On this day 105 years ago in April 1919 under the Raj the specter of massacre and mayhem was let loose by the British army under Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer at Amritsar, Punjab. The venue was a walled maidan what is still called Jallianwala Bagh (garden) located in the center of the city..
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| Bullet holes on the walls in the Jallianwala Bagh.differenttruths.com |
About 15,000-2000o people including women and children were said to have been in the maidan to celebrate Baisakhi festival, not knowing the curfew was on. A fanatic British army officer descended on the scene with 50 soldiers and he had them close all the exits except one around the maidan. At 5 pm without any prior warning, ordered his troops to open fire on the innocent people in the Bagh fleeing through the exit gates and climbing the walls. It was just a 10 minute operation, about 1,650 rounds had been fired until the troops ran out of ammunition..
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| Murderer Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer, Jallianwala Bagh, Punjabimages.news18.com |
Result: Caught in the hail of bullets flying across the ground and at the thick crowd the hapless panicked people jostled and moved toward the Gate, causing stampedes. Some jumped into the wells in the maidan and other climbed the walls to avoid firing, The official death toll was at 379, but historians believe that the actual toll was around thousands and equal number of them were injured. The disgusting fact is Dyer purposely imposed a strict curfew in the area, preventing any medical help or ambulance service to save the dying people. A large number of them bled to death in severe pain.
Considering the bizarre deaths and the mental agony suffered by the victims, April 13, 1919 this massacre at Amritsar is eternally etched in the Indian history as the worst black day - the most brutal and tragic incident in the annals of the British colonial empire. The tragedy still looms over the city of Amritsar even today.
Soon after the incident the British government gagged the press for several hours not to publish the tragedy to buy time to mislead the public in England. Their intention was to shift the blame on the people of Amritsar.
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| Jallianwala Bagh bullet holes on the wall. .newsintervention.com |
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| Martyers' well, Jallianwala Bagh, Punjab.en.wikipedia.org |
Above image: Maidan (Jallianwala Bagh), Amritsar. April 13,1919, massacre carried out by Army officer Dyer in collusion with he Gov. of Punjab Michael o' Dwyer. As per inscriptions, 120 bodies were recovered from this well alone in the maidan. Dyer made the natives to crawl on their knees during the same period when they were out on the street to purchase essentials as a punishment for rough handling of Marcella Sherwood, a worker with the Church of England Mission there in the midst of unrest a few days before the massacre. Back in England, the Government did not give any serious punishment to Dyer. A women's association with a local newspaper gave of him cash reward for saving the modesty of British woman. One of donors was famous jungle story writer Rudyard Kipling. He wrote the poem The White Man’s Burden– said that it was necessary to crush the civil disobedience movement............
This massacre in the wake of it, had repercussions all over the world and gave an impetus to the freedom fighters to speed up freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement. across the country. This united the people across India and they raised as a powerful arm to drive the British out of India.
To add insult to the injury, as of to day, none of the British PMs or the head of the British Royalty have made any official apology with respect to this massacre or other mass killings and their vast colonial loot (that included several diamonds like Koh-I-Noor, Arcot diamond, etc), centuries old artifacts during their long stay in India. Most of them are on display at the British Museum of natural history, London. The UK has refused to return them to India.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/105-years-jallianwala-bagh-massacre-9266217/