Khadi Marigold in memory of Jallianwala martyrs

GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, March 12

The Partition Museum in the city will unfold the story of Punjab as it was in 1919 through an exhibition and a specially crafted marigold made of khadi, which will be available from March 13 to April 13, at events across India and abroad to mark the Jallianwala Bagh massacre centenary.

Kishwar Desai, chairperson, Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, said March 13 had been chosen to launch the khadi marigold as it was on this day 79 years ago that Shaheed Udham Singh shot Sir Michael O’Dwyer at Caxton Hall in London, 21 years after the carnage.

The khadi marigold in luminous saffron symbolises the spirit of Baisakhi and sacrifice. The khadi is a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, who started the anti-Rowlatt satyagraha.

“During our research, we tried to uncover untold aspects of the massacre through original materials in the form of newspapers, reports and photographs. The exhibition depicts atrocities by the British prior to the massacre. One section is about the colonial martial law that lasted some years after the carnage. Indians were made to bow. They had to make way for an English man or woman while walking on a footpath. The second part is about the day the massacre took place and the third on the post-massacre scenario,” she explained.

Desai, who wrote “Jallianwala Bagh, 1919: The Real Story”, regretted that survivors could not be located. “We succeeded in finding the names of martyrs and undertook mapping of 70-80 houses, but could not find any survivor. The 12 families we interviewed were third or fourth generation of martyrs who could only narrate what they had been told,” she said.

The exhibition will be inaugurated at the Manchester Museum on April 8, followed by the Nehru Centre, London, and the Birmingham Library on April 12. In Punjab, it would be opened in Amritsar on April 13.

Also, the Partition Museum will hold thematic heritage walks in the city related to events leading to the massacre and after.