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Jallianwala Bagh massacre

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, during annual Baishakhi fair, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-independence activists Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal. In response to the public gathering, the temporary brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer, surrounded the people with his Gurkha and Sikh infantry regiments of the British Indian Army.[7] The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted.[8] Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people[1] and over 1,200 other people were injured of whom 192 were seriously injured.[9][10] Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

13 April 1919 (1919-04-13)
05:30p.m (IST)

Crowd of nonviolent protesters, along with Baisakhi pilgrims, who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar

Lee-Enfield rifles

379[1] – 1500[2] [3]

~ 1,500[2]

The massacre caused a re-evaluation by the Imperial British military of its role when confronted with civilians to "minimal force whenever possible", although the British Army as an organisation was not directly involved in the massacre, the British Indian Army was a separate organisation. Later British military actions during the Mau Mau rebellion in the Kenya Colony have led historian Huw Bennett to comment that the new policy could sometimes be put aside.[11] The army was retrained and developed less violent tactics for crowd control.[12] The level of casual brutality, and lack of any accountability, stunned the entire nation,[13] resulting in a wrenching loss of faith of the general Indian public in the intentions of the United Kingdom.[14] The attack was condemned by the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, as "unutterably monstrous", and in the UK House of Commons debate on 8 July 1920 Members of Parliament voted 247 to 37 against Dyer. The ineffective inquiry, together with the initial accolades for Dyer, fuelled great widespread anger against the British among the Indian populace, leading to the non-cooperation movement of 1920–22.[15] Some historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.[16][17]

Lord Hunter, Chairman of the Commission

Mr Justice George C. Rankin of Calcutta

Sir , Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University and advocate of the Bombay High Court

Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad

W.F. Rice, member of the Home Department

Major-General George Barrow, KCB, KCMG, GOC Peshawar Division

Pandit , lawyer and Member of the Legislative Council of the United Provinces

Jagat Narayan

Thomas Smith, Member of the Legislative Council of the United Provinces

Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Khan, lawyer from

Gwalior State

H.C. Stokes, Secretary of the Commission and member of the Home Department

[75]

1932: Noted Hindi poet wrote a poem, "Jallianwalla Bagh Mein Basant",[112] (Spring in the Jallianwalla Bagh) in memory of the slain in her anthology Bikhre Moti (Scattered Pearls).

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan

1977: The massacre is portrayed in the Hindi movie starring Vinod Khanna, Parikshat Sahni, Shabana Azmi, Sampooran Singh Gulzar, and Deepti Naval. The film was written, produced and directed by Balraj Tah with the screenplay by Gulzar. The film is a part-biopic of Udham Singh (played by Parikshit Sahni) who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in 1940. Portions of the film were shot in the UK notably in Coventry and surrounding areas.[113]

Jallian Wala Bagh

1981: 's novel Midnight's Children portrays the massacre from the perspective of a doctor in the crowd, saved from the gunfire by a well-timed sneeze.

Salman Rushdie

1982: The massacre is depicted in 's film Gandhi with the role of General Dyer played by Edward Fox. The film depicts most of the details of the massacre as well as the subsequent inquiry by the Hunter commission.

Richard Attenborough

1984: The story of the massacre also occurs in the seventh episode of Granada TV's 1984 series , recounted by the fictional widow of a British officer who is haunted by the inhumanity of it and who tells how she came to be reviled because she ignored the honours to Dyer and instead donated money to the Indian victims.

The Jewel in the Crown

2000: , a Hindi language film is based on the JallianWala Bagh Massacre and the assassination of Michael O'Dwyer by Udham Singh.

Shaheed Udham Singh

2002: In the Hindi film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, the massacre is reconstructed with the child Bhagat Singh as a witness, eventually inspiring him to become a revolutionary in the Indian independence movement.

The Legend of Bhagat Singh

2006: Portions of the Hindi film nonlinearly depict the massacre and the influence it had on the freedom fighters.

Rang De Basanti

2007: The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre is mentioned in the final debate scene on civil disobedience, portrayed in the film

The Great Debaters

2009: 's novel, City of Ghosts, is partly set around the massacre, blending fact with fiction and magical realism. Dyer, Udham Singh and other real historical figures feature in the story.

Bali Rai

2012: A few shots of the massacre are captured in the movie , a Canadian-British film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel of the same name directed by Deepa Mehta.

Midnight's Children

2014: The British period drama makes a reference to the massacre in the eighth episode of season 5 as "that terrible Amritsar business". The characters of Lord Grantham, Isobel Crawley and Shrimpy express their disapproval of the massacre when Lord Sinderby supports it.

Downton Abbey

2017: The Hindi language film refers to the massacre as the reason the spirit of the primary character portrayed by Anushka Sharma cannot find peace as her lover lost his life in Amritsar and was unable to return to their village for their wedding. The movie depicts the massacre and the following stampede, with the climax shot on-location at the modern-day Jallianwallah Bagh memorial.

Phillauri

2019: The UK's BBC broadcast historian Dr. Zareer Masani's Amritsar 1919: Remembering a British Massacre was broadcast.

[114]

2019: the UK's Channel 4 broadcast "The Massacre That Shook the Empire" on Saturday 13 April at 9 p.m. in which writer Sathnam Sanghera examined the 1919 massacre and its legacy.

2019: The UK's BBC broadcast a special "Thought for the Day" on Friday 12 April presented by to mark the anniversary.[115]

Jasvir Singh

2021: , a Hindi language film is based on the JallianWala Bagh Massacre and the assassination of Michael O'Dwyer by Udham Singh.

Sardar Udham

Vidurashwatha

Babrra massacre

Charan Paduka massacre on the festival (14 January 1930) in Chhatarpur, called the "Jallianwala Bagh of Madhya Pradesh": General Fischer ordered the firing on non-violent Indian freedom fighters resulting in 21 deaths and many injured.[116][117][118][119][120]

Makar Sankranti

Massacre of Chumik Shenko

– Jallianwala of Assam

Patharighat massacre

List of massacres in India

a day of IRA assassinations in Ireland and revenge attacks by the Royal Irish Constabulary on a crowd at Croke Park and on prisoners at Dublin Castle in 1920

Bloody Sunday

Sétif and Guelma massacre

Draper, Alfred (1985). The Amritsar Massacre: Twilight of the Raj.

(1997). Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire. Kodansha Globe. ISBN 1-56836-127-0.

Hopkirk, Peter

Judd, Dennis (1996). "The Amritsar Massacre of 1919: Gandhi, the Raj and the Growth of Indian Nationalism, 1915–39", in Judd, Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present. Basic Books. pp. 258–272.

(2011). The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day.

Lloyd, Nick

Narain, Savita (1998). The historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, 1919. New Delhi: Spantech and Lancer. 76 pp.  1-897829-36-1

ISBN

(1964). Six Minutes to Sunset: The Story of General Dyer and the Amritsar Affair. London: Peter Davies.

Swinson, Arthur

"Calculated to Strike Terror': The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle of Colonial Violence." Past Present (2016) 233#1: 185–225. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtw037

Wagner, Kim A.

Jalil, Rakhshanda "Jallianwala Bagh: Literary Responses in Prose & Poetry, 2019". . ISBN 978-9386906922

Niyogi Books

Amritsar: 1920 – Minutes of Evidence taken before the Hunter Committee – UK Parliament Living Heritage

Debate on this incident in the British Parliament

Black Chapter of Indian History – Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

An interview with Bapu Shingara Singh – the last known surviving witness.

NPR

Archived 19 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine after the incident.

Churchill's speech

Listen to the Shaheed song of the Amritsar Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh.

Amritsar Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh

Singh, Gajendra: , in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Amritsar, Massacre of