British MP for UK’s formal apology to India for Jallianwala massacre

British parliamentarian Bob Blackman, a member of the opposition Conservative Party, has urged the UK government to formally apologise to India for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919.

Sharing a video of his speech in the UK Parliament, Blackman wrote on X, “Today, I raised the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. I asked the government to formally give an apology to the people of India ahead of my speech at the House of Commons.”

During his speech, Blackman recounted the tragic events of April 13, 1919, when families had gathered peacefully at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to celebrate Baisakhi. He described how Brigadier General Reginald Dyer marched his troops into the enclosed garden and ordered them to fire on the unarmed crowd until they ran out of ammunition.

“At the end of that massacre, 1,500 people were dead and 1,200 injured. Eventually, General Dyer was disgraced for this stain on the British Empire,” he said.

He further urged the UK government to acknowledge the atrocity and issue a formal apology to India.

Despite widespread calls for an apology, successive British governments have stopped short of issuing one. In 2013, during a visit to Amritsar, then UK Prime Minister David Cameron described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a “deeply shameful event”, but did not offer a public apology.

In 2019, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May expressed “deep regret”, calling it “a shameful scar on British-Indian history”, yet again falling short of a formal apology.