V.N. Datta - Jallianwala Bagh: A Groundbreaking History of the 1919 Massacre

Vishwa Nath Datta wrote Jallianwala Bagh in 1969. This was a pioneering work on an event that had profound consequences for both the British Empire and Indian nationalism. Datta picked up the subject at a time when historians rarely worked on the context and character of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This work is crucial for two principal reasons. First, it was a groundbreaking work especially in the light of a new argument and the sources that it used. Second, Datta himself was born and brought up in Amritsar and that added an altogether fresh dimension to the subject. Unlike most other professional historians studying the massacre, he knew the city well. His paternal house, in Katra Sher Singh, was 3 kilometres away from Jallianwala Bagh. The sound of the gunshots on that ominous day was heard by his mother and sisters. His mother started beating her breasts, as was the custom in those days in Punjab, fearing that her husband might have been in the Bagh and lost his life. Datta grew up with painful memories of the carnage as narrated to him by his sisters and father. His father, Brahm Nath Datta Qasir, a renowned UrduPersian poet in the city of Amritsar, expressed the mood of the times:

Ab to hai apne sud o ziyan par nazar mujhe

Voh din gaye ke lab pe mere ji huzur thaa

We know now whats good or bad

We are no more yes-men.

Datta crafts the most traumatic event of modern Indian history in an altogether different way. In the Preface, he argues that the Jallianwala Bagh was the consequence of a clash between British policies and Indian opinion. He provides a long history of the massacre, traces the activities of the Ghadr Party, the conditions of the First World War and the infamous Rowlatt Act that shook the Punjab. In this light, Datta explores the causes, nature and the impact of 1919 on the subsequent history of Punjab and the subcontinent. The causes, paradoxically, were a combination of factors. The impact was decisive and led to a new political climate.

This meticulously researched book is unique in the way that it unpeels the layers of the massacre and the hidden truths behind the complex story. Datta appears as a detective historian who is bold enough to raise some unconventional questions and reveal hitherto unexplored evidence to substantiate his argument. He takes a winding route with many intersections and cul-de-sacs in order to investigate the local history of the massacre. He challenges the nationalist frame, moves away from a mere focus on the Punjab province and trains a magnifying lens on the terrible events in the city.

How does Datta disturb the nationalist argument? The nationalist narrative of 1919 is mainly shaped around the anti-Rowlatt satyagraha against the draconian Rowlatt Act. As a result of the agitation and a series of protests, local leaders, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew, Dr Satyapal, Chowdhry Bugga Mal and Mahasha Rattan Chand were arrested in Amritsar on 10 April. Following that there was violence in the city. Five Europeans were killed, banks were looted and post offices burnt. Above all, the attack on Miss Marcella Sherwood (a woman missionary) added fuel to the fire and ignited the white mans rage, and heightened his wounded pride and honour. Datta quotes Bertrand Russell,... the desire to protect ones family from injury at the hands of an alien race is probably the wildest and most passionate feeling of which a man is capable. The people of Punjab, across caste and religious differences, thus became victims of this racially motivated onslaught.

There are many backstories in Dattas gripping narrative. He shows that the events of 10 April 1919 in Amritsar primarily shaped Reginald Dyers brutal action against the innocent crowd on 13 April in Jallianwala Bagh. His theatre of attack was Amritsar. His fury was not just directed against the Punjab and its political leadership. Dyer wanted to teach the people of Amritsar a lesson. The assault on Miss Sherwood provided the principal context for Jallianwala Bagh to happen. That is why for Datta 10 April is a significant date for an alternative understanding of 13 April. The violation of an English woman becomes the event around which imperial and racial violence came to be justified. The story becomes complicated as Datta shows that the city of Amritsar remained quiet on 11 and 12 April. He delinks the massacre from an all-India and provincial context.