Desai - Jallianwala Bagh, 1919: the real story

First published by Context, an imprint of Westland Publications Private Limited in 2018

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Copyright Kishwar Desai, 2018

ISBN: 9789387578746

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For my grandmother, Leelavati Lily Khanna, a young girl in April 1919, who lived at Dhab Khatikan, just a few lanes away from Jallianwala Bagh, close enough to hear the bullets being fired and the cries of the wounded and dying.

For all those, including my own relations, who were present at the Bagh when General Dyer launched his murderous attack...and for the silence they were forced to maintain during that reign of terror.

Contents

Ragon mein daudtey phirney key hum nahin qayal

Jab ankh hi se na tapka to phir lahu kya hai

This blood is not meant to just run meaninglessly through our veins

If it does not drip from the eyes, what kind of blood is it?

Ghalib

Benevolent Imperialism is like a caged lion. However, you may play with it so long as it is caged or under the spell of a master-tamer; the moment it gets out of control it is bound to behave in conformity with its real nature. The atrocities perpetuated at Amritsar have proved that Imperialism run mad is more dangerous, more vindictive, more inhuman, than a frenzied uncontrollable mob.

Lala Lajpat Rai, 5 June 1920

Justice Rankin, cross-examining General Dyer about his shooting an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh: You thought it necessary to take action on the analogy of a state of war?

Dyer: Quite so. I looked upon these people who had rebelled as enemies of the Crown.

Sir C.L. Setalvad, cross-examining Dyer: Did it occur to you that you were really doing great disservice by driving discontent?

Dyer: No. I thought it was my duty to do it... and any man, any reasonable being with a sense of justice, would see that I was doing a merciful act, and that they ought to be thankful to me for doing it.

Setalvad: But did this aspect (that the killings would make the people more rebellious and discontented) of the matter strike you?

Dyer: Never. I thought it would do a jolly lot of good to the people.

(Extracts from the Hunter Committee Report on the Punjab Disorders. Evidence recorded on 19 November 1919, Lahore.)

One hundred years later, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre remains the most heartbreaking episode in the history of the Indian freedom struggle. Brigadier General Dyer deliberately murdered more than one thousand fellow British subjectsall Indians, including little childrenand called it a merciful act.

Not only did Dyer think the cold-blooded murders would do a jolly lot of good to the people, he even had widespread support among the British. Instead of condemning him, most of his compatriots commended him for saving the Empire as the massacre was thought essential to prevent another 1857-type mutiny. Prior to the killings at Jallianwala Bagh, there had been signs of increasing unrest in Punjab. These signs were being interpreted as sedition, even though the causes of the unrest were varied. Indeed, it is impossible to understand what happened on 13 April 1919, without an examination of the barbarism unleashed in Punjab under the regime of the then Lieutenant Governor Sir Michael ODwyer, to suppress the so-called rebellion. The rebellion in retrospect was nothing more than the first signs of colonised people demanding equal rights. But it was constantly argued that Indians were incapable of self-rule and needed the British to govern them.

The scale of oppression in Punjab, and especially Amritsar, just before and after the Jallianwala Bagh killings was extreme. A deeply racist regime was in operation, no matter what kind of garb was put upon it, or the kind of defence made for it.

The murder of more than a thousand innocents at Jallianwala Bagh was not an isolated event. This was not the knee-jerk reaction of a deranged General. Dyer fired for ten minutes upon a peaceful crowd gathered to protest the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919 (usually referred to simply as the Rowlatt Act) and continued to fire upon them even as they tried to escape. This incident was squarely a part of a systemic failure of governance during which people were exploited and mistreated. When they, tormented beyond endurance, reacted occasionally with violence, they were sadistically suppressed, their rights snatched away by the Raj.

One wonders why the true events in the Punjab of that time have been given so little prominence in popular historical literature and cinema. The commonly held narrative runs as follows: people gathered at the Bagh on 13 April 1919 for an anti-Rowlatt Act meeting; many amongst them were outsiders who had come to Amritsar for the Baisakhi festival. Dyer decided they had broken the law, gathered his troops and fired upon them. Hundreds died during the firing, and many jumped into a well at the Bagh while trying to escape the bullets. The dead included women and children.

This basic narrative is correct but there are some fallacies. To begin with, the meeting was attended mainly by residents of Amritsar. Due to the restrictions prevalent at the time, it would have been difficult for large numbers of outsiders to enter the old walled city. Even at the time, it was estimated that no more than 25 per cent were from outside. No one jumped into the wellthey fell in by accident while fleeing the shooting, as it did not have a rim around it. And it is very likely that the massacre was a carefully planned one, not spontaneous as has often been made out. In all likelihood, no women were present.

What I have tried to do in this book is to piece together what actually happened on 13 April 1919 as well as before and after, using mostly the words of the survivors and recorded statements describing those terrifying events. Also, as far as possible, I have used Indian sources and viewpoints because for far too long (with a few exceptions), this narrative has been told by Western historians.

This book is a homage to the people of Punjab who, one hundred years ago, were humiliated, tortured and killed under the pretext of martial law. The period ranged from two months in some districts to over four months in others.

During this reign of terror, people were whipped, bombed, incarcerated, forced to crawl, starved, beaten, cagedand even summarily executed. However, the combined atrocities led to a turning point in the freedom struggle; it brought all the anti-British forces together for the first time. Not only were Hindus and Muslims seen together, joining hands against the British, the impact of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre spread through Punjabfrom Amritsar to Lahore to Gujranwalaand to other places across India.

The events before the massacre also demonstrate the emerging importance of Punjab in the freedom struggle. These were still early years and there was no collective effort against the British. In terms of political leadership, this narrative is dominated by a few leaders working in their individual capacities and not as leaders of the Congress Party, which was the dominant party at the time. It was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, then not yet a member of the Congress Party, who was responsible for organising the people by deploying the tool of protest he termed satyagraha, against the Rowlatt Act. The massacre on 19 April was part of a policy of oppression unleashed by ODwyer against the frequent hartals or the Satyagraha Movement.