Jallianwala bagh Massacre
Ayisha Hafeela A
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre marked a turning point in India’s struggle for Independence. A memorial was set up by the Government of India in 1951 at Jallianwala Bagh to commemorate the spirit of Indian revolutionaries and the people who lost their lives in the brutal massacre.
It stands as a symbol of struggle and sacrifice and continues to instill patriotism amongst the youth. In March 2019, the Yaad-e-Jallian Museum was inaugurated showcasing an authentic account of the massacre.
Soon after World War 1 came to an end, the British government passed and implemented the Rowlatt Act in India. It allowed the government to jail or detain anyone suspected of seditious acts without a trial. The act caused Indians to be disgruntled. Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satya Pal, two nationalist leaders, were imprisoned in Punjab on April 10, 1919, under the draconian Rowlatt Act. The British banned public gatherings in anticipation of protests in response to their arrests, but they never made a public announcement about it. Three days later, on April 13, 1919, people gathered in a park in Amritsar to protest the arrests. The peaceful protest was attended by men, women, and children. The park where they gathered was the Jalllianwala Bagh. The innocent lives had no idea about the tragedy they were going to face.
A British military official, Colonel Reginald Dyer, ordered a regiment of soldiers to take the park under control. The colonial troops marched into Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar and shut the main entrance behind them so no one could escape. On Dyer’s order, the British soldiers opened fire on the gathering and continued to fire until they ran out of ammunition. A total of 1,650 bullets were fired at the gathering. As the soldiers fired at them, many leapt into a well in a desperate bid to rescue themselves. Also Read – National Book Lovers Day 2022: History, significance, quotes and all you need to know Over 370 people were killed, with tens of thousands more injured. The killing was so horrific that it is worth labelling it as genocide. The killings at Jallianwala Bagh enraged the Indian public, and it boosted the national freedom struggle.
Dyer and the Hunter Committee
Some scholars argued that Dyer had arteriosclerosis and that this affected his mental condition.However, many historians believe that Dyer had already made up his mind to shoot down the unarmed crowd, probably as a revenge of assault on Miss Sherwood and the murder of five Europeans on 10th April 1919. Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, was the driving force behind launching an investigation into the recent Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Montagu was eager for constitutional reforms in India, and he believed that in order for them to be implemented, he needed to unite nationalist public opinion behind him. Montagu first thought of appointing Lord Cave as chairman but decided later in favour of Lord Hunter and Disorders Inquiry Committee was appointed on 14 October 1919. Dyer’s brigade major, Briggs, who was present at the Jallianwala Bagh shooting, died in Bannu before the Hunter Committee started its proceedings and hence his evidence was not taken. Thus, of the British officials, only Dyer was able to give the Hunter Committee a full account of the episode.The Indian National Congress boycotted the Hunter Committee as their demand was not accepted by Secretary of state. During his trial in front of Hunter Commission, Dyer gave three versions of his action to the Hunter Committee:
1.‘I had made up my mind and I was determined to shoot.’
- ‘There was no question of warning. It was a rebellious crowd that had assaulted a woman and it had to be curbed.’
- Third, in response to the eminent jurist, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad’s provocative question: ‘When you arrived you were not able to take the armoured cars in because the passage was too narrow?’, Dyer replied: ‘Yes.’ Setalvad continued: ‘Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow these armoured cars to go in, would you have opened fire with the machine guns?’ Dyer answered, ‘I think probably yes’, and repeated ‘with the machine guns’Not surprisingly, while under cross-examination by the European members, Dyer was courteous and co-operative and he addressed them with respect. But his attitude towards the Indian members was suggestive of discourtesy and disdain
Hunter Committee Report
The Hunter Committee prepared a report which was drafted mainly in Agra. The three Indian members, called the Minority, agreed on few and dissented from the European majority on some of the wider issues and produced a separate report, which was, however, published in the same volume as the combined report. The difference between them lay in their approach and in their conclusions on the nature of the disturbances, although they generally agreed on the causes of the outbreak. Both the European and Indian members reacted unfavourably to Dyer’s handling of the Jallianwala Bagh meeting, though the difference between the two reports on this episode is a question of degree only. In paragraph 39 of the Disorders Inquiry Committee Report, both the European and Indian members discuss Dyer’s action and criticise him in two respects:
‘Started firing without giving the people who had assembled a chance to disperse’, and he ‘continued firing for a substantial period of time after the crowd had commenced to disperse’.
According to the Hunter committee, Dyer did not suggest the existence of emergency conditions ‘to justify his action’. On the contrary, he had admitted that he had made up his mind to shoot as ‘he came along in his motor car’. The Majority Report did not blame Dyer for not attending to the wounded, but the Minority took a graver view of his responsibility and condemned his neglect as brutal and inhuman.
Here are a few events that took place in the aftermath of this horrific incident:
- Brigadier-General Dyer was initially lauded by senior British officials for his role in the massacre. He had reportedly informed his superiors that he was “confronted by a revolutionary army”, to which the then Michael O’Dwyer, the British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, had supposedly replied saying, “Your action correct and Lieutenant Governor approves. However, Dyer, who was later termed as the ‘Butcher of Amritsar’, was removed from the command and exiled to Britain with a gift of 26,000 pounds. He had been recommended for a CBE, however, it was canceled in 1920. He was also passed over for a promotion and was prohibited from serving in India in the future. Dyers dieid in 1927 after suffering a series of heart strokes.
- Noted Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore initially attempted to stage a protest against the massacre in Kolkata but later decided to renounce his British knighthood as a “symbolic act of protest”.
- Former Prime Minister of UK H. H. Asquith and then Secretary of War Winston Churchill had denounced the attack in the strongest terms, with Churchill calling the massacre “monstrous”, during his speech at the House of Commons on 8 July 1920.
- Udham Singh, who would later be remembered as “Shaheed”, shot dead Michael O’Dwyer at Caxton Hall in London on March 13, 1940. O’Dwyer was the British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab at the time of the massacre and was regarded by some as one of the main planners of the Amritsar attack. Singh was hanged for the murder on July 31, 1940.
- Two days after the massacre in Amritsar, on April 15, a demonstration was held in Gujranwala, agitating against the killings. 12 people died in this demonstration as well as the police and aircraft were used to quell the agitation.
Jallianwala bhag and Rise of Revolutionary ‘Nationalism’
Jallianwala Bagh massacre marked a turning point in the history of the Punjab, which thereafter was witness to different forms of violence and political resistance, a departure from earlier times when Punjab was largely loyal to the British Empire
The shrieks of the victims of the massacre hounded the British Empire for a long-time seething rage which ultimately exploded with the emergence of Revolutionary ‘Nationalism’ and leader like Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh.
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Check your knowledge
1.‘I had made up my mind and I was determined to shoot.’
2.‘There was no question of warning. It was a rebellious crowd that had assaulted a woman and it had to be curbed.’
3.Third, in response to the eminent jurist, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad’s provocative question: ‘When you arrived you were not able to take the armoured cars in because the passage was too narrow?’, Dyer replied: ‘Yes.’ Setalvad continued: ‘Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow these armoured cars to go in, would you have opened fire with the machine guns?’ Dyer answered, ‘I think probably yes’, and repeated ‘with the machine guns’
Soon after World War 1 came to an end, the British government passed and implemented the Rowlatt Act in India. It allowed the government to jail or detain anyone suspected of seditious acts without a trial.
Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, was the driving force behind launching an investigation into the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Montagu was eager for constitutional reforms in India, and he believed that in order for them to be implemented, he needed to unite nationalist public opinion behind him. Montagu first thought of appointing Lord Cave as chairman but decided later in favour of Lord Hunter and the Disorders Inquiry Committee was appointed on 14 October 1919. This committee came to be known as the Hunter Committee.
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