Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial

The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial commenced in the District Court in San Francisco on November 12, 1917, following the uncovering of the :Hindu–German Conspiracy (also known as the Indo German plot) for initiating a revolt in India. It was part of a wave of such incidents which took place in the United States after America's entrance into World War I. The trials came after pressure from the United Kingdom to suppress the Indian independence movement abroad. In May 1917, a group of Indian nationalists of the Ghadar Party were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to form a military enterprise against the United Kingdom from the United States, and violating U. S. neutrality laws. The trial lasted from November 20, 1917, to April 24, 1918, and resulted in the convictions of 29 people, including 14 Indian nationalists. The British authorities hoped the conviction of the Indians would result in their deportation back to India. Had the nationalists been deported to India, they would've faced much harsher sentences, including execution. The Lahore Conspiracy Case trial in British India, which sparked the trials in the United States, resulted in the convictions of 291 Indian nationalists, of which 42 were executed and 114 received life terms. In contrast, the Indian nationalists convicted in the San Francisco trial received prison terms ranged from 30 days to 22 months. Ultimately, strong public sympathy in favor of the Indians resulted in the U. S. Department of Justice choosing not to deport them.

From 1915 to 1917, the British government repeatedly requested that the United States government suppress the activities of Ghadar Party in the USA. However, these requests were turned down, as nothing in U. S. law prevented the Indians from seeking to overthrow the British government. The British ambassador, Cecil Spring Rice, was reluctant to press the matter diplomatically, fearing the political fallout at a time when Britain was working to end US neutrality and bring it into the war on the side of the Allies. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, the Ghadar intellectual, Lala Hardayal, was arrested for anarchist activities and left the U. S. before he could be deported. With other Indian Nationalists in Europe, he enlisted the aid of Germany, who believed supporting a revolt in India would weaken the United Kingdom. In 1915, Germany offered the Indian Nationalists financial aid for transporting arms and Indians back to India via the United States. The British government claimed that the United States was violating its neutrality with Britain by allowing Germany to conspire with the Indians on American soil. The first of several arrests of the Indian Nationalists were made in the Spring of 1917 with one hundred and five people of various nationalities being arrested. Eventually, thirty five were tried for conspiracy, including nine Germans, nine Americans, and seventeen Indians. During the war, nativists in the United States were expressing hostility toward certain minority groups, especially radicals and recent immigrants viewing anything un American with suspicion. By 1917, Germans were the object of much of the American nativistic fervor. Fear of German subversion and conspiracies ran rampant throughout the U. S. after the Black Tom explosion and the Kingsland Explosion, both suspected to have been caused by German agents. Thus by being linked to Germany in a conspiracy, the Indian Nationalists should have been the recipients of the same hostility. Although calls for their deportation were made by government officials after the Hindu German conspiracy trial, none of the Indian Nationalists were deported.

The arrests started in March 1917, with Chandra Kanta Chakraverty "a thin faced, falsetto voiced Hindu, a native of Bengal, and a speaker of many languages", and the German, Ernst Sekunna, being arrested on charges of conspiracy. Most of the others were arrested on April 8, including Franz Bopp, the German Consul General for San Francisco, E. H. von Schack, Deus Dekker and Wilhelm von Brincken. The Indian Nationalists were accused of taking "advantage of American neutrality to plot on American soil against the allies" at "the expense of the laws and hospitality of the United States". The two men had also taken out trade names to do business as The Oriental Society, The Oriental Kitchen,and the Oriental Review, and purchased of land in an isolated part of New York State.

Gower, Karla K., "The Hindu German Conspiracy: An Examination of the Framing of Indian Nationalists in Newspapers from 1915 1918"