A History of the Lahore Conspiracy Case Trial (1929–31) - ZOOM

Forensics, Expert Testimony, and Judicial Truth in British India: A History of the Lahore Conspiracy Case Trial (1929–31)

This talk examines the use of criminological forensics by the police and the judiciary during the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial (1929–31) of members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, a revolutionary outfit. The police used the forensic examination of chemicals, bombs, guns, and pistols, along with fingernails, hair, and clothing, to piece together the case, and several different kinds of ‘experts’—on ballistics, fingerprinting, handwriting, chemicals, and bombs—were invited to testify at the trial. By the late 1920s, various such specialists were in the regular pay of the British colonial state. The paper examines the reports and testimonies by these ‘experts’, reflecting on how they were used to establish the judicial truth and sustain the ideological myth of rule of law.

Aparna Vaidik is Professor of History at Ashoka University and previously taught at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and the University of Delhi. Educated at St. Stephen’s College, the University of Cambridge, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, she is the author of Revolutionaries on Trial, Waiting for Swaraj, My Son’s Inheritance, and Imperial Andamans and has received research grants from the British Academy, the Mellon Foundation, the Indian Council for Historical Research, and the Charles Wallace India Trust.