Jalianwala Bagh Massacre
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, was named after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in Amritsar, where, on April 13, 1919, British Indian Army soldiers opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. Official sources place the casualties at 379. According to private sources, the number was over 1000, with more than 1200 wounded, and Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that they were over 1800.
For the next two days the city of Amritsar was quiet, but to the British it appeared that cry of revolution was resounding in other parts of the Punjab. Railway lines were cut, telegraphic posts destroyed, and government buildings burnt, but no more than three other European lives were to be lost over the next few days. By April 13th, that is on the third day after the assault on Miss Sherwood, the decision to place most of the Punjab under martial law had been taken.
On April 13 (three days after the above incident), thousands of Punjabi Indians gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh in the heart of Amritsar, one of the major cultural, religious and commercial towns of Punjab state. The occasion was Baisakhi Day, a Sikh religious day. A tradition had been established for Sikhs to gather in Amritsar to participate in the Baisakhi festival. Those coming from the rural areas of Amritsar District were unaware of the events in Amritsar as communications were inadequate and highly underdeveloped in Punjab. Legally, the gathering in the Bagh was in violation of the prohibitory orders banning gatherings of five or more persons in the city, a term of martial law.
The troops were commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer who, immediately upon entering the Bagh and without the slightest warning to the crowd to disperse, ordered his troops to open fire, concentrating especially on the areas where the crowd was thickest. The firing started at 17:15 and lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. The Bagh, or garden, was bounded on all sides by brick walls and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. Since there was only one exit except for the one already manned by the troops, people desperately tried to climb the walls of the park. Some also jumped into a well inside the compound to escape the bullets. A plaque in the monument says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well alone.
After the firing was over, hundreds of people had been killed and thousands had been injured. Official estimates put the figures at 379 killed (337 men, 41 boys and a six week old baby) and 200 injured, though the actual figure was almost certainly much higher (see above); the wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared. Debate about the actual figures continues to this day. According to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, who personally collected information with a view to raising the issue in the Central Legislative Council, over 1,000 were killed. The total crowd was estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000, Sikhs comprising a large proportion of them.
The gathering :
In the morning hours of April 10th, 1919, a crowd that had been proceeding towards the residence of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, an important city in the Punjab, a large province in the north-western part of the then undivided India, to demand the release of two popular leaders against whom deportation orders had been issued was fired upon by a military picket. Later in the day, several banks and other buildings, either housing government property or otherwise emblematic of British rule, were set fire to, and here and there other acts of incendiarism were committed. Four European men were, in separate incidents, brutally murdered. The infantry fired upon the crowd on several different occasions in the course of the day, and nearly twenty Indians were killed. Miss Marcella Sherwood, a Church of England missionary and a resident of Amritsar for over fifteen years, was unable to escape the wrath of the crowd. As she was bicycling down a narrow lane, she was set upon by a crowd that knocked her down from her bicycle, and then delivered blows to her head with sticks while she was still on the ground. Miss Sherwood rose to her feet, and had just started to run when she was again brought down. On the subsequent attempt she reached a house but the door was slammed shut in her face. She was again beaten and left on the street in a critical condition. The crowd then dispersed; Miss Sherwood was soon thereafter rescued, and prompt medical attention saved her life.For the next two days the city of Amritsar was quiet, but to the British it appeared that cry of revolution was resounding in other parts of the Punjab. Railway lines were cut, telegraphic posts destroyed, and government buildings burnt, but no more than three other European lives were to be lost over the next few days. By April 13th, that is on the third day after the assault on Miss Sherwood, the decision to place most of the Punjab under martial law had been taken.
On April 13 (three days after the above incident), thousands of Punjabi Indians gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh in the heart of Amritsar, one of the major cultural, religious and commercial towns of Punjab state. The occasion was Baisakhi Day, a Sikh religious day. A tradition had been established for Sikhs to gather in Amritsar to participate in the Baisakhi festival. Those coming from the rural areas of Amritsar District were unaware of the events in Amritsar as communications were inadequate and highly underdeveloped in Punjab. Legally, the gathering in the Bagh was in violation of the prohibitory orders banning gatherings of five or more persons in the city, a term of martial law.
The massacre:
A band of 90 soldiers armed with rifles and kukris marched to the park accompanied by two armoured cars on which machine guns were mounted. The vehicles were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance.The troops were commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer who, immediately upon entering the Bagh and without the slightest warning to the crowd to disperse, ordered his troops to open fire, concentrating especially on the areas where the crowd was thickest. The firing started at 17:15 and lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. The Bagh, or garden, was bounded on all sides by brick walls and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. Since there was only one exit except for the one already manned by the troops, people desperately tried to climb the walls of the park. Some also jumped into a well inside the compound to escape the bullets. A plaque in the monument says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well alone.
After the firing was over, hundreds of people had been killed and thousands had been injured. Official estimates put the figures at 379 killed (337 men, 41 boys and a six week old baby) and 200 injured, though the actual figure was almost certainly much higher (see above); the wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared. Debate about the actual figures continues to this day. According to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, who personally collected information with a view to raising the issue in the Central Legislative Council, over 1,000 were killed. The total crowd was estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000, Sikhs comprising a large proportion of them.