In UK House, Sikh groups from Delhi seek apology

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 14

Sikh groups from Delhi have demanded an apology for the Jallianwala massacre.

Speaking at the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration organised at the House of Lords in London last night, Vikramjit Sahney, patron of Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration Committee, said, “An apology cannot undo what has been done, but it would be a befitting tribute. The very Punjabis, who had given up their lives fighting for the British Empire in World War-I (1914-18), faced the massacre.”

Sahney asked if Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could formally apologise for the Komagata Maru incident in 1914 in which hundreds of Indian passengers were denied entry into Canada and forced to return to an uncertain and ultimately violent fate in India, why couldn’t the British Government apologise?

Manjit Singh GK, a former president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, said the British wanted to suppress Indian masses but this tragedy was like proverbially ‘waking up a sleeping lion’. As a result, the freedom struggle got further intensified.

“The British must accept responsibility, said Manjit Singh GK. He posed a critical question:  Was Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer acting on his own or was it a policy decision made in London?

There is a school of thought that these actions were too serious to be carried out by Dyer on his own. After this event, British politicians carried out what is today known as “crowd funding” and raised £27,000 as a “reward for Dyer’s actions”.