The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

 

The centenary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 was in the year 2019. I am writing this blog two years later. Still the importance of the event and its relevance to the free and democratic India are huge. We need to remind ourselves of what we had gone through as a country to get our freedom from the British rule and cherish that freedom whatever be the cost. We need to ingrain such truths in our minds through the generations, may be like the holocaust suffered by the Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II, when around six million Jews were killed or the Armenians Genocide during the First World War at the hands of Ottoman Turks, when 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed and exterminated. What descended on the people of Amritsar in Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919 might not have been so enormous, but it was a significant event that led to the strengthened fight for freedom and finally to the massacre of some two million people during the partition of India, even as we got our independence. It was almost a foretaste of what was to come. V. N. Datta has written a well researched book “Jallianwala Bagh: A ground breaking history of the 1919 massacre” in 1969, which has been edited by his daughter Monica Datta and published this year. The author narrates the events that led to this terrible massacre. A movement called Ghadr founded in San Francisco in 1913 involving Sikh immigrants in USA and Canada, aiming to secure India’s freedom by force was active in Punjab in 1915; there were disturbances, raids, killing of policemen, derailment of trains, etc., in Amritsar, Lahore and Delhi. But Ghadr party was completely put down by the Government of India by the year end.

Meanwhile forced and compulsory army recruitments were made in India to support the war effects of British Empire in the First World War. The main drive was in Punjab, because of their earlier reputation, especially since the 1857 Revolt, that a Punjabi soldier was tough, courageous, had physical strength and showed absolute loyalty to the British Indian government. Punjab contributed to 5,00,000 men of all ranks to serve in the army during the First World War, which was half of the total number raised in India. But the recruiting civil agencies, throughout the period of the war, 1915-1918, applied coercion and compelled such enlistment. Families, men, women and old men were subjected to thorn, bush and bramble tortures to agree to let their youth to be enlisted, and young men were forcibly removed. Indian officials were worse in forcing the recruitment in this fashion. Punjab was exhausted by these measures and there was deep resentment among the local populace. Rioting occurred and police firing was resorted to. Thousands of these men perished in the Great War, fighting for the British Empire in far flung areas. When the war was over on 11 November 1918, the demobilized soldiers returned to their villages mainly in Punjab with no work or employment.

There was a severe famine in 1918 and prices of food grains went sky high and the local population suffered. There were food riots in Calicut, Madras, Mysore, Karnal and Pathankot.  Amidst all these sufferings, the British Indian Government increased tax in 1918 and squeezed people and many became paupers and joined the ranks of the poor. Government of India raised money from the population in this manner and contributed to almost 30 million pounds annually towards war expenses of Britain. For all these sacrifices, India was promised that post-war reforms towards local administration by the people will be brought in.  On 20 August 1917 Montagu, Secretary of State for India and Chelmsford, the Viceroy of India, declared ‘increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions,’ treating India as an integral part of the British Empire. But once the war was over all these promises were forgotten and the leaders and people all over India felt betrayed and were bitter. Moderates and extremists, Hindus, Muslims, all united and demanded for self-government. There was tense political atmosphere in the country.

To control the situation, Government passed controversial laws, the Rowlett Laws in March 1919. Instead of rewards, people of India got these tough sedition laws, where they can have no appeal, and the police was empowered to curtail the liberty of the people, arrest or search without warrants. Country was ripe for action against the government; but G. K. Gokale had died in 1915; Dadabahai Navoroji in 1917; Tilak’s extremism did not work and he had gone to England in 1918; there were no leaders and Gandhi, newly returned from South Africa, stepped into this quagmire. He brought in Satyagraha, the non-violent warfare that he had experimented and succeeded in South Africa. Gandhi called for a hartal, a mass protest against the Rowlett rules on 6 April 1919. It was to be a total shutdown in the country and stoppage of all activities by the people, and they were to observe a fast. Almost the entire country observed hartal on 6 April 1919, a great political achievement for the leaders, and the people. It went on mostly peacefully and orderly. Still it was an open challenge to the Government. Leaders were arrested, Gandhi on 9 April 1919, near Delhi when he was on his way to Punjab to mobilize people there. In Punjab the hartal was observed more widely.

Sir O’Dwyer, ICS officer governed Punjab as Lt. Governor from 1912 on. From 1914 to 1918 he debarred eight newspapers in Punjab from publishing under Press Act. He was highly repressive. In Amritsar, Dr. Kitchlew, a lawyer and Satyapal, ex-Lt. in Indian Medical Service, together had organized many political meetings and a protest march on 10^th April 1919 against Rowlett act. RamNavami fell on 9^th April. People were crowding to celebrate and also to visit the cattle fair held in Amritsar. The Deputy Commissioner of the district Miles Irving was worried that things may go out of hand. In the morning of 10^th he got Kitchlew and Satyapal arrested and deported. A crowd of 50,000 people had gathered for a peaceful protest with no arms. When they learnt their leaders had been arrested, the crowd wanted to go and meet the district administration to lodge their complaints, but the police stopped them. They pushed the police, threw stones at them, and rushed to the offices. The police fired. Many people fell dead (twelve).  The crowd went berserk. They lynched five European officials, burnt the post office, looted a bank, and wounded a white missionary woman and left her for dead (she was immediately sheltered by a Hindu family and lived). These instances shook the administration and the civilian authorities handed over the charge to Col. R.E.H. Dyer, newly posted to as commandant Jalandar, to bring the situation under control.

Dyer took charge on 11 April 1919. Though the city Amritsar was quiet on 11^th and 12^th, Dyer planned to teach a lesson to the natives, who dared to kill five Europeans and molest an English woman. He wanted to leave a moral lesson with not only Amritsar city, but the whole of Punjab and India even, that such a thing will not go unpunished. O’Dwyer moved the Governor General to proclaim Martial Law on 13^th, which was formally proclaimed in Amritsar and Lahore only on 15^th April. Dyer issued his own proclamation that more than four persons should not assemble for any reason. But in defiance some local leaders organized a public meeting on 13^th at Jallianwala Bagh at 4 pm. There was a narrow approach road of entrance into the Bagh which was almost of the shape of an irregular squire. People assembled, not knowing what. Many were lying on the ground, relaxing. Some boys were playing; some were listening to the speeches. May be some 15,000 men and boys were there. This was not the crowd that went berserk on 10^th April. Dyer arrived in a car at the Bagh at 5 pm followed by armoured cars and a police car. He got out, took 25 Gorkhas soldiers with rifles and 25 Baluchis soldiers and entered the Bagh and ordered shooting. He kept the shooting on for a full 10 minutes. He directed the shooting to groups of men who were trying to escape. He fired 1650 rounds of ammunition and some 700 people died. Once it was over he turned around and walked out with his men. He did not allow water or medical aid to be given to the wounded and the dying. It was a terrible carnage and a cruel bloodbath. He was rightly named the Butcher of Amritsar.

Hunter Committee indicted Dyer for having used excessive force on unarmed people without warning. Later he inflicted punishments like crawling on the street where the molested missionary woman worked; confiscation, public flogging and salaaming to humiliate Indians. He was relieved of his duties and retired on 22 March 1920, as unsuitable for public office, with a condition that no further employment will be given to him in India. But he was a hero in the eyes of the British, especially women who hailed him as a savior. He died a few years later in 1927 due to arteriosclerosis and cerebral hemorrhage. In 1940 Udham Singh, an activist from Punjab shot dead O’Dwyer in London, settling scores with a man who presided over the massacre.

This event was a turning point in India’s fight for freedom. Gandhi entered the freedom struggle. Masses were awakened to the brutality of the British and the need for freedom. Freedom movement acquired a national character. The blood of the martyrs shed in Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 had not gone waste. Though it would take another 28 years to win freedom from British rule, the tide had turned. British had lost India in 1919. How do we safeguard such a freedom won by our forefathers at the cost of their lives? We chose democracy and federalism. Are these being strengthened or weakened? We need to think and take appropriate action to ensure the freedom such martyrs won for us remains robust. God bless our country.

The Fall of an Empire

 

I had always been intrigued by the fall of the mighty communist regime, USSR, the only other superpower to counterbalance the capitalist USA and the country on which India had depended heavily in the early years of her independence, copying the model of planned development of economy and for starting many heavy industries like steel. Even today we heavily lean on Russia for the requirements of our defense equipment. How did it suddenly disintegrate into its constituent states, creating tiny small republics that dot central Asia today?

Recently when I happen to get a book by Mikhail Gorbachev, “Perestroika,” my interest in the topic got rekindled and I greedily read it and followed it up by reading “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union,” by Serhii Plokhy. I have shored up “Memoirs” by Gorbachev to round it all up. The drama that unfolded in front of me in these pages was amazing and I thought I must share with you if not the process, the major reasons that led to this fall and disintegration.

To give a background, USSR was formed on 30 December 1922 with 12 smaller autonomous states annexed to Russia. This was preceded by the Russian Revolution of 1917 where Bolshevik party under Vladimir Lenin abolished monarchy and established the communist Socialist State on the ruins of the former Russian Empire. Russian Empire had exited from 1721 to 1917, and in 1917 Bolsheviks pressurised the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to abdicate and later in 1918 assassinated the whole family of five daughters and a boy along with the Tsar and Tsarina in 1918, wiping out traces of monarchical rule from Russia. Lenin’s communist rule developed into a highly centralized country.

Russia, the main nation has a population consisting of 84% of Russians, the people of Rus, who belong to the ethnic group of Slavs. Other Slavic tribes native to Eastern Europe, like Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Poles, Czechs, Moravians are also present in USSR with varying degrees among the Russian population. Ukraine, a big Slavic state has 73% of Ukrainian Slavs and 15% Russians living mainly in Crimea, and south east of Ukraine. You would remember recently in 2014 the present Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea. Belarus is another big Slavic state with 80% of Belarusians. These three Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are important Slavic nations with a minority of others living with them.

Then come the small Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with minority of Russians living with them. In 1940 the Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were militarily occupied and incorporated into USSR based on the 1939 Moltov-Ribbentrop pact, which was basically a non-war pact between Nazi Germany and USSR. But this pact was broken the very next year by Nazi regime who captured these states. USSR recaptured them in 1944.

That leaves another eight republics or states, of which five are Central Asian republics Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan with Muslim majority. All of Central Asia, which was under Persian Empire and conquered by Islamic caliphates in the 9^th century and become Islamized, was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19^th century. By default they were passed on to USSR in the Bolshevik take over in 1922.

The other four republics are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Trans-Caucasian regions were annexed by Soviet in 1922 after the First World War. Soviet created an autonomous region of Nagorna-Karabakh with majority of Armenian population but incorporated it in Azerbaijan, in a divide and rule policy. To add to the problems Armenia, has a majority Christian population and Azerbaijan majority Muslim population. Nagora-Karabakh voted to join Armenia in 1980s which led to a major war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, reverberations of which are heard even today, when in December 2020 this flared up. Georgia was the third Trans-Caucasian area that was annexed by Soviet in 1922. Moldova has a difficult history. It belonged to Romania which ceded it to Russian Empire in 1878 as per a pact. In World War I Romania was able to wrestle back Moldova. But in 1940 USSR took her back and it became a part of USSR in 1947 during World War II.

Though these fifteen states had on paper the right to secede and form independent states, in practice under USSR it was not possible and they were not allowed to. Now that we have seen the background history of all the fifteen republics or states that belonged to USSR, let’s see how and why these blocs separated from USSR and became independent countries. This has been our original quest too.

The main reason for the disintegration of USSR was that the communist economy was faring badly, especially when compared to the economy of the capitalist USA. Those Soviets who visited USA and its supermarkets were amazed to see the overflowing goods on the counters and that too so many different varieties of one particular item, being imported from various corners of the world. This affluence was sadly missing from the life of the Soviet Union. Wanting to bring in that type of prosperity to Soviet was the dream of the Communist leaders, especially Mikhail Gorbachev who was elected the General Secretary of the Political bureau in 1985.

The way forward as designed by Gorbachev was to liberalize the economy and introduce market economy as in the West. Like his ancestor Tsar Peter the Great in 1689s who looked to the Western Europe to reform and modernize Russia, bringing in wearing of Western clothes and trimming of bears, Gorbachev also looked to the West. To restructure the economy, he brought in Perestroika that is, restructuring economy by opening it up and introducing market economy and restructuring the society itself. He introduced elections to the municipalities and states; he liberalized media by his famous policy of Glasnost, that is, openness and removed state control over them. Politically it was a new way of thinking and it brought sudden and swift changes and a break from the controlled life under communism to democracy and the call for independence started. Once he opened up the flood gates of these reforms he could not contain them. Like Robespierre of French Revolution, who encouraged killing of thousands by the killing machine guillotine, becoming a victim of it himself, Gorbachev became the victim of his own reforms.

The fame for having extinguished the life of the Soviet Union would go also go to Yeltsin, the democratically elected President of the nation Russia, who came to power after the failed coup to displace Gorbachev in 1991. With the new found strength of democracy and the people, he gradually and surely ousted the then President and General Secretary Gorbachev from his office, by outlawing Communism in Russia, and abolishing the party posts. In his eagerness to step into the shoes of the party President, and be the boss of all the independent republics of the former Soviet Union, he became autocratic and abusive. Gorbachev had no role to play in the new system and was relegated to not even be a rubber stamp! There was no party post of General Secretary! He was forced to resign on 25^th December 1991. And that was the end of USSR, the mighty superpower of the world.

A crucial role will be played by Ukraine’s President Kravchuk, a major Slavish republic with abundant natural resources. Realizing Yeltsin’s game and not wanting to be under the rule of Russian conglomeration, he quickly declared independence of Ukraine and announced that Ukraine will secede from USSR and be independent. Once this was ratified in his parliament on 1 December 1991, things moved fast. The other Slavic republic Belarus soon followed suit and declared independence. Yeltsin now has to be satisfied only with Russia. He tried to pass orders taking over all the central offices and resources in Moscow. Gorbachev could do nothing to stop him!

With the three Slavic republics, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declaring independence, and forming a Commonwealth, the five central Asian Muslim majority republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan also joined the bandwagon, separating themselves from USSR. The three Baltic republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had already become independent following elections in 1990 and as encouraged by President Bush of USA (the senior Bush) and agreed by Gorbachev they became separate sovereign nations in September 1991. Soviet troops were withdrawn from these countries. Thus by December 1991, almost all the republics of the communist USSR declared independence and walked away with it. The President of USSR was left with nothing and he resigned and handed over whatever he held to Yeltsin who stepped into his shoes, but shorn of 14 republics, loosely wound around Commonwealth. American President was keener on the nuclear weapons’ activating code which was with Gorbachev. This was handed over to Yeltsin, with an assurance that whatever international treaties agreed between Bush and Gorbachev will be honored by Yeltsin.

That the great communist country USSR which stood as the other superpower to counter the power of capitalist country USA disintegrated without violence and bloodshed was a major achievement and the credit would go to Gorbachev. Though he knew that he was losing power and position, he did not try really to unleash the army or KEB on the leaders or the people. After the coup in August 1991, when Gorbachev was confined to his house in Crimea, he lost the game to Yeltsin. The army or KEB would not even listen to him, even if he had wanted them to support him and continue in position. Bush, President of America, though tried to keep him in power as long as possible and wanted Yeltsin to offer an honorable and respectful retirement to Gorbachev, when the game was over, he sided the new powerful Yeltsin and even prided announcing that he had won the cold war and overcome the Soviet competition.

Gorbachev would not have dreamt that his own policies of perestroika and glasnost, restructuring and openness, would dismantle USSR and also evict him from the position of power. His actions were crucial in ending the cold war in the world after the Second World War and bringing down the terror of igniting a nuclear war. He had served his calling and had to quit, almost like the British public who voted out Churchill, the war time hero, who was instrumental in winning the Second World War for England as the Prime Minister.

So are the Empires on earth; they come and go; they are all built on bloodshed and death of thousands of innocent people. Doesn’t that create a desire in our hearts to look for an everlasting kingdom, Kingdom of God, which will not only last forever but will be ruled in righteousness and justice? Let His kingdom come. Amen.