13th April : The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

13th April : The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Images courtesy : Wiki Commons & Alamy Stock photo

Certain incidents from the annals of history, remain infamously etched in the collective memory of nations and one such event for India is the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, perpetrated by the British General, Reginald Dyer. One hundred and one years ago, on this very date, the 13th of April 1919, General Dyer, ordered firing against the innocents. Even today the Jallianwala Bagh, which was one of the worst heinous, unpardonable, dastardly criminal act that left an indelible scar on our nation, continues to evoke emotions of unprecedented proportions. While the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy cannot be reversed, an unconditional apology from the British government, which was long overdue, could have demonstrated their remorse for this dastardly act. But most unfortunately it has not happened. The British Government, true to their tyrannical past, have refused to render an apology, let alone compensate, through reparation, begging atonement for their inexcusable crime. Contrary to their condemnable behaviour, we Indians, true to our culture and  philosophy of ahimsa have moved on and have not even asked for an official apology not to talk of any reparation - the articulations for which was so exemplarily adduced by Shashi Tharoor in a debate - now gone viral - before the August gathering at the Oxford. 

The criminality of the massacre of innocent lives by the British General at the Jallianwala Bagh, can be mirrored to such other equally heinous crimes that were committed at the Auschwitz by the Nazis during the WW II and perhaps to the more recent Tiananmen Square, China, in 1989. The heinous act at Jallianwala had all the trappings of a crime against humanity and should have placed General Dyer in the infamous company of villains of World Wars, but that did not happen, courtesy the apostles of peace - Mahatma Gandhi ji. Although Gandhi ji called Dyer, the chief perpetrator of the Jallianwala Bagh, blood thirsty and warned people against ‘Dyerism’, yet he asked the ‘Jallianwala Bagh Congress Inquiry Committee’ not to prosecute him. Gandhi ji, just like the Lord Jesus Christ, pardoned Dyers unpardonable sin.

More than 300 unarmed civilians, including a large number of women and children, were gunned down indiscriminately by Reginald Dyer’s British army and as per some records, almost 2,000 more were grievously wounded when Dyer, ordered his troops to fire at unarmed protesters in a park. What prompted this peaceful, Gandhian like, protest by the Punjabis, was the backtracking of the promise made by the British to the Indian National Congress and other leaders of the Indian Independence movement, to accord Dominion Status to India, involving some amount of self-governance. In return, the British had sought India’s support in fighting World War I. While Indians, particularly the Punjabis - Sikhs - uncompromisingly supported the British in their War, including payment of millions of pounds in taxes, and providing food grains, arms and ammunition for the British Army to fight the War and so also the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Punjabi men during the war, what they expected post the war was a promise of self rule. But after the War the British reneged on their promise compelling peaceful protests across nations including the one at the Jallianwala Bagh. 

The cruelty and inhuman act of Jallianwala Bagh massacre ensured that Amritsar became India, an India that was outraged, bloodied and the ensuing trauma was so deep as to have altered the very composition of India’s political psyche. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre became a symbol of the tyrannical rule by the British that changed the political history of our country and accentuated the way forward for our focussed and sustained freedom struggle. On the occasion of the 101st anniversary of this dastardly act, an unpardonable tragedy of humongous proportions, it is pertinent to question the British on what authority did they have to impose their so called higher ideas of morality. The 101 years post the Jallianwala Bagh has been a long time in the Indian political history and from being a subservient nation to the colonial masters we have come a long way and several subsequent happenings, including independence, the trauma of partition, self sufficiency in food, achieving an incredible success in the field of IT, education, Space and Atomic research and so also the improvement in the overall socio economic conditions of our citizens, all of these developments have tried to erase the trauma of Jallianwala Bagh. The trauma however has continued to remain in our collective memory albeit this memory is gradually fading  into the sepia of fading memory. 

On the 101st anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh, let Let us all join hands in praying for all those martyrs who sacrificed their life for the freedom of our country and pledge that we remain united as one nation, whose foundations were built on the sacrifice of innumerable martyrs.

Jai Hind.