JALLIANWALA Bagh in Amritsar, a city located just 15 miles on the other side of the Indo-Pakistan border, was the scene of a brutal colonial suppression of the 1919 uprising in Punjab. On April 13, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer’s British and Gurkha troops opened fire from a point-blank range on an unarmed assembly of the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs that had gathered in protest against the extraordinary powers which the colonial government of the time had bestowed on itself under the Rowlatt Act. Under these powers the government could silence the press, detain political activists without trial and arrest any suspect without a warrant.
In the spring of 1919, Punjab was engulfed in national uprisings. The World War I had just ended only recently and native troops (1.2 million by one record) were returning from the trenches of France, from the stalemate at Gallipolis, from Mesopotamia and other war theatres. They were being demobilized into civilian life. On return to their country they did not find their native land any richer or freer than when they had left its shores to fight the mercenary battles for their rulers. The country was not any closer to even a semblance of self-rule. The events of the fall of the Czarist rule in Russia through peoples’ uprising had kindled a sort of revolutionary fire among many young minds whose own indigenous revolution of only recent past in the form of the Ghadar Movement (1913-16) had failed.
British rulers had adopted a ‘carrot and stick’ approach in recognition of the Indian support during the World War I. The Government of India Act of 1919 granted an increasing association of the locals in non-sensitive branches of the administration and held out a promise of gradual self-rule in progressive realization of a responsible government in India. The act brought about a dual mode of administration to be shared by the natives and the state nominees. A number of portfolios were handed over to the locals at central and provincial levels. But the administrative reforms were set back by the coming into force of the Rowlatt Act — actually a black act in the eyes of the local populace. The act came into force in March 1919.
The economic conditions of the common man had also worsened in those times. In Punjab, exorbitant prices of wheat, rice, barley and salt, fuelled great discontent that took the form of anti-Rowlatt Act agitations and protests. By April 6, 1919, the agitations were at their peak. That day practically the whole of Lahore was on the streets. An unarmed crowd of estimated 20,000 passed through Anarkali, a major commercial area of the city. In Amritsar 5,000 people gathered in protest. In Lahore again 4,000 railway employees also went on strike. On April 10 another crowd gathered in Amritsar at the Carriage Bridge that was fired upon by the local militia complying with the orders of Miles Irving, the Deputy Commissioner. The angry crowds turned on British officials. Four British residents were killed and two, including a nun, Marcella Sherwood, were injured.
The Raj struck back with its imperial ferocity on April 11. British platoons under Brig-General Reginald Dyer arrived from Jallunder Cantt. The city was placed under military occupation. April 13 was the Baisakhi Day, which is an important date in the Hindu and Sikh religious calendars. The troops marched through the city as a show of strength. The city administration announced the prohibition of assemblies that would be dispersed by force if things came to that pass. However, the city was in a ferocious mood. By the afternoon, people started gathering at the Jallianwala Bagh — an enclosed park with one entrance only. Among the gathering, a large number were daily workers and artisans from the countryside and many visitors from adjoining villages who had come to the city for the Baisakhi celebrations. It was an unarmed rally against the Rowlatt Act. When the speakers were addressing the gathering, an aircraft was hovering overhead. After five speakers had addressed the crowd, Dyer arrived at the Bagh with two British officers. They had under them 50 native and British riflemen and 50 Gurkha soldiers and two armoured cars. A few minutes before the sunset and without firing any warning shots in the air or without prior effort to disperse the crowds gathered there, fire was opened from point-blank range at the assemblage. Some 1,650 rounds were fired. Bodies were falling all round. The crowd panicked and some jumped into a well to be crushed by those jumping after them. The entrance of the Bagh having been blocked by the armoured vehicles impeded the exit.
The wounded cried for help. But there was no medical aid at hand. In a later inquiry, Dyer stated that he fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed. “I consider it to be the least amount of firing which would have produced necessary widespread effect. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd but one of producing sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only at those present but more specifically throughout Punjab,” stated Dyer.
To this day no one knows how many died as a result of the unprovoked firing at the Jallianwala crowd. The Punjab government asserted that 291 people had died. This number later was raised to 379 by the deputy commissioner. But a list of 500 verified deaths was produced by a welfare organization. The number of the wounded was 1,137. The figure might have been higher. The Jallianwala Bagh tragedy was an episode which dispelled wartime hopes for a quick political change in the country. But the massacre at Jallianwala became a major catalyst for independence movements to come.
