Jallianwala
Bagh Massacre: 100th Anniversary of British Massacre of Unarmed
Innocent Indians on April 13, 1919
Sachi
G. Dastidar
April
13, 2019
The Memorial
Recently to pay homage to
the massacred Indian martyrs of India’s freedom struggle I visited Jallianwala
Bagh memorial garden in the heart of the City of Amritsar in northern Punjab
State of India. (Our first visit was in 2008 when we arrived in Amritsar
crossing the desolate India-Pakistan Wagha border after attending the 150th
Anniversary of the First War of Independence Conference at Peshawar University
of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.) The massacre was committed by
the repressive Colonial British Army led by a British officer. Most Indian
history books today in new, post-colonial independent India rarely discusses
British atrocities – from the massacres of 1857-1958 First War of Independence
also called Shepoy Mutiny by the colonial rulers to massacres of freedom fighters
throughout 1900s to 1943 killings of millions in the British-made Bengal Famine to 1946 Noakhali
Pogrom Killing to 1947 British Partition of India and subsequent mass killings.
However, the Jallianwala mass killing was brought to limelight by the British
Director Attenborough in his 1982 Oscar-winning movie Gandhi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LaoamJ3vbs).
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre caused soul searching among Indians, but not in
the repressive British colonial circle. Killer of hundreds of unarmed Indian men,
women and children, the British army general, didn’t get any prison time. Murdered
victims numbering over a thousand didn’t get any compensation from the colonial
rulers! That year the first non-European Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore,
returned his knighthood to the British Monarch King George V in protest against
the massacre.
Today the park is saved
as one of India’s national monuments receiving tens of thousands of visitors.
My first visit had a somber atmosphere, while during the latest trip visitors to
the park were in joyous mood for celebration as if the martyrs have been reborn
in their pious land.
Today, April 13, 2019 is the 100th Anniversary. Today we remember those martyrs once again.
A Memorial at the Entrance
The Narrow Gali (lane) Through which Killer General couldn't take his Armored Vehicle
Memorial Garden
To Escape Bullets many Jumped into the Well
Crowd at the Martyr's Memorial
Here are two recent
articles that appeared in the daily newspapers in India and Bangladesh.
Statesman April 9, 2019
100 years of
Jallianwala Bagh massacre: Epic TV airs special show
First part of the show commissioned by the Punjab government was
aired on 6 April, concluding part will be telecast on 13 April
SNS Web | New Delhi | April 9, 2019 1:43
pm
Hundreds of people
were killed at Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April, 1919, the Baisakhi day. (Photo:
Epic Channel)
On 13 April, 1919, Punjab was celebrating the
main Sikh festival of Baisakhi. At Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, people had
gathered for a Baisakhi mela and to stage a peaceful protest against the
British rule. On hearing about the crowd, General Reginald Dyer reached
the place and ordered his force to open fire on the unarmed people,
scripting one of the bloodiest stories in the history of India’s struggle for
Independence. With the relentless, unprovoked firing blocking their only exit
from the park, hundreds of people lost their lives trapped in the enclosed
area. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre went on to become a symbol of
colonialism and the atrocities suffered by India during the British
rule. As the incident completes 100 years this year, Epic TV is
airing a special show, ‘Jallianwala Bagh – Punjab Ka Dil’, commemorating the
martyrs.
Commissioned by the Government of
Punjab, the EPIC Original show is a tribute to all those people who
were killed in cold blood. The first of the two-part project was aired on
6 April at 7 pm with a repeat telecast on 7 April at 10:30 am. The
concluding part will be telecast on 13 April at 7 pm and repeated on 14 April
at 10:30 am.
Entrusted by the Department of Information and
Public Relations (DIPR) of the Punjab government, the Epic Channel says the
feature on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre “examines the events leading up to the
incident and analyses the far-reaching impact of its fall-out; that spurred the
clarion call of Poorna Swaraj — complete independence”.
“Through interviews with renowned scholars,
rare archival footage, meetings with descendants of the martyrs, along with an
exploration of those who visit the hallowed ground to pay homage, the hour long
narrative explores the various facets that make the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy an
extremely significant event in India’s history,” the channel said in a
statement.
Akul Tripathi, Head – Content and Programming,
Epic Channel, added: “We are honoured and proud to be the vessel of choice, to
tell the story of such an important moment in India’s history. The feature is
homage to generations of martyrs and freedom fighters from the brave land of
the Punjab. The Jallianwala Bagh incident and its sacrifices must not be
forgotten, today and by generations to come.”
Jallianwala Bagh – Punjab Ka Dil will also be
available on EPIC On, which is the channel’s video streaming service, in Hindi,
English, and Punjabi.
Daily Observer, Dhaka, April 13, 2019
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General Reginald Dyer’s troops fired for 10
minutes and only stopped because they had run out of ammunition.’ The Amritsar
massacre, 13 April 1919. Photograph: Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock
Photo
Britain’s high
commissioner to India laid a wreath on Saturday on the 100th anniversary of
the Amritsar massacre, one of the worst atrocities of colonial rule for which
London is still to apologise.
The Jallianwala Bagh
massacre, as it is known in India, saw British troops fire on thousands of
unarmed men, women and children in the northern city of Amritsar on the
afternoon of April 13, 1919, AFP reports.
The number of
casualties from the event, which galvanised support for independence, is
unclear. Colonial-era records put the death toll at 379, but Indian figures
put the number closer to 1,000.
Even 100 years on,
Britain has still made no official apology and Dominic Asquith, high
commissioner, on Saturday followed suit at the Jallianwala Bagh walled garden
where bullet marks are still visible.
“You might want to
re-write history, as the Queen said, but you can’t,” Asquith said.
“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.”
In the memorial’s
guest book Asquith, a descendant of Herbert Asquith, prime minister from
1908-16, called the events “shameful”.
“We deeply regret
what happened and the suffering caused,” he wrote.
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in a tweet called the tragedy “horrific” and that the memory of
those killed “inspires us to work even harder to build an India they would be
proud of.”
Opposition leader
Rahul Gandhi was present in Amritsar and on Twitter called the massacre “a
day of infamy that stunned the entire world and changed the course of the
Indian freedom struggle.”
In a visit in 2013
then British prime minister David Cameron described what happened as “deeply
shameful” but stopped short of an apology.
In 1997, Queen
Elizabeth II laid a wreath at the site but her gaffe-prone husband Prince
Philip stole the headlines by reportedly saying that Indian estimates for the
death count were “vastly exaggerated”.
On Wednesday,
British Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that the
massacre was “a shameful scar on British Indian history”.
“We deeply regret
what happened and the suffering caused,” May said, but she, too, avoided
saying she was sorry.
Amarinder Singh,
chief minister of Punjab state, said May’s words were not enough.
He said “an
unequivocal official apology” is needed for the “monumental barbarity”.
Singh said thousands
attended a candlelight march Friday in memory of the victims ahead of a
commemoration ceremony later on Saturday.
High walls
Around 10,000 unarmed men, women and children had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh walled public garden in Amritsar on April 13, 1919.
Many were angry
about the recent extension of repressive measures and the arrest of two local
leaders that had sparked violent protests three days before.
The 13th of April
was also a big spring festival, and the crowd —estimated by some at 20,000 —
included pilgrims visiting the nearby Golden Temple sacred to Sikhs.
Brigadier General
Reginald Edward Harry Dyer arrived with dozens of troops, sealed off the exit
and without warning ordered the soldiers to open fire.
Many tried to escape
by scaling the high walls surrounding the area. Others jumped into a deep,
open well at the site as the troops fired.
One of several
eyewitness accounts compiled by two historians and published in the Indian
Express newspaper this week described the horror.
“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,”
said Ratan Devi, whose husband was killed.
‘Monstrous’
Dyer, dubbed “The Butcher of Amritsar”, said later the firing was “not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience”.
Indian newspapers
this week repeated their calls for an apology for a massacre that Winston
Churchill, then secretary of state for war, called “monstrous”.
“But even in the
centenary year of the massacre, Britain has refused to… take that important
step,” the Hindustan Times said in an editorial. May’s statement was “perhaps
qualitatively a notch stronger… but is far from enough.”
GY
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