Many narratives of the massacre

Bhupendra Yadav

The firing at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on Baisakhi in 1919 was a tragedy. All nationalists believed it to was a ‘calculated piece of inhumanity’. Interestingly, the British Disorders Inquiry Committee set up under William Hunter also criticised the massacre. The colonial apologist Winston Churchill termed it ‘monstrous’ and David Cameron, the then British Prime Minister in 2013, called it a ‘shameful event as the UK stands for the right to peaceful protest all over the world’. So, it’s no good re-opening those wounds. Instead, we look at different narratives of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Punjab was perched in the north-west corner and was the last important province to become a part of the British Indian Empire. But it could also boast to be the land of the Vedas, the home to Taxila University, the prosperous gateway to India in medieval times and the nursery of the Indian Army during the British rule. The rebellious formed Ghadr (or Rebellion) party but, though full of Punjabis, it remained more powerful outside the country. The prosperous and loyal Punjab was ruled with an iron fist through zaildars and lamberdars (land revenue collectors) in rural areas and safedposh title-hunters in towns. The British Indian army was Punjabised as two-thirds of it belonged to this province during the First World War from 1914 to 1918. I come from one such peasant family which was militarised during the First World War.

In this essay, we first give the flavour of popular resistance to the colonial rule around the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. We narrate this resistance through the story about a rowdy-turned ‘nationalist’. Then, we shall recount the colonial version of events and compare these with the nationalist narrative. Finally, we refer to the uncanny resemblance between some of the ideas and rhetoric of those times and ours.

Subaltern revenge

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was justified by Dyer as a ‘horrible but merciful act’ to produce a ‘sufficient moral effect’ not just in Amritsar but in Punjab also. He said it was undertaken to save lives from more bloodshed and the city from more looting. The immediate provocations for the firing on April 13, 1919, were some violent incidents three days before. Nationalist crowds had, inter alia, insulted one Miss Sherwood in Kucha Kauchianwala, burnt the National Bank and murdered two British soldiers on April10, 1919.

The murder of the British soldiers is told by Saadat Hasan Manto in a story entitled An Episode of 1919. In a train journey, Manto meets a narrator of the events in Amritsar. The Rowlatt Act had been forced against the wishes of Indian members in the Imperial Legislative Council in March. Even peace-loving protesters like Gandhi were not allowed to enter Punjab. Yet, the meeting against this Act went off peacefully on April 6, and so did the procession of Ram Navmi on April 9. Still, on April 10, the district commissioner arrested and deported the local Congress leaders, Dr Satyapal and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew. This infuriated people who came out on the streets.

One such protester was Muhammad Tufail alias Thela Kanjar. Kanjars are a tribe of wanderers who were known to be addicted to ‘non-bailable’ offences. Born to a sex worker, he was very well built but a rowdy. He was also notorious for keeping himself with gambling, drinking, etc. His sisters, Shamshad and Almas, were dancing girls whose beauty and talent got them rich visitors from all over. They claimed to have disowned him but Thela Kanjar could trick some money from them also.

On April 10, 1919, a few hundred people collected in the middle of the city after hearing about the arrest of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew. They decided to walk the District Magistrate’s house in the Civil Lines to protest these arrests. As they started moving towards the Hall Bridge connecting the city with the Civil Lines, the troops opened fire. After a few died and many were injured, the crowd went out of control and started pelting stones at the Clock Tower, Post Office, Queen Victoria’s statue, etc.

Thela Kanjar decided to avenge the killing of fellow protesters. He was unarmed. But he urged few persons around him to hone their anger against the actual aggressors, the armed soldiers. Some followed him towards the bridge. But the soldiers fired more profusely. Thela Kanjar was hurt and his associates ran away to escape the firing. Yet, the injured young man kept moving in the direction of the soldiers. Like a wounded tiger, Thela Kanjar leapt at a British soldier and throttled him to death before dying. But the story did not end here.

The army officers were annoyed that one of their men was killed by an unarmed young man. Some toadies informed them about the two beautiful and talented sisters of Thela Kanjar. The army officers decided to take their revenge on the dancing girls. The police were instructed to marshal the girls to the army camp. The dancing girls were snatched from their mourning and ravished.

There is, however, another ending to this story. The dancing girls gave a performance in front of the army officers. Amid the applause in the end, they stripped themselves naked. After which they told their shocked hosts, “We are the sisters of Thela Kanjar. You sprayed his body with bullets because you couldn’t bear to see a young man like him possessing a nationalist soul. You may come and satisfy your lust now. But, just once before that, we wish to spit on your faces.”

Violence of the colonialist was answered by violence of the subalterns among the Indians. Gandhian philosophy of truth and non-violence would disapprove of the murder by Thela Kanjar and the destruction of symbols of colonial authority by random mobs in Amritsar. But we have support for the violence by the subjugated coming from other thinkers. Frantz Fanon (1925-61), the Black-thinker who inspired the Algerian struggle for Independence, believed decolonisation was a violent event because colonialism was created violently. Submission of the exploited under capitalism is extracted by culture, education, tradition or moral teachings. But domination in colonies is secured by rifle butts through soldiers, said Fanon in his The Wretched of the Earth.

Nearly a rebellion, said colonialists

Was Punjab in the grip of disorder or rebellion? The colonial administration was full of White supremacists and blind conservatives. Irving was transferred as the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar in February and he was a conservative. He worried that the ‘ignorant’ people were getting ‘more and more excited’ because the actions of the government were ‘misrepresented by wild rumours’. Dyer, the supremacist, believed Indians should be prepared to be flogged if they didn’t ‘salaam’ officers every day. They should crawl in their neighbourhoods if they crossed the picketed lanes, Dyer thought. He considered that crowds were ‘insolent’ if they were raising slogans for social unity like ‘Hindu-Musalman ki Jai’.

Dyer was like the proverbial bull in a China shop. The population of the city. Amritsar, he did not know. He said it was 70,000 while it was more than double of that in fact. Jallianwala Bagh where he came and ordered firing immediately, he had not seen before. A short recce of the ground could have told him that the rectangular low-lying garden had only four small and one big exit. But he was interested in punishing and not dispersing the crowd.

In the evening of April 13, 1919, the crowd (estimates range from 5,000 to 25,000) may have violated some law by holding an assembly. But, before ordering the firing, Dyer did not warn the ‘unlawful’ assembly to either disperse or die. The 50 riflemen of Dyer fired 1,650 rounds over 10 to 15 minutes. The carnage left around 500 dead and three times that number wounded.

The only punishment that Dyer received was being pensioned off before his retirement. One newspaper, The Morning Post, raised £26,000 from public donations for Dyer. Ian Colvin, a reporter from the same newspaper, wrote a hagiography of Dyer. The widespread sympathy for Dyer arouse probably because a lot of British thought there the Mutiny of 1857 could be repeated and their women would be dishonoured.

Calculated inhumanity, said nationalists

Constitutional reforms were promised by British colonialists during the War. In 1917, Edward Montagu, Secretary of State for India, had assured ‘Responsible Government’ to India. But, after the war, administrative rules were being framed to steal with the left hand what the right hand was giving. So, after the war, the British Indian government planned to implement the recommendations of the Sedition Committee led by Justice Rowlatt. This committee recommended to make permanent the restrictions on civil liberties and detention without trial for two years which were thought of emergency measures during the World War. It defined sedition so loosely that it included possession of banned pamphlets. These draconian measures were rushed through the Imperial Legislative Council between February 6 and March 18, 1919.

Protests erupted all over India. Gandhi formed the Satyagraha Sabha and took the help of Home Rule League, Muslim League, etc. The fear that these protests may go out of hand, led the Punjab Government to deport from Amritsar two local Congress leaders, viz. Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew. These deportations on April 10 infuriated leaderless crowds to attack Britishers and destroy some symbols of colonial authority like two Banks, Town Hall, post office, even telegraph office, etc.

Gurudev Tagore first gently condemned the violence by Indian mobs but was furious after colonial repression was let loose. The violence by nationalist mobs on April 10 disheartened Sir Rabindranath Tagore. On April 11, Tagore wrote to Mahatma Gandhi that while cowed submission to terror is unacceptable, revenge too is cowardliness. Soon thereafter, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened. This led Tagore to condemn it and return his Knighthood. In a letter written to the Viceroy on May 30, 1919, Tagore said he wanted to stand with his countrymen shocked into a dumb anguish by the massacre. He criticised the fun some colonialists have made of the defenceless victims.

Uncanny resemblances

No two situations are alike, especially when one situation was colonial and another happens in Independent India. But, yet, did the events around 1918 have some similarities with our times? Yes. Firstly, Punjab’s colonial government dismissed urban educated classes as enemies of government. M. O’ Dwyer said they were like a dozen grasshoppers, who make a loud noise but neither provided recruits or money for the War nor let Punjab remain peaceful after the War. Much like that today we hear intellectuals and human rights activists are ‘urban Maoists’ blockading development.

Secondly, the colonialists who kindled hope in 1917 by Montagu’s promise of ‘Responsible Government’ were extinguishing it in 1919 through the Rowlatt Bills. So, in our times, the optimism of a responsive, efficient and corruptionless government in 2014 is crumbling down now. Moreover, both the government(s) which had ceased political initiative by arousing hope at one time looked directionless, their image dented and authority compromised a while later. Dyer said the people were insolent as they were shouting ‘Hindu-Musalman ki Jai’. Aren’t we in some such conundrum when activists are raising the same slogan of unity between Dalit-Tribal-Minority and getting punished for sedition.

The writer is Professor of History, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.