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.