Modern History Prelims Question

The opposition to the Rowlatt Act led to some violence in Punjab. Later, the arrest of Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satyapal led to an attack on the town hall, telegraph wires were cut and Europeans, including women, were attacked. Marcella Sherwood, an English woman missionary going on a bicycle, was beaten up.
Troops were sent immediately to quell the disturbances. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer was the senior British officer with the responsibility to impose martial law and restore order. By then, the city had returned to calm and the protests that were being held were peaceful. Dyer, however, issued a proclamation on April 13 (which was also Baisakhi) forbidding people from leaving the city without a pass and from organising demonstrations or processions, or assembling in groups of more than three.
On Baisakhi day, a large crowd of people, mostly from the neighbouring villages, unaware of the prohibitory orders in the city, gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, a popular place for public events, to celebrate the Baisakhi festival. Local leaders had also called for a protest meeting at the venue. It is not clear how many in the 20,000 odd people collected there were political protestors, but the majority were those who had collected for the festival. Meanwhile, the meeting had gone on peacefully, and two resolutions, one calling for the repeal of the Rowlatt Act and the other condemning the firing, had been passed. It was then that Brigadier-General Dyer arrived on the scene with his men.
The troops surrounded the gathering under orders from General Dyer and blocked the only exit point and opened fire on the unarmed crowd. No warning was issued; no instruction to disperse was given. An unarmed gathering of men, women and children was fired upon as they tried to flee.
According to the official British Indian sources, 379 were identified dead and approximately 1,100 were wounded.
The incident was followed by uncivilised brutalities on the inhabitants of Amritsar. Martial law was proclaimed in Punjab, and public floggings and other humiliations were perpetrated.
To take just one instance, Indians were forced to crawl on their bellies down the road on which the English missionary had been assaulted. The entire nation was stunned. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Gandhi gave up the title of Kaiser-i-Hind, bestowed by the British for his work during the Boer War.
What had happened in Amritsar made Gandhi declare that cooperation with a ‘satanic regime’ was now impossible. He realised that the cause of Indian independence from British rule was morally righteous. The way to the Non-Cooperation Movement was ready.
The events of 1919 were to shape Punjab’s politics of resistance. Bhagat Singh was just 11 at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. For Bhagat Singh’s Bharat Naujawan Sabha, the massacre was to act as a symbol that would help overcome the apathy that came in the wake of the end of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
Udham Singh, who bore the name, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, later assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor who presided over the brutal British suppression of the 1919 protests in Punjab. Udham Singh was hanged in 1940 for his deed.

The opposition to the Rowlatt Act led to some violence in Punjab. Later, the arrest of Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satyapal led to an attack on the town hall, telegraph wires were cut and Europeans, including women, were attacked. Marcella Sherwood, an English woman missionary going on a bicycle, was beaten up.
Troops were sent immediately to quell the disturbances. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer was the senior British officer with the responsibility to impose martial law and restore order. By then, the city had returned to calm and the protests that were being held were peaceful. Dyer, however, issued a proclamation on April 13 (which was also Baisakhi) forbidding people from leaving the city without a pass and from organising demonstrations or processions, or assembling in groups of more than three.
On Baisakhi day, a large crowd of people, mostly from the neighbouring villages, unaware of the prohibitory orders in the city, gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, a popular place for public events, to celebrate the Baisakhi festival. Local leaders had also called for a protest meeting at the venue. It is not clear how many in the 20,000 odd people collected there were political protestors, but the majority were those who had collected for the festival. Meanwhile, the meeting had gone on peacefully, and two resolutions, one calling for the repeal of the Rowlatt Act and the other condemning the firing, had been passed. It was then that Brigadier-General Dyer arrived on the scene with his men.
The troops surrounded the gathering under orders from General Dyer and blocked the only exit point and opened fire on the unarmed crowd. No warning was issued; no instruction to disperse was given. An unarmed gathering of men, women and children was fired upon as they tried to flee.
According to the official British Indian sources, 379 were identified dead and approximately 1,100 were wounded.
The incident was followed by uncivilised brutalities on the inhabitants of Amritsar. Martial law was proclaimed in Punjab, and public floggings and other humiliations were perpetrated.
To take just one instance, Indians were forced to crawl on their bellies down the road on which the English missionary had been assaulted. The entire nation was stunned. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Gandhi gave up the title of Kaiser-i-Hind, bestowed by the British for his work during the Boer War.
What had happened in Amritsar made Gandhi declare that cooperation with a ‘satanic regime’ was now impossible. He realised that the cause of Indian independence from British rule was morally righteous. The way to the Non-Cooperation Movement was ready.
The events of 1919 were to shape Punjab’s politics of resistance. Bhagat Singh was just 11 at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. For Bhagat Singh’s Bharat Naujawan Sabha, the massacre was to act as a symbol that would help overcome the apathy that came in the wake of the end of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
Udham Singh, who bore the name, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, later assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor who presided over the brutal British suppression of the 1919 protests in Punjab. Udham Singh was hanged in 1940 for his deed.

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