By Nimisha Dave [Edited by Ishaan Tugnait & Fatmanour Chouseinoglou]
‘An extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.’[1] This is how Churchill described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1920. It is perhaps, the most common British expression used to describe the atrocities committed by General Dyer on 13 April 1919. Amongst many historians, there is general agreement that Dyer made poor, impulsive decisions that fateful day. Others, such as Nick Lloyd however, argue that the defence for Dyer is almost essential, as it is ‘historical injustice’ to ‘vilify officials who were tasked with restoring order during such difficult times.’[2] Imperialistic viewpoints as such continue to exist in the modern day and have fuelled a contemporary debate over whether or not Dyer’s actions can truly be justified. The most recent discussion regards whether or not India is entitled to an apology by the British.
When most individuals think of the massacre, they imagine the depiction from the film Gandhi. The clip of Jallianwala Bagh runs just over five minutes and has many inaccuracies, most of which regard the facts and statistics of the event. Majority of interpretations vary based on the given demographic. For example, amongst British politicians, there is a sense of remembering the event as an anomaly, a single terrible event in the history of empire. This can be evidenced by the Prime Minister’s statement in December 1919, when he declared this event as what ‘destroyed our reputation throughout the world.'[3] In contrast, Indian politicians tend to believe that this was merely an example of British repression. Shashi Tharoor has been remarkably inaccurate in explaining how events unfolded on 13 April 1919. In his book, Inglorious Empire, he mentions that there was a twenty-four-hour period in which Indian civilians were restricted from going to offer aid to those who were wounded at Jallianwala Bagh.[4] Whilst his statement can be doubted as there is no evidence to support this assertion, it does help to convey one crucial school of thought; the massacre was not an anomaly but a representation of moral debt owed by the British for their repressive rule in India. As a result of these Indian perceptions, many people in the modern day tend to believe that those who died at Amritsar were martyrs of the independence struggle. O.P Ralhan is a clear example of a historian who has recast the deceased at Amritsar as freedom fighters. In his book, Indian National Movement, he states that the people at Jallianwala Bagh were ‘sacrificing their lives for the attainment of independence.’[5] This narrative is flawed because the gathering at Jallianwala Bagh was not a protest for independence but a gathering to criticise the British rule in India. The speaker never mentioned independence, and nor did his vocabulary allow him to do so. Due to this, it is imperative that the essay argues some narratives alter our understanding of the event in an attempt to reduce it to a symbol.
It is also important that this essay addresses the 1857 mutiny because some narratives argue that the anxieties it created were manifested in Dyer’s decision in 1919. In his recent work Amritsar 1919, Kim Wagner drew from the diary of Melicent Wathen, a memsahib living in India. She was married to Gerard Wathen, a typical example of a liberal Englishman who attempted to prevent the massacre. She mentions that there was a general sense of anxiety among the British, who believed that a second mutiny was going to break out in April 1919.[6] The other sources Wagner uses also present her as a defender of Dyer. By examining these works more closely, it will be argued that narratives which draw from primary material shape our understanding more clearly than those that do not.
The importance of the massacre became apparent to the British in December 1919. It was from here on that narratives began shaping this historical event. Edward Montagu strongly condemned the event in the House of Commons in 1920: I say without hesitation, and I would ask the Committee to contradict me if I am wrong, because the whole matter turns upon this that it is the doctrine of terrorism […] there is one theory upon which I think General Dyer acted, the theory of terrorism, and the theory of subordination.[7] Here, Montagu asserts his belief that General Dyer was a terrorist. It immediately insinuates that the government was ready to blame Dyer alone for what happened at Amritsar. In hindsight, this shapes our understanding because it shows that politicians could not afford to risk tainting Britain’s reputation even further. Dyer’s argument somewhat refutes Montagu’s claims, as he declared that he was simply conducting his ‘horrible, dirty duty.’[8] If it truly had been his duty then the responsibility and consequences of this incident rest upon both him and the British government. There have been debates over what his ‘duty’ truly was, but none have ever reached a definitive conclusion. Therefore, in such instances, narratives become unclear, making it difficult to shape our understanding. It is also interesting to mention that the term ‘terrorist’ is one which many contemporary historians have shied away from.
Malcolm Darling was an Indian Civil Servant in Punjab in 1919 and thus his account is useful as a marginal viewpoint. Atiyab Sultan argues that after the massacre, Darling was ‘one of the few serving colonial officers to criticize the killing of Indians.’[9] His criticism of the butchery debunks Dyer’s statement of having to ‘yet find an Englishman who knows India and who condemns me for my actions.’[10] Dyer’s misconstrued belief could imply that Dyer was unaware of how unpopular he was amongst the British in India. His lack of awareness could also indicate that he lacked colonial knowledge because he took little interest in views which were not his. As a result, any work which accredits Dyer can be considered slightly invalid. This includes the work of Nick Lloyd. Lloyd asserts: by explaining the massacre solely in terms of Dyer’s psychology or his personal character, previous accounts have failed to appreciate both the sequence of events that brought Dyer to the Bagh and his reaction to what he found. To suggest that the size and composition of the crowd in the Bagh had no effect on Dyer is highly unlikely.[11] Here, whilst condoning the massacre, Lloyd has single-handedly argued and diagnosed Dyer with agoraphobia. He is convinced that Dyer should not be deemed as an epitome of British imperial brutality because at Amritsar he faced an undoubtedly difficult situation.[12] Lloyd’s argument is imprecise. In actual fact, Dyer himself saw this as a ‘personal challenge’, and ‘he had never refused a challenge’, especially amongst a crowd whom he had already warned.[13] The fact that he regarded this as a game, shows that previous accounts have been correct in explaining the massacre through Dyer’s psychology and personal character. It explains why his actions were so immoral and why he made such a rash decision to shoot at the crowd in attempts to stop the silent protest. Therefore, this shows that narratives which are predominantly in defence of Dyer have done little to shape our understanding of this historical event.
British writers such as Brian Bond and Arthur Swinson are similar to Lloyd in arguing that the massacre was necessary and vital to the security of the Raj.[14] Swinson, in particular, talks about a threat of Afghan invasion and the protection of women’s lives.[15] It should be mentioned that they are all historians from the twentieth century, and therefore, their work is less reliable as they are likely to have imperialistic leanings. The argument that the massacre was necessary is also outdated because Dyer was not driven by the security of the Raj, he was motivated by personal threat, as Nigel Collett has mentioned. These narratives take away more from our understanding of this event, rather than add.
Two narratives which should be closely examined are by Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. Both men wrote separate letters to Lord Chelmsford between 1919 and 1920. In May 1919, a month and a half after the massacre, Tagore returned his knighthood. Some reasons for his decision were: the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers—possibly congratulating themselves for what they imagine as salutary lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings.[16] This narrative shape our understanding by confirming that there was a general awareness among Indians that the repression they were facing under British rule had reached its limit. It also clarifies that Indians began retracting from British service because of the massacre. This moment was a key tipping point, as unlike Gandhi, Tagore was certain that the British would not give justice to Indians. Rather, he believed they would attempt to excuse what happened in India. His letter is pertinent in understanding this and that the massacre gave rise to nationalist movements in India. It further shapes our understanding by demonstrating that whilst the massacre itself was not a fight for independence, its aftermath certainly was.
In June 1920, Gandhi realised that the British had no intention of justifying the massacre and he wrote a letter to Lord Chelmsford, stating that he would no longer serve them. Instead, he would work with nationalists to move towards independence.[17] In the letter, he explicitly stated: Mussalmans and Hindus, have, as a whole, lost faith in British justice and honour […] the report of the majority of the hunter Committee, your Excellency’s despatch thereon and Mr. Montagu’s have only aggravated the distrust.[18] This is crucial because it acutely evidences the moment when Gandhi turned from a huge supporter of the British to rejecting them altogether, beginning his movement of non-cooperation.[19] The main trigger for his decision was the loss of faith in the British government as it became apparent that they were not willing to take responsibility for Dyer’s actions. Moreover, the broadcast of the ‘crawling order’ came as huge disbelief to him, as it was the ultimate ‘racial humiliation’.[20] Gandhi’s narrative explains how the massacre became an essential wakeup call for nationalist movements. Thus, from September 1920, there was a boycott of reformed councils.[21] As a whole, both these narratives enable us to understand the extent of Indian opposition towards the British rule in the aftermath of the massacre.
In December 1919, the Prime Minister spoke deeply about how even though Americans were lynching African Americans, Russians were committing butcheries and Germans had committed atrocities in Belgium, nothing would ever be as bad as this.[22] Savita Narain further remarks that Americans sympathised with India because they could relate to them through their own national history.[23] These global narratives shape our understanding by restating that Britain could not risk losing any more of its reputation. It highlights that they were more concerned about negative global publicity that the massacre would get and what the consequences of this would be. Britain had committed other massacres before but none of them had ever gained this much recognition; the Mau-Mau rebellion being a key example of this. It shows that Britain lacked moral respect and support for its colony.
It is worth reiterating the argument that the massacre was not a fight for independence, but that its aftermath could be considered one. Alfred Draper’s analysis of the Amritsar massacre is a sequential explanation of how these events led up to independence movements towards 1947. In his book, he refers to the deceased at Jallianwala Bagh as ‘martyrs’.[24] Often, when people think of this term, they assume it means people that have died fighting for their country. This is not the case however, as by ‘martyrs’, he meant death as a result of one’s faith or beliefs. His narrative is key in understanding how the aftermath of the massacre led to the rise of nationalist movements. The British Committee of the Indian National Congress issued a document titled The Disturbances in British India, April 1919. In this document, they called for the punishment of the guilty and the need for India’s dominion of self-government.[25] This is a clear indication from a political perspective that the aftermath of the massacre was a plea for independence movements to take a stand. Since it is an authoritative account, it plays an essential role in understanding this historical event.
As mentioned previously, Kim Wagner has used the anxieties of 1857 to explain the Amritsar massacre, primarily through primary source material and the diary of Melicent Wathen. She explicitly discussed the fear of a second mutiny breaking out in April 1919: Things are as bad as they have ever been in our history – the whole country is at ablaze - We don’t yet know what we are in for […] only one thing certain, that we were all in great danger.[26] This confirms that the British were undoubtedly afraid of an insurgency breaking out, especially if this view resided with a woman who was married to an official. They were convinced that Indians were planning some sort of attack on them and it motivated a sense of paranoia. It was then manifested by Dyer when he made a rash decision to fire at the crowds at Jallianwala Bagh. Certainly, this is not an excuse for his actions, but it is an explanation that his impulsiveness stemmed through fear. Nigel Collett has spoken about how this was a ‘personal challenge’ to Dyer, and this account only enhances why he was determined to complete this massacre. V.N Datta has spoken about how Dyer had his own social circle that was almost exclusively European, and how Indians were only kept put because they were the ‘lesser breed’.[27] When these accounts are combined, the narrative outcome is that Dyer had a firmly imperialistic mindset, and he was afraid of what would happen if he did not open fire on the crowd in Jallianwala Bagh. The explicit use of the primary material allows these narratives to shape our understanding clearly. Gerard Wathen’s wife was also amongst those who defended Dyer in 1919. In a letter sent back to Britain, she said: The shooting was drastic, but it was needed, and it’s done more good than a hundred years of soft talk and reasoning – and I believe it will carry more weight than all the subtle lies and reasonings of these seditionists – for the people have learnt that after certain limits we do at last turn, and hurt, and that is a fact.[28] It is concerning that an educated wife of a liberal man who condemned Dyer’s actions had very little sympathy for those martyred in Amritsar. It is even more perplexing as she was a memsahib who lived in India and was thus constantly surrounded by Indian servants. This particular account is essential to understanding this event because it depicts imperialism from a domestic sphere. When she calls out ‘seditionists’, she is talking about people like Gandhi and the Rowlatt movements. Her views on India are not moral. Rather, she almost subtly argues that the British in India are the oppressed because they are false targets; she talks about their limits and how when poked too hard, they lash out in response. Here, she is most likely talking about Miss Sherwood and her attack. This account is useful in understanding that to women like Melicent, the massacre was justified because Indians had crossed their limits and thus had to face the consequences. It shapes our understanding of the massacre because it shows how imperialism was the most important thing to the British.
These narratives and primary material accounts which have been explored are all useful in shaping our understanding of this historical event. First, those which have been regarded as invalid or unclear are vital in enabling historians to establish a line between truth and false. Second, they act as voices of individuals who defend imperialism or Indian nationalism in the present day. Through this, they have demonstrated that narratives which are written to make a point about British rule in India play a lesser role in influencing our understanding because they are motivated by emotion. An essential example of which is Shashi Tharoor. Undoubtedly, he knows how to separate emotion from politics, as he is an Indian politician by trade. In his 2015 Oxford Union address however, he kept referring to India and Indians as ‘we’. Accounts which have been regarded as influential or important in this essay have been concluded as such, because of their research and use of primary materials. In order to truly reach a conclusion to this essay, it is pertinent to explore a sub-division of this essay question, namely who can write this type of history.
This essay chooses to argue that in the modern day, it is perhaps less authoritative for a British or Indian to write about the massacre. This is purely due to the fact that there is currently a huge debate on whether or not Britain owes an apology to India. It would be too risky to assume that contemporary writers who are of Indian or British descent, would be able to exclude emotion from their narrative. For example, Sadiq Khan, a politician, has said ‘it is time for the British government to finally apologise.’[29] In contrast, British politician, David Cameron in 2013 quoted Churchill and said that ‘it would set a precedent which could lead to endless demands for apologies for other events throughout British colonial history.’[30] It is possible to assume that they clash on the subject because of their racial differences. Therefore, it is best left to historians like Kim Wagner, who eliminate these racial perspectives, to write this type of history. He makes a significant point in his introduction when he insists that it is ‘possible to both describe, analyse and make sense of historical occurrences of violence without either condoning or condemning them.’[31] It should be reminded that this viewpoint is purely for contemporary writers.
In terms of immediate writers after the massacre, the essay believes that to some extent, British and Indian narratives should be credited. This is because they are narratives which have allowed debates to occur over why the massacre has been so deeply questioned in the modern day. The response of Gandhi and other nationalist movements through narratives have been important in being able to understand other historical events such as Partition or Independence in 1947. Writers who however have only written narratives after the massacre, should only be valued as foundations of historical debate. This is because primary materials that are accessible now, were unknown and unavailable at the time. Therefore, the majority of accounts were driven by British imperialism or Indian nationalism. They have, however, certainly acted as groundworks for debates which historians such as Nick Lloyd or Nigel Collett have based their research off.
To conclude, different narratives have played some sort of role in shaping our understanding of this historical event. This includes those which the essay claimed were more doubtful. Accounts such as Tharoor and Lloyd have been slated as less reliable because of the way their arguments were laid out. In Lloyd’s case, his research was credible, however, in choosing to defend Dyer by identifying him as an agoraphobic, his work lost validity. Other historical accounts such as that of Nigel Collett, Kim Wagner, V.N Datta and O.P Ralhan are also significant in shaping our understanding. Particularly, Ralhan’s work is interesting because it demonstrates how many contemporary writers label those murdered at Jallianwala Bagh as freedom fighters when they were not. Even though his work is inaccurate in this aspect, the notion that what happened at Amritsar was for independence is a popular one, and therefore must be credited somehow. Kim Wagner has used sources which have never been used before – his use of Melicent Wathen is particularly recharging as it finally allows a grand narrative of what truly happened at Amritsar to be collated into one piece. As a whole, the essay concludes by remarking that without all these narratives, our understanding of this event would be incomplete. This is perhaps the case because we are unaware of how our understanding would be shaped without them. In the grand scheme of things, they have each, individually, shaped our understanding on an all-encompassing scale. Every possible reflection on the massacre has been argued. It is due to the broad historiography that an event which was once an unclear part of history is now conceivable. Notes
[1] Hansard HC Deb. 08 July 1920, vol. 131, col. 1725. [2] Nick Lloyd, The Amritsar Massacre, The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (London: I. B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2011), p. 28. [3] Hansard HC Deb. 22 December 1919, vol. 123, col. 1232. [4] Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire, What the British Did to India (London: Penguin, 2017), ch. 3. [5] O. P Ralhan, Indian National Movement (India: Anmol Publications, 1994), pp. 17-18. [6] Kim Wagner, Amritsar 1919, An Empire of Fear & the Making of the Massacre (Yale: Yale University Press, 2019), p. 67. [7] Hansard HC Deb. 08 July 1920, vol. 131, col. 1707-1708. [8] Karen Lenders, A Hazardous Experiment: The First World War and Changing British Civilian and Military Attitudes to the People of India (Doctoral Thesis, University of Sussex, 2018), p.142. [9] Atiyab Sultan ‘Malcolm Darling and Developmentalism in Colonial Punjab’ Modern Asian Studies, 51/6 (2017), p. 1897. [10] Lenders, ‘A Hazardous Experiment’, p. 142. [11] Lloyd, The Amritsar Massacre, p.196. [12] Nick Lloyd, ‘The Amritsar Massacre and the Minimum Force Debate’, Small Wars and Insurgencies’, 21/2 (2010), pp. 383-398. [13] Nigel Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2005), p. 423. [14] Savita Narain, The Historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 (Surrey: Spantech and Lancer, 1998), p. 10. [15] V. N Datta, ‘General Dyer and Jallianwala Bagh’, Economic and Political Weekly, 40/47 (2005), p. 4912. [16] ‘Letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India’, DART. <http://dart.columbia.edu/library/tagore-letter/letter.html> [accessed 18 March, 2019]. [17] R.L Khipple, Famous letters of Mahatma Gandhi (The Indian Printing Works, 1947), pp. 21-25. [18] R.L Khipple, Famous letters of Mahatma Gandhi, pp. 22-23. [19] Savita Narain, The Historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, p.56. [20] ‘Letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Lord Chelmsford’. [21] ‘Letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Lord Chelmsford’. [22] Hansard HC Deb. 22 December 1919, vol.123, col.1232. [23] Savita Narain, Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, p. 55. [24] Alfred Draper, Echoes of War, The Amritsar Massacre (London: Buchan & Enright, 1985), p. 286. [25] ‘The Disturbances in British India, April 1919, The Amritsar Massacre’ (British Committee of the Indian National Congress), p. 4. [26] Kim Wagner, Amritsar 1919, An Empire of Fear & the Making of the Massacre (Yale: Yale University Press, 2019), pp. 129-130. [27] V.N. Datta, Jallianwala Bagh (Ludhiana, 1969), p. 168. [28] Kim Wagner, Amritsar 1919, p. 211. [29] Sky News, ‘London Mayor Saqid Khan Urges British Government to Apologise for 1919 Amritsar Massacre’ Sky News, (Wednesday 6 December 2017). [30] Nicholas Watt, (20 February 2013) ‘Cameron to Pay Respects to Victims of Amritsar Massacre’ The Guardian, <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/feb/20/david-cameron-pay-respects-amritsar-massacre> [Accessed 12 March 2019]. [31] Kim Wagner, Amritsar 1919, p. 211.
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