The day is remembered as the atrocious day of Indian history on which the brutal massacre happened in Jallianwala Bagh of the holy land of Guru Nanak, Amritsar. Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919 was the most inhuman act of the British rulers in India.
The massacre took place on Baisakhi which is considered New Year day of Sikhs and also a harvest festival. The people of Punjab gathered on the auspicious day of Baisakhi at Jalianwala Bagh, near Golden Temple at Amritsar, to lodge their protest peacefully against harassment by the British Indian Government.
General Dyer suddenly appeared with an army of 90 British Indian Army soldiers and ordered to fire on all the people including women and children.
There was hustle and bustle all around. Hundreds of people were killed not only by firing but a huge number of deaths happened by stampedes at the gates and felling into the well in the compound in an attempt to rescue and look for shelter from the firing.
Thousands were injured. General Dyer later admitted that he had gone to the Bagh with the premeditated intention of opening fire if he found a horde assembled there in front of Hunter commission.
History of Jallianwala Bagh Day
The 1919 Amritsar massacre, known alternatively as the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in the northern Indian city
of Amritsar, was ordered by General R.E.H. Dyer. On Sunday April 13,
1919, which happened to be ‘Baisakhi’, one of Punjab’s largest religious
festivals, fifty British Indian Army soldiers, commanded by
Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, began shooting at an unarmed gathering
of men, women, and children without warning. Dyer marched his fifty
riflemen to a raised bank and ordered them to kneel and fire. Dyer
ordered soldiers to reload their rifles several times and they were
ordered to shoot to kill. Official British Raj sources estimated the
fatalities at 379, and with 1,100 wounded. Civil Surgeon Dr Williams
DeeMeddy indicated that there were 1,526 casualties. However, the
casualty number quoted by the Indian National Congress was more than
1,500, with roughly 1,000 killed.
On April 13, the holiday of
Baisakhi, thousands of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims gathered in the
Jallianwala Bagh (garden) near the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar. Baisakhi
is a Sikh festival, commemorating the day that Guru Gobind Singh
founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699, and also known as the ‘Birth of
Khalsa.’ During this time people celebrate by congregating in religious
and community fairs, and there may have been a large number who were
unaware of the political meeting.
The Jallianwalla Bagh during 1919, months after the massacre.
“The Martyrs’ Well” at Jallianwala Bagh.
Cartoon
in Punch 14 July 1920, on the occasion of Montagu labelling as
“frightful” General Dyer for his role in the Amritsar massacreAn hour
after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30 pm, Brigadier-General
Reginald Dyer marched a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five
Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh, fifty of whom were armed with rifles.
Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns, however
the vehicles were stationed outside the main gate as they were unable
to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance.
The Jallianwala
Bagh was bounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow
entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. The main
entrance was relatively wider, but was guarded by the troops backed by
the armoured vehicles. General Dyer ordered troops to begin shooting
without warning or any order to disperse, and to direct shooting towards
the densest sections of the crowd. He continued the shooting,
approximately 1,650 rounds in all, until ammunition was almost
exhausted.
Apart from the many deaths directly from the shooting,
a number of people died in stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping
into the solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. A plaque
in the monument at the site, set up after independence, says that 120
bodies were pulled out of the well.
The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared – many more died during the night.
The
number of deaths caused by the shooting is disputed. While the official
figure given by the British inquiry into the massacre is 379 deaths,
the method used by the inquiry has been subject to criticism.[by whom?]
Officials were tasked with finding who had been killed during July 1919,
three months after the massacre, by inviting inhabitants of the city to
volunteer information about those who had died. This information was
likely incomplete due to fear that those who participated would be
identified as having been present at the meeting, and some of the dead
may not have had close relations in the area. Additionally, a senior
civil servant in the Punjab interviewed by the members of the committee
admitted that the actual figure could be higher.
Since the
official figures were likely flawed considering the size of the crowd
(15,000-20,000), number of rounds shot and period of shooting, the
politically interested Indian National Congress instituted a separate
inquiry of its own, with conclusions that differed considerably from the
Government’s. The casualty number quoted by the INC was more than
1,500, with approximately 1,000 killed.] Despite the Government’s best
efforts to suppress information of the massacre, news spread elsewhere
in India and widespread outrage ensued; however, the details of the
massacre did not become known in Britain until December 1919.
As
per regimental diaries kept by the Gorkha Battalion adjutants in the
British Indian Army, the plan to attack the gathering in Amritsar was
claimed to have been triggered by the news of a mob attack on a British
school teacher Sherwood on April 9, which was later shown to be merely
an excuse used by an incensed Dyer who commanded a brigade in nearby
Jalandhar and the Lt Governor of Punjab Michael O’Dwyer who were
convinced that they faced an imminent threat of mutiny in Punjab on the
scale of 1857.
Back in his headquarters, General Dyer reported to his superiors that he had been “confronted by a revolutionary army”.
In
a telegram sent to Dyer, British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Sir
Michael O’Dwyer wrote: “Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor
approves.”
O’Dwyer requested that martial law be imposed upon
Amritsar and other areas; this was granted by the Viceroy, Lord
Chelmsford, after the massacre. The “crawling order” was posted on Aug
19 under the auspices of martial law.
Dyer was messaged to appear
before the Hunter Commission, a commission of inquiry into the massacre
that was ordered to convene by Secretary of State for India, Edwin
Montagu, during late 1919. Dyer said before the commission that he came
to know about the meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh at 12:40 hours that
day but did not attempt to prevent it. He stated that he had gone to the
Bagh with the deliberate intention of opening fire if he found a crowd
assembled there.
“I think it quite possible that I could have
dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again
and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself.” —
Dyer’s response to the Hunter Commission Enquiry.
Dyer said he would
have used his machine guns if he could have got them into the
enclosure, but these were mounted on armoured cars. He said he did not
stop the shooting when the crowd began to disperse because he thought it
was his duty to keep shooting until the crowd dispersed, and that a
little shooting would not do any good. In fact he continued the shooting
till the ammunition was almost exhausted.
He stated that he did
not make any effort to tend to the wounded after the shooting:
“Certainly not. It was not my job. Hospitals were open and they could
have gone there.”
The Hunter Commission did not award any penal
nor disciplinary action because Dyer’s actions were condoned by various
superiors (later upheld by the Army Council). However, he was finally
found guilty of a mistaken notion of duty and relieved of his command.
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