference of the All-India Naujawan
Bharat Sabha, http://subhaschandrabose.org
/speechContent.php?id=YWJlcmFzaWJvKDIpZ
mlyZQ##, accessed 15 June 2012.
56. On the distinction between fuzzy and

enumerated communities, see Kaviraj, The
Imaginary Institution of India.
57. J. J. Vakil, The Creation of a Revolutionary
Party Is Essential for Indias Interest, Vanguard,
no. 20, 14 December 1929, Home Dept. (Spcl)
724 A (Z), 192931, S-55, MSA.
58. See Roy, Jawaharlals Speech, 2:18388.
tendencies: When our disillusioned lower middle

class forsakes Gandhism it hails Mussolini as the
prophet.59
A youth movement was expected to be an entirely new movement, overhauling the very fabric
of society. It was up to the youth to combat the inherent reactionary tendencies of all organizations
that were led by middle- aged men, as the Young
Comrades League (YCL) proclaimed. The INCs
program was hopelessly out of date and unsuited
to the present conditions. Youth growing up in
the twentieth century, in the epoch of wars and
revolutions, could discard all relics of the past,
social customs, superstitions, and a nonscientiic
outlook.60
Bot h t he older for ms of Indian ant iimperialism and nationalism that is, reformism
and terrorism at this point began to be seen
as futile and, in the case of individual terrorism,
an idealist or romantic but archaic stance from a
diferent time as far as the self- declared emerging
Left was concerned. A realistic revolutionism was
needed, the YCL asserted a sentiment echoed
across the board by igures as diverse as Sarojini
Naidu, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Nehru, Bose,
and a host of lesser-known igures from diferent
parts of India. It was the prime function of youth
to lead the vanguard in this revolution in the mind
of the masses, and Nehru did, indeed, on occasion
speak of a youth-led revolutionary psychology.61
The Young Comrades League, a youth wing
of the CPI front organization, and the Workers
and Peasants Party another group who naturally surfaced in the Meerut case similarly advocated a turning away from a nineteenth- century
59. Ibid., 188.
60. Young Comrades League, Exhibits, P.9,
MCC.
61. Create Revolutionary Psychology, Bombay
Chronicle, 15 December 1928 [being the summary of Nehrus speech at a youth meeting
at Blavatsky lodge], Home Dept. (Spcl.), 724,
A, 1928, S-203, MSA. Others, like N. V. Gadgil,
then the president of the Poona Youth League,
echoed this sentiment, for instance at the First
Bombay suburban youth conference held at
Khar, when he stated that the real purpose of
the Youth Movement was to create a revolutionary mentality. Purpose of Youth Movement, Bombay Chronicle, 20 May 1929, Home
Dept. (Spcl.) 724, A, I, 1929, S-107, MSA. Yet any
constitution-mongering as well as the romantic

impossibilist revolutionary policy that marked
the earlier terrorist/youth movement. Revolution
had become a necessity of world history, a logical
conclusion of linear development and, of course,
historical materialism something not really invented by Marx, but rather a discussion about the
applicability of natural laws to the pattern of history and societies. And so, the YCL could proclaim
with a certain confidence that revolution is no
longer the dream of a few isolated intellectuals,
scorned by all political realists; it is an actuality,
already taking place all over the world, and requiring scientiic study and practical organisation.62
The youth leagues, as a phenomenon growing out of the various Young Mens Associations
of the early 1920s, became prominent only in the
year or two preceding the Meerut trial. The name
itself deserves a brief line. While various shapes
and forms of youth movements had sprung up in
the 1920s, the Youth League was a reference to
Lenins construct of the same.63 The Indian youth
leagues subscribed to a very similar model when
we consider the program that Nehru laid out for
them of course, the reality was diferent, and the
youth league became in efect yet another loose
platform, a catchall phrase for groups and conferences held at the time with varying agendas but
sufused in many cases with at least the aesthetic
reference to socialist symbolism.
The Indian Youth Congress (I YC), which
later became the official Congress youth wing,
came into being around this time as a common
platform. A draft resolution of the IYC in 1928
called for the boycott of British goods, complete
number of similar utterances could be cited.

Kamaladevi, for instance, proclaimed that the
Youth Movement is one of the greatest, one of
the most powerful forces, influencing the modern thought of life, or playing a significant part
in the history of the world. Youth stands for a
clear and far-seeing vision and with its boundless spirit and enthusiasm paves the way for
the regeneration of life. Nowhere can its importance be minimised, and certainly not in a
country like India, where a new life needs to
be built up on the demolition of the old. Cf.
Youth Must Take a Deep Plunge [summary of
Kamaladevis speech at the Ahmedabad Youth
Conference], Bombay Chronicle, 16 December
1929, Home Dept. (Spcl.), 724 A (Z), 192931,
S- 9, MSA.
62. Statement of Programme and Policy of

Young Comrades League, Exhibits, P.158 (23),
MCC.
63. The initial framework was proposed by
Lenin at the Third All- Russia Congress of the
Young Communist League in 1920. Lenin outlined a program that aimed at creating the
New (Soviet) Man through the self-education
of young people within these leagues, where
they would familiarize themselves with communism and train themselves to act accordingly. The idea was from the beginning a amalgamating of theory and practice that would
allow youth to remould society in a totalizing
way. See Lenin, Tasks of the Youth Leagues, esp.
7 20.
371
372
independence, and a youth rebellion against antiquated social customs from child marriage to
dowry and inequality of the sexes. It also stated,
This Congress tenders its fraternal greetings
to the youth and Organisations of the world,
and expresses its determination to co- operate
with them and bring into existence a new world
order. 64 In addition, it advocated international
antiimperialist organizations. As in so many
other pamphlets of this type, there is also a call
for a physical renaissance for both sexes through
outdoor games, woodcraft, physical exercise, and
volunteer corps. The imperative behind such exhortations is explicit: all this is to be undertaken
with a view to the future usefulness [of the individual] to the country and humanity at large. 65
The scope of activity included creating brotherhood and performing service; guarding the safety
and honor of country, religion, and women; and
ighting adharma in whatever form it may appear
through peaceful means or passive resistance
movements, depending on the directive of the
executive council.66
Bombay served as headquarters of the AllIndia Youth Congress with Nariman as its first
president and Meherally as general secretary. Both
men were committed socialists and acted in the
same positions for the Bombay Provincial Youth
League, thus shaping the formations of these
leagues throughout the province and beyond. Considered alongside Nehrus enormous inluence, the
All- India Youth Congress and the youth leagues
33:3
2013
were factually synonymous. The league served as

a platform for the socialists and progressive factions from early on, at least in Bombay, which was
regarded as at the helm of the Indian youth movement.67 But the calls for compulsory physical training and the rhetoric of militaristic jingoism can be
found here as elsewhere, too, making it clear that
such tendencies beyond any political notions
cut across such diferences efortlessly.68
But the leagues took diferent shapes in different regions in accordance with their platform
character. The youth leagues did not ill the brief
of normal volunteer bodies, as they lacked the
corporeal agenda of the latter, even though they
too advocated physical and military training. They
also did not have the structure of the akhara movement, which strove to resurrect traditional Indian
gymnastic and martial practices.69 It is diicult to
generalize, as youth league is really only a vague
demarcation signaling that these were neither designated student bodies nor organized volunteers
(though they could be or merge into either, and
members sometimes switched back and forth or
held memberships simultaneously).70
The confusion about what the leagues actually were was shared by contemporaries. Nehru, as
one of stringent advocates of the youth leagues,
received a rather worried letter by one Bhagwat
Dayal, a tutor at one of the Allahabad colleges.
Dayal stated that he heard from his students all
manner of things: some said that the youth leagues
stood for communism, others said they advocated
64. Draft Resolution of the Indian Youth Congress, 1928, Exhibit P.164, p. 31, MCC.
dated 30 December 1928, Box 7381, Krger

Papers, Zentrum Moderer Orient (ZMO), Berlin.
65. Exhibit P.164, p. 32, MCC.
68. A handbill of the Bombay Presidency Youth

League, signed Y. J. Meherally, A. R. Bhat [s.a.],
proclaimed in big, block letters: Youth Must
Know / That Organisation is the secret of success. / Bureaucracy is organising / Congress is
organising / Communalists are organising /
Capital is organising / Labour is organising. /
Why not Youth? The bill goes on to plead for
the boycott of British goods, for Hindu-Muslim
unity, and for all young people to get compulsory physical and military training (somewhat
of a contradiction, admittedly, and yet a good
example of the collapsing of voluntarism and
compulsory duty). Cf. F. No. O-3, 1928, ff. 239,
AICC, NMML. The interesting part here is not
even the compulsory military training but the
credo of organization itself. The framework for
all groups was that of efficient organization,
and efficient organization was an abstract sci-
66. The Indian Youth Congress [constitution,

rules, and regulations], G-39, 1928, ff. 307 11,
AICC, NMML. The president of the INC was to
act as chief advisor of the IYC and the AIWC
would also form the board of the IYC, meaning the Congress was from the beginning firmly
embedded in the Congress as one of its wings.
The membership was open to people between
the ages of twenty and thirty; associates could
be between twelve and twenty; and advisors
were people over thirty-five who were willing to help the Congress and participate in its
deliberations.
67. Nehru to H. D. Rajah, 1 May 1929, G-39, 1928,
f. 179, AICC, NMML. The government shared
that opinion: see Governments View of the
Youth Movement, extract from secret report
entific principle that entailed discipline, training, fitness, dedication, and obedience. The
leagues other fear was being left behind, of
losing out in the race for organization.
69. Bombay Presidency Youth Conference,
appeal, sd. Y. J. Meherally, dated 15 December
1927, G-39, 1928, f. 325, AICC, NMML. Next to
these physical articles we find, once again,
calls, along with the fight against communalism and antiquated customs, to promote
swadeshi, primary education, independent
thought among youth and the spirit of universal brotherhood, and an international outlook.
70. Naturally, as it is so hard to track individuals
among the rank and file, these reports are few
and far between, but see a letter by a member
of a youth league to Nehru during the crackdowns on the leagues, G-39, 28, f. 182, AICC,
NMML.
terrorism, and some said that both were the same,

really. He sought clarification from Nehru on
whether any of this was true, in particular the
recent renaming of the Allahabad Youth League
as the UP Comrade League, which added to
his premonition.71 Nehru replied in a six- page
letter, explaining, irst, that he had talked about
the necessity of setting up a youth league but had
nothing actively to do with it, even though he had
commented on draft constitutions and given his
advice. He could not understand what might have
given the students or Dayal the strange idea that
the league advocated that monstrous scheme
of terrorism or stood for communism. The name
was an unhappy one, Nehru thought, but since
Joshi had been arrested so recently (in the Meerut
case), the members felt (after Nehrus communication with them, we might add) that it was not
a good time to change it back. He claimed that
youth should understand communism, as it was
important in world politics; though he was critical, Nehru said he himself was attracted by it. The
youth league in his mind was an open platform, independent of creed or dogma, for all young men,
including communists, who were dissatisied with
the present conditions and wanted to better them.
But, Nehru added, as Dayal must know, the average student knew precious little of communism or
socialism. The league was meant as a study circle
where young people could educate themselves and
prepare for active work. They might do work in
the league as well (especially developing contact
with the masses, boycotting foreign goods, and
occasionally participating in national demonstrations) but this was not so much for the sake of the
thing they did but for training and educational
purposes. But then, none of this was for him to
say since youth leagues were to be organized by
young people themselves. The idea of the youth
league, in Nehrus mind, was thus a combination
of the concept of the suprapolitical youth move71. Bhagwat Dayal, House Tutor, Kayastha
Pathshala University College Allahabad, to
Jawaharlal Nehru, Anand Bhavan, Allahabad,
dated 28 March 1929, G-39, 1928, ff. 14950,
AICC, NMML.
72. Nehru to Bhagwat Dayal, dated 3 April 1929,
G-39, 1928, ff. 15359, AICC, NMML.
ment united and demarcated by their impatience

and the necessity of channeling those energies
and stalling them somewhat by prescribing a sort
of self- educating apprenticeship among peers. He
wrote that it was better if young people did not do
active work before they were clear in their own
minds what to do and how to do it.72
The Young Liberator was the self- appointed
journal of the youth league movement, started in
late 1928. It was published from Bombay and managed by H. D. Rajah.73 It similarly set the task before youth as no less than the reconstruction of the
whole of social, political, and economic life, and it
was thus somewhat more action- oriented than what
politicians like Nehru, Annie Besant, or Kripalani
(all of whom were involved with their local youth
leagues) had in mind.74 Compared to the earlier
romantic- nihilistic features of the revolutionary
exhortations directed at youth, the Young Liberator
displayed novel features. While it also dealt with
the utopian visions of youth, the euphoria regarding revolutionary change, and the dawn of a new
civilization to come, its slant was toward themes
such as capitalism, labour, the poor, agrarian and
economic politics, equality of the sexes, and active international cooperation instead of the more
overtly spiritualist and corporeal self- elevation and
(politically empty) sacriicial obedience. What it
retained, however, were other features of the millenarian and militaristic rhetoric.
The Appeal for the Third Madras Youth Conference organized under the auspices of the League
of Youth in Madras exempliies these trends. It was
addressed to the Comrades in service and restated
a familiar trope: youth today was up in arms. According to the address, this was the most exhilarating episode in all of history. A new spirit is abroad.
Everywhere one hears the new slogan Universal Brotherhood. That and service were youths
watchwords. Youth was holding the banner of revolt
proclaiming the message of peace. They were the
73. Rajah together with Meherally and Nariman

had active international contacts. Rajah, for instance, also wrote articles for Youth, the magazine of the British federation of Youth, while
its general secretary, Harold Bing (of the British Youth Federation, and one of the organizers of the Eerde conference), wrote articles for
the Young Liberator. Rajah kept in touch with
other international youth organizations such as

the World Federation of Youth. They also had
friendly relations with the British communists
and socialists in Bombay (such as Hutchinson).
74. Opening page of the Young Liberator [s.a,
Sept/Oct? 1928] by the manager, G-39, 1928,
f. 281, AICC, NMML.
373
3 74
pioneers and heroes of the coming age, aiming to

establish a new social order. They would go down
in the chronicles of history as examples of lofty
idealism, unremitting toil for the commonweal[th],
and uncompromising determination to uphold all
that is right, all that is just, and all that is true. The
youth movement was as broad as the blue vault
overhead and did not recognize any frontiers of
colour or class. In India, there was ample splendid material to mobilize, and the youth were taking their place in the great Army of the Young, out
to storm the citadels of unyielding autocracy and to
dispel the forces of darkness, ignorance and prejudice. The future of India and the world depended
on a solution to the problems of hidebound orthodoxy. To address this problem, social evils
needed to be dispelled such as purdah, the demon
of Drink, and child marriage. In addition, the address proclaimed, better conditions for the poor
and intercommunal harmony were needed, as well
as the emancipation of our sisters from the yoke of
convention; international fellowship, airmation of
the dignity of labor and liberation of the oppressed;
mass education; a solution to unemployment; the
enthroning of social Justice; and elevation of the
Motherland. All this demanded the attention and
zeal of Young India. Youths privilege was to serve. It
was for each of them to contribute, and the organizers called on them to be prepared to do and die.75
75. Appeal for the Third Madras Youth Conference, [s.a, ca. 8.12.1928] signed by the Convenors: K. Atchammamba, A. V. Patro, S. Kannan,
S. A. Aiyaswami, O. P. Ramaswami, M. Seshachelpathi, T. P. Venkatraman, S. Chandrasekara
sastri, A. S. Mahbala Rai, and R. Parthasarathi,
G-39, 1928, ff. 247 50, AICC, NMML. The League
of Youth in Madras, established in 1924, had
their headquarters at the Servants of India
Society Home. The league became more popular in the late 1920s. Membership was open
to people of both sexes between fifteen and
thirty years of age, and the permanent league
was conceptualized as a study circle cum lecture series, with the aim to direct the energies
of use into proper and useful channels of social
service. In their affiliations, they were politically closer to the moderate factions and theosophist circles; in terms of social work, they
tended toward Gandhian principles, while their
rhetoric at times sounded socialist. In their selfdescriptions, their hope was to realise the
great dream that strengthens, beautifies and
perfects that sacred edifice The Nationhood
33:3
2013
After the commencement of the Meerut trial,

the Young Liberator took on a more radical tone,
publishing articles on labour unrest, the trials, and
the Communist scare, along with youth-related
topics. Rajah called on youth to carry on the work
of the arrested labour leaders.76 The Young Liberator can be seen in the same bracket as Meherallys
overtly socialist Vanguard.77 In practice, many of
the youth leagues did not look dissimilar to the
various volunteer bodies mushrooming in India
at the time. They, too, did lathi play and physical training, hawked khaddar, organized swadeshi
(things of our own country) fairs, had lectures
and study circles, organized libraries, spread propaganda through meetings and lectures on speciic topics, and held camps.78 The leagues of the
time were, however, concerned with socialism and
the poor not just on the level of rhetoric but in an
attempt to further an economic program and create an active anticommunalism. In fact, many had
explicit clauses against communalism or the participation of their members in any body that promoted communal representation in their rules.79
There was a drive toward an economic program,
and labour issues gave more concrete shape to the
metaphysical revolutionary aspirations or so the
socialists wanted.
The reality on the ground, naturally, was
more fuzzy in the tangled alliances and subversion
of India. See League of Youth in Madras pamphlets, G-39, 1928, esp. ff. 253, 258, 260 66,
AICC, NMML.
76. See Rajah, War on Labour, 269.
77. Yusuf Meherally asked Nehru for an article, Why I Am a Socialist, and then proposed
that Nehru join the board of the Vanguard (in
an honorary position, since Nehru was much
too busy to be an active member). The Vanguard aimed at the intelligentsia while trying
to expound (and convert them to) the principles of socialism. New Leader and the Nation
were models for the Vanguard. Nehru was enthusiastic (by his standards) and grudgingly
agreed to be one of the directors with Nariman and Dr. Sumant Mehta, Urmilla Mehta,
and N. V. Gadgil. Proposed authors included
Laski, Scott Nearing, B. Russell, Col. Wedgewood, Furtwngler, and Upton Sinclair. See
correspondence between Mehrally and Nehru,
G-39, 1928, AICC, NMML. See also The Youth
Movement Vanguard, Home Dept. (Spcl),
724 (VI), 1929, S-3, S-5, MSA. The first issue of
the Vanguard opened with a piece by deValera

in the Irish struggle and carried a review of The
Well of Loneliness which gives a good indication of just how unusual it was in certain respects (especially on gender and sex). See Vanguard 1, no. 1, September 1929. In the second
issue, the Vanguard carried an article deconstructing why the young generation was disillusioned with Gandhi and turned away from his
doctrines and proclaimed India to be the heart
of the global youth movement. See Vanguard 1,
no. 2, 28 September 1929.
78. For more information, see the Young Liberators column Youth on the March, which reported on youth league activities. See also the
constitution of the Lucknow Youth League, G39, 1928, ff. 36986, AICC, NMML.
79. See, e.g., Outline of the Mordabad League
of Indian Youth, G-41, 1928, ff. 6061, AICC,
NMML, as well as the rules of the Naujawan
Bharat Sabha, which for the purposes here can
be seen in the same frame, F. No. 10, 1930, ff,
113, esp. f. 3, AICC, NMML.
of existing bodies as well as the shifting programs

of socialists and communists themselves. While
their stance on speciic strikes might have been
very concrete and deinite, the incessant acrimonious discussion among the Left revealed the dificulties of distilling an overarching political line.
And, in many ways, the youth movement, like its
grown-up counterparts, remained conined to abstract discussions, a trend both recognized and
relentlessly criticized at the incessant meetings of
youth around the time.80 The rising student unemployment formed a socioeconomic basis for the
discontent of the young, educated middle class.81
But the youth leagues provided a corrective to the
seemingly ubiquitous self- obsessed self- reform
propagated by many volunteer movements and
helped youth grapple with the political, in the
sense of concrete goals rather than abstract ideals,
more fully. Tension remained between the popular
political imagination and the youth leagues, the
latter being more interested in clarifying the division between Right and Left, but even their views
were not free from awkward crossovers.
In the immediate aftermath of the arrests,
Meerut helped unify the youth movement. But the
splitting and seeds of discord sown by the divergent political trends did work among the youth
as well. The overtly displayed hostility toward the
old Congress leadership could not but lead to tensions. Hutchinsons arrest in the summer of 1929 is
certainly one example. Hutchinson, who had organized a study circle and edited the New Spark after
M. G. Desais arrest, was one of the more coherent
and biting critics of Gandhi and of Gandhian politics within youth league circles, and the INC was
far from happy about this. A split in the Bombay
Youth League occurred after Hutchinsons arrest,
where a meeting that was to debate the issue was
adjourned and could not continue. Congressman
Velji Lakhamsi Napoo and the president of the
Matunga League resigned in disgust. The ad80. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, as president of the Ahmedabad Youth Conference in
late 1929, for instance, was in good company
when she criticized the trend sharply by refusing to sign any more proclamations and empty
resolutions, like those for complete independence, if they were not followed up by action.
See Youth Must Take a Deep Plunge, Bom-
journed meeting, after Napoos resignation, ended

in blows between the pro-Congress and procommunist youngsters and in chaos. The youth league
split along these lines as well; the article Split in
Bombay Youth League, published in the Times of
India, described the communists as anti- Gandhi,
anti-Nehru[,] and anti- everything.82
To some extent, therefore, the divisions between acceptable nationalists and unacceptable communists or radicals that the government
sought to create in the Meerut trial were replicated
in the vicissitudes of the youth movement in India.
This division, with the opposite normative connotations, was the same as that now propagated by
the Cominterns Third Period; it did not, however,
cause the same sharp divisions among a broadly
(self-)conceived Left among youth movements
themselves. On the contrary, it ended up creating
the space for a Marxist understanding of politics
outside of an oicial communist party, as in the
Naujawan Bharat Sabha, or even to some extent
within the Communist Party of India, who in the
course of the Meerut Conspiracy Case years developed a sound skill in interpreting Comintern
directives in a lexible and original way, thereby
preserving a substantial autonomy alongside an
apparent obedience to the Comintern line. The
diversity of opinion contained in youth politics was
not entirely amenable to the disciplining process
that Meerut provided.83
The sharpening divides among communists,
socialists, Left, and Right accelerated by Meerut
worked, first and foremost, among the political
intermediary leadership and intelligentsia, while
a wider popular political discourse and imagination retained some of the pre- Meerut fuzziness
for a while longer. The communist- and socialistinspired youth movement was, however, short-lived
and its effect limited. With the Gandhian civil
disobedience campaign and the rapid decline in
interest in Meerut (interrupted briely by Bhagat
bay Chronicle, 16 December 1929, Home Dept.

(Spcl.), 724 A (Z), 192931, S- 911, MSA.
81. Student numbers had risen significantly
over the preceding years while the job market
remained stagnant. After the 1919 reforms, education had been transferred to the provinces,
and the percentage of students in the total
population had risen from just over 5 percent

in 1922 to 6.91 percent in 1927. See Sarkar, Modern India, 266.
82. See Split in Bombay Youth League.
83. See Raza, Separating the Wheat from the
Chaff.
375
3 76
Singhs hanging), much of its radical stance was

absorbed back into the straitjacket of a more undiferentiated nationalism.
The British realization that a Gandhi was
less dangerous than a communist dates largely
from this period; in his first campaign, Gandhi
had been rather far- fetchedly referred to in British documents as a Bolshevik.84 Langford Jamess
prosecution statements begin to sound like nationalist manifestos, to the same extent that the industrialist G. D. Birlas letters to London started pleading with the government to recognize Gandhi as
the legitimate nationalist voice, lest by failing to do
so they strengthen the communists in India.85 By
1929, the Gandhians, which all too often meant the
right wing of the Congress, were pulling sharply
away from the Left. During the Meerut trials,
Nehru had in his oicial capacity of congressman
said to Muzafar Ahmad that the Congress need
to start a Gandhian- style civil disobedience campaign would mean less interest on the part of the
Congress in the Meerut case and in the defence
of the Meerut prisoners.86 This proved correct, although the long- awaited renewal of Gandhis active campaigning against British rule in India had
waited until the momentum of labour unrest had
been lost, thereby giving him more control over
directions and outcomes. It was in this capacity
that Gandhi started, and once again unilaterally
withdrew, his movement, on 5 March 1931 delivering the movement to the viceroy, who later broke
his promises of amnesty for the participants of
the movement. One promise that Lord Irwin did
not have to break was one that the Mahatma did
not ask him to make: Bhagat Singh was hanged as
scheduled on 23 March 1931, with Gandhi refusing
to ask the viceroy for clemency.87
The Meerut case dragged on for a further
two years and more, but the divisions established
in many ways already by 1929 and pivoting on the
Meerut trial had a long afterlife. Orthodox communism did not maintain a irm grip among the
youth movements, which gravitated increasingly
(back) toward nationalist, paramilitarist, and, in
later years, often markedly communalist tenden84. Zachariah, Nehru, 42.
85. See Birla, Path to Prosperity.
33:3
2013
cies, even though the official CPI still retained

a youth and student wing. The wider solidarities
around the persecution of anti- imperialists at
Meerut were not particularly long-lasting, and they
broke down under the weight of the many political
divergences that manifested themselves at the time
and after. But the expected divisions of nationalist
and communist were not the ones that were relevant.
References
Adhikari, G., ed. Documents of the History of the Communist
Party of India, vol. 2, 19231925. Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1974.
Bing, Harold F. British Youth and India. In Young Liberator 1 (1929): 276 80.
Birla, G. D. [Ghanshyam Das]. The Path to Prosperity. Bombay: Eastern Economist, 1949.
Bose, Subhas Chandra. Congress President: Speeches, Articles
and Letters, January 1938 May 1939. In Collected Works
of Subhas Chandra Bose, vol. 9. Calcutta: Netaji Research Bureau, 1995.
Carritt, Michael. A Mole in the Crown. Calcutta: Rupa, 1982.
Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan. The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Class
in Bombay, 1900 1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Chatterjee, Manini. Do and DieThe Chittagong Uprising:
1930 1934. New Delhi: Penguin India, 1999.
Dange, S. A. [Shripad Amrit]. Gandhi versus Lenin. Bombay: Liberty Literature, 1921.
Documents of the Communist Movement in India, vol. 2. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1997.
Ghosh, Pramita. Meerut Conspiracy Case and the Left Wing
in India. Calcutta: Papyrus, 1978.
Goswami, T. C. [Tulsi Charan]. The Voice of Humanity, China, and the Powers. Volunteer, OctoberNovember 1927, 259 61.
Habib, S. Irfan. To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme of Bhagat Singh and his Comrades. Delhi: Three
Essays Collective, 2007.
Hawes, Joseph M., and N. Ray Hiner. Hidden in Plain
View: The History of Children (and Childhood) in
the Twenty- First Century. Journal of the History of
Childhood and Youth 1 (2008): 43 49.
86. Documents of the Communist Movement,

2:12 13.
87. See Zachariah, Nehru, 71 72.
Hutchinson, Lester. Conspiracy at Meerut. London: G.

Allen and Unwin, 1935.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. The Imaginary Institution of India.
In Subaltern Studies VII, edited by Partha Chatterjee
and Gyanendra Pandey, 1 39. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Roy, M. N. [Manabendra Nath]. Jawaharlals Speech.

Vanguard 3, 15 November 1923. In Documents of the
Communist Movement, vol 2. Calcutta: National Book
Agency, 1997.
Sarkar, Sumit. Modern India, 1885 1947. Madras: Macmillan, 1983.
Lenin, V. I. The Tasks of the Youth Leagues, Speech delivered at

the Third All-Russia Congress of the Russian Young Communist League October 2, 1920. Moscow: Progress, 1976.
Split in Bombay Youth LeagueCommunists and Congressites Come to Blows. Times of India, 2 February
1929.
Louro, Michele. At Home and in the World. PhD diss.,

Temple University, 2010.
Zachariah, Benjamin. Gandhi. London: Routledge,

forthcoming.
Matthews, Joseph Brown. Youth Looks at World Peace: A

Story of the First World Youth Peace Congress (Holland,
1928). New York: American Committee, World Youth
Peace Congress, 1929.
. Nehru. London: Routledge, 2004.
Minault, Gail. The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism

and Political Mobilization in India. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982.
Mintz, Steven, Relections on Age as a Category of Historical Analysis. Journal of the History of Childhood and
Youth 1 (2008): 9194.
. Why the History of Childhood Matters. Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 5 (2012): 128.
Narayan, Jayaprakash. Why Socialism? Benares: All-India
Congress Socialist Party, 1934.
Nehru, Jawaharlal. Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and
Impressions. Allahabad: Allahabad Law Journal Press,
1928.
Overstreet, Gene D., and Marshall Windmiller. Communism in India. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1959.
Pennybacker, Susan. From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and
Cultural Politics in 1930s Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Petersson, Fredrik. We Are No Visionaries or Utopian
DreamersThe Network of the Axis League against
Imperialism, Comintern, and the Anti- Imperialist
Struggle, 1925 1933. PhD diss., Abo Akademi University, 2011.
Petrie, David. Communism in India, 1924 1927. Calcutta:
Editions Indian, 1972.
Rajah, H. D. War on Labour. Young Liberator 1 (1929):
267 69.
Roy, Franziska. The Torchbearers of Progress: Youth,
Volunteer Organisations, and National Discipline
in India, c. 1918 1947. PhD diss., University of Warwick, 2012.
377

Meerut and A Hanging - "Young India," Popular Socialism, and The Dynamics of Imperialism - Zachariah and Roy1

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Meerut and A Hanging - "Young India," Popular Socialism, and The Dynamics of Imperialism - Zachariah and Roy1

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Young India, Popular Socialism, and the Dynamics of Imperialism

1. See Ghosh, Meerut Conspiracy Case.

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Franziska Roy and Benjamin Zachariah

Three trends are signiicant in regard to this