The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre: 100 Years On
I originally wrote this in May 2019. Re-publishing on Medium.
Last April, to commemorate the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre — otherwise known as the Amritsar massacre — hundreds of people holding candles and the national flag marched through the northern Indian city of Amritsar, ahead of a commemoration ceremony. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, there was relatively little attention given to mark the anniversary here in the UK. My grandfather was from Amritsar, and taking an interest in the history of my ancestors, I have been able to discover, on my own accord, the brutality which occurred in 1919. However, much of the British population is still largely unfamiliar with the events of the massacre, despite it arising at the hands of the British.
On 13 April 1919, around 10,000 unarmed men, women and children had gathered at an enclosure called the Jallianwala Bagh (garden), supposedly for various reasons:
- some attended for the celebration of the Sikh new year, Baisakhi,
- some were pilgrims visiting the nearby Golden Temple,
- whilst there were others there in protest of the repressive measures of the Rowlatt Acts and the arrest of two local leaders that had sparked violent protests three days before.
It was the latter which primarily incited the attack on thousands of people. The Rowlatt Act permitted arrest and imprisonment without trial or evidence. The arrest of the Indian nationalist leaders in Amritsar initially sparked tensions. Despite Gandhi calling for non-violent resistance, a number of riots arose, and several Europeans were killed. A poster on the clock tower next to the Golden Temple called on the people to be prepared to ‘die and kill’. An English female missionary was assaulted and left to die, and a number of banks and public buildings were looted. As a consequence, Brigadier General Reginald Dyer banned all public meetings which he claimed would be dispersed by force if necessary. Unfortunately for those who had gone to the Bagh without political meaning and simply to celebrate Baisakhi, Dyers ban had not been made widely known. As a result, Dyer perceived this large gathering as a deliberate attempt to disobey his orders. He showed no mercy.
Without any warning, Dyer commanded his British and Indian troops to open fire at the crowd, lasting a horrific 10 minutes, until 1,650 rounds had been shot and the ammunition had run out. Becoming later known as “The Butcher of Amritsar”, Dyer claimed that he had not fired “to disperse the meeting, but to punish the Indians for disobedience.”
Moreover, Dyer issued instructions that all Indians passing the street where the female missionary was attacked, were to crawl along it on their hands and knees. These pitiless commands were praised by the governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, and there were others who thought that Dyer had acted effectively to prevent another Indian Mutiny. The Hunter Commission, a commission of inquiry into the massacre headed by solicitor-general Lord William Hunter had Dyer admitting that he had gone to Jallianwala Bagh with the deliberate intention of opening fire if he found a crowd assembled there, even if they might not have heard of the ban on public meetings. He further stated that he would have used machine guns if he could manage them into the enclosure, and admitted that he did not make an effort to tend to the wounded after the shooting.
The Indian Committee described Dyer’s conduct as “inhumane and un-British and having caused great disservice to British rule in India.” Speaking in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill condemned the massacre by Dyer as “a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.” However, many suppose that blaming the events that occurred on one man undermines the idea that it was the colonial system that was at fault. The British empire had institutionalised racism and discrimination towards the ‘inferior’ races and stripped its colonies of their wealth and culture. Dyer acted accordingly with the racial hierarchy that had been implemented for centuries.
In some respects, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre marked the beginning of the downfall of the British Empire and strengthened the Indian independence movement. As India’s former High Commissioner to the UK, Navtej Sarna, states: “There are events in the histories of nations which are difficult to forget, and they hold a very emotionally charged space in a nation’s memory.”
Remembering the victims
The number of lives lost at Jallianwala Bagh has long been a matter of debate. Official British Raj sources estimated the fatalities at 379 and 1,100 wounded, whilst the Indian National Congress quoted the number of casualties to be more than 1,000 killed and over 1,500 wounded. Apart from the people killed and injured by the bullets, 120 bodies that had tried to escape the gunfire were allegedly pulled out from a well after the massacre ended. A new, definitive count by Amritsar’s Partition Museum has named 501 victims, plus an indeterminate number whose names may never be known.
Ratan Devi, an eyewitness whose husband was killed in the massacre, described the horrors:
“Heaps of dead bodies lay there, some on their backs and some with their faces upturned. A number of them were poor innocent children. I shall never forget the sight.”
Following the recent 100-year anniversary marking the Amritsar Massacre, historians Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh have released a new book, Eyewitness at Amritsar — A Visual History of 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, which holds 40 testimonies of witnesses of the massacre and the preceding riots in Amritsar. It also contains 80 photographs that are being published for the first time.
Taking one example, the book contains an account by Dr Mani Ram, as he recalled the death of his 13-year-old son, Madan Mohan. He notes that Jallianwala Bagh was a three-minute walk from his house, and his son Madan used to visit the open area almost daily to play with his friends. On 13 April, he went there as usual but met with a tragic end. His skull was fractured after being shot in the head. He died instantly. Ram searched for about half an hour until he found his son’s corpse, as “it was mixed up with hundreds of dead bodies lying in heaps.”
The statements in the book were recorded after the incident but the witnesses have now deceased. These recordings were sourced from the Hunter Commission, the Indian National Congress Commission and from private collections of the British and Indian families who lived in Amritsar. The authors have said that the book has been written for posterity, as neither the British, nor the Indian governments can provide an accurate figure of the dead and the wounded that day.
In 1951, the Government of India established the Jallianwala Bagh memorial to commemorate the 1919 massacre of peaceful protestors. An obelisk dominates the view, and tourists walk the hedge-lined path among ornate flower beds and figures of riflemen, shading under the large red stone structures. The original brickwork still shows bullet holes. These are now highlighted by white boxes as, over time, they have become indistinguishable.
The significance of memorials has somewhat been disputed. Whilst they serve as a remembrance of past events, they have the potential to lose value if the history is not recalled. For many ignorant of the events that took place there, Jallianwala Bagh has become a tourist spot where, as one tour guide states, “they come to take selfies.” Still, efforts were made on the centenary to rekindle knowledge of the massacre.
Also, a commemorative coin of Rs 100 and a postage stamp was released at the memorial by the Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. It is evident now that the Indian government is implementing strategies to keep history alive.
Still awaiting a formal apology
In her poem “British values”, spoken word artist Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan — otherwise known as @thebrownhijabi on Instagram — struck me with one particular line:
“It’s funny that over apologising is seen as a national trait, because a lot of history is still waiting.”
This applies to the case of the Amritsar Massacre, which until now, has still not received a formal apology by British officials. Melissa Nobles, author of The Politics of Official Apologies, notes that as a society, “we value the acknowledgment of wrongdoing and expressions of remorse.” However, some historians believe that an apology will allow the event to be forgotten.
There was some speculation that an apology would be made on the centenary marking the massacre, after a debate was held in the House of Commons in February, called by Conservative Party MP Bob Blackman. Blackman said he hoped to see an apology by the British government, whilst Foreign Office Junior Minister, Mark Field, said he was reluctant to apologise for something that had happened in the past. More than 20 MPs from across the party supported the need for an apology. Amarinder Singh, chief minister of Punjab state, said “an unequivocal official apology” is needed for the “monumental barbarity”. However, Prime Minister Theresa May described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a “shameful scar” on British Indian history, stopping short of a formal apology.
Upon visiting the site of the massacre in 1997, Queen Elizabeth II laid a wreath in remembrance of the lives that were lost there. However, the gesture was undermined by Prince Philip who stole the headlines for reportedly saying that Indian estimates for the death count were “vastly exaggerated”. Furthermore, on a visit in 2013, then British Prime Minister David Cameron described what happened as “deeply shameful” but also stopped short of an apology.
On the day of the anniversary, posts on social media were being added to tell the events which took place at the Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. Social media is now a powerful source of information which can, if used appropriately, relieve us of our ignorance in such matters. In the comments, a number of people wrote that they were apologetic on behalf of the British government. Whilst this helps build relations, it is not an official apology which has been demanded over the last 100 years. Kishwar Desai, chair of the Partition Museum, argues:
“Instead of shying away from it, they should make clear that this is not the same Britain as it was 100 years ago. There is a deep, festering wound here. It is worth putting some closure on it.”
Nonetheless, some believe that apologies from current government officials are pointless, as the brutal acts were carried out long before they were born. Now, to prove there may be any sense of remorse, there is more push for colonial studies to be added to the GCSE history syllabus. The empire was arguably the most important thing the British ever did, completely changing the shape of the modern world. Visiting the site of the massacre last month, British High Commissioner of India Dominic Asquith said:
“You might want to re-write history, but you can’t … what you can do, as the Queen said, is to learn the lessons of history. I believe strongly we are. There is no question that we will always remember this. We will never forget what happened here.”
By getting an insight of the goods and the evils of the British empire, it can be ensured that the past does not repeat itself. Yet, to make sure this part of history is not left forgotten, more needs to be done to teach the next generation of Britain’s colonial mistakes.
Sources
https://blog.banknotestreet.com/rs-100-coin-was-released-on-100-years-of-jallianwala-bagh-massacre/
https://www.futurity.org/memorials-history-1289512-2/
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/amritsar-massacre
https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/amritsar-reviewing-massacre
https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/jallianwala-bagh-the-night-of-the-dead-5656366/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/23/apologising-amritsar-teach-british-empire
Nobles, Melissa, The Politics of Official Apologies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
