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Why April 13?
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, alternatively known as the Amritsar Massacre, was named after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in the northern Indian city of Amritsar where, on April 13, 1919, while doing a peaceful demonstration on occasion of Punjabi New Year, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children.
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The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, alternatively known as the Amritsar Massacre, was named after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in the northern Indian city of Amritsar where, on April 13, 1919, while doing a peaceful demonstration on occasion of Punjabi New Year, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. The firing lasted about 10 minutes and 1650 rounds were fired, or 33 rounds per soldier. Official British Raj sources placed the fatalities at 379. According to private sources there were over 1000 deaths, with more than 2000 wounded,[1] and Civil Surgeon Dr. Smith indicated that there were 1,526 casualties.
About the Massacre
The Amritsar Massacre, the murder of 379 unarmed people by British troops, occurred on the Sikh religious festival of Baisakhi in April, 1919. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer opened fire on a peaceful gathering of men, women, and children within walking distance of the Golden Temple, the most important site in the Sikh religion. Thousands of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims were seriously wounded, in addition to those killed. Dyer had a history of sadistic behavior, which was strongly endorsed and supported by the British government in its attempt to quash the Sikh resistance to colonization, which had become increasingly problematic for the British administration. To this day, arrogance prevents the British government from officially apologizing for the blatant murders of unarmed, peaceful religious pilgrims.
By the end of World War I, the British had successfully pacified the entire Indian subcontinent except for the states of Bengal and Punjab. Punjab, the center of Sikh power, had proven extremely difficult for the British to conquer and remained defiant. The British correctly predicted that any successful revolt against the colonization of India would need the support and backing of Punjab. Therefore, the British decided to crush Punjab once and for all through sheer terrorism. In March, 1919, the British enacted the Rowlatt Act. This Act granted the British government extraordinary powers: an indefinite extension of “emergency powers” that prohibited protest, the power to silence the press, and the power to imprison any person without trial.
By the next month, when it had become clear this arbitrary suspension of rights was not being respected by Sikhs and other Punjabis, the British administration of Punjab decided a large-scale killing was needed to fully intimidate the population. The obvious problem was how to give legal legitimacy to such a decision. In a brilliant move, by April 13, 1919, the British enacted further restrictions on civil liberties, including suspension of the freedom of assembly. However, thousands of people had already begun traveling to Amritsar, Punjab to celebrate Baisakhi, the founding of the Sikh religion. People had begun arriving in the city before they were able to learn of the newly passed laws. The British were then able to proceed with the massacre by claiming the assembly of people was illegal, when in reality there had not been enough time for the new laws to become known to the population. If the new laws had been passed on any other day, it is likely no assemblies would have resulted. Therefore, the British intentionally chose April 13, the day when Punjabis annually gathered at Amritsar as a matter of tradition going back hundreds of years, as the day to carry out the public demonstration of British power.
There is also some evidence that the British intentionally chose Jallianwala Bagh, a flat, walled-in area, as the place of the massacre. There were some political connections between the British and individuals who were involved in orchestrating the gathering at Jallianwala Bagh. Since Jallianwala Bagh was a barren field surrounded by walls on all four sides, with locked gates, there was nowhere people could run to escape. The British would be able to go on firing as long as they wished without fear of the crowd dispersing. Indeed, people were so closely packed at Jallianwala Bagh that later evidence revealed single bullets were able to injure several people.
Winston Churchill's Speech
During this debate, Winston Churchill famously declared in his Amritsar Massacre speech, “The incident in Jallianwala Bagh was an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation. At Amritsar the crowd was neither armed nor attacking. They were packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies. The people ran madly this way and the other. When fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for eight or ten minutes, and it stopped only when the ammunition had reached the point of exhaustion.” Edwin Montagu, who had established the Hunter Commission, also strongly condemned the Amritsar Massacre. In blunt language, he said that Dyer was a terrorist. However, Montagu was a Jew, and because anti-Semitism was rampant in British society, his comments were summarily dismissed.
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