Jallianwala Bagh  [Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar]

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Jallianwala Bagh (Hindi: जलियांवाला बाग़) is a public garden in Amritsar in the Punjab state of India, and houses a memorial of national importance, established in 1951 by the Government of India, to commemorate the massacre of peaceful celebrators including unarmed women and children by British occupying forces, on the occasion of the Punjabi New Year on 13 April 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Colonial British Raj sources identified 379 fatalities and estimated about 1100 wounded.^[1] Civil Surgeon Dr. Smith indicated that there were 1,526 casualties.^[2] The true figures of fatalities are unknown, but are very likely to be many times higher than the official figure of 379.

The 6.5-acre (26,000 m²) garden site of the massacre is located in the vicinity of Golden Temple complex, the holiest shrine of Sikhism.

The memorial is managed by the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust, which was established as per the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act,

On 13 April, Brigadier General R.E.H. Dyer^[3][4] arrived from Jalandhar Cantonment, and virtually occupied the town as civil administration under Miles Irving, the Deputy Commissioner, had come to standstill. On Sunday, 13 April 1919, Dyer was convinced of a major insurrection and he banned all meetings; however, this notice was not widely disseminated. That was the day of Baisakhi, the main Sikh festival, and many villagers had gathered in the Bagh. On hearing that a meeting had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer went with ninety Sikh, Gurkha, Baluchi, Rajput troops from 2-9th Gurkhas, the 54th Sikhs and the 59th Sind Rifles ^[5] to a raised bank and ordered them to shoot at the crowd. Dyer continued the firing for about ten minutes, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted; Dyer stated that 1,650 rounds had been fired, a number which seems to have been derived by counting empty cartridge cases picked up by the troops. Official British Indian sources gave a figure of 379 identified dead, with approximately 1,200 wounded. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500, with approximately 1,000 dead.

Jallianwala Bagh Overview

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Jallianwala Bagh is a public garden in Amritsar famous for one of the most tragic yet landmark events in the history of India. This is where the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 took place.

The British Army soldiers upon receiving orders from General Dyer opened fire on a huge, unarmed gathering of men, women and children on April 13, 1919.

There is a well inside Jallianwala Bagh into which many people including children jumped to save themselves from the firing. The garden also houses a memorial built in honour of the massacre victims. The portion of the wall with bullet marks along with the well is preserved as a memorial. A light and sound show is hosted here every evening. The act, narrated using actor Amitabh Bachhan’s voice, recreates the events of 1919 that took place at Jallianwala Bagh and is quite an interesting and stirring experience. But don’t forget to bring mosquito repellent if you plan to attend the show!

Jallianwala Bagh is situated close to the Golden Temple and is a must visit when in Amritsar.

• Opening Closing Time7 am to 5 pm
• Entrance FeeFree Entry

The 1919 massacre at Amritsar – known more prominently in history as Jallianwala Bagh Massacre – is easily one of the most sordid episodes of the chequered history of India. As history goes, the inhuman chain of events on the fateful day was spawned by General Reginald Dyer. The incident took place on 13th April – a Sunday when the whole of Punjab was celebrating Baisakhi.

Historic background

Regimental diaries of adjutants from Gorkha Battalion suggest that the 9th April mob attack on a British school teacher named Sherwood was the main catalyst for the killings. However, this was just a ruse. In actuality, Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, and Dyer, who was leading a brigade in neighbouring Jalandhar, feared that there would be a repeat of 1857 in the state and they wanted to repress it anyhow. This whole massacre was a part of that scheme.

What happened on that day?

On that day, under the stewardship of General Dyer, 90 soldiers of the British Indian army came to a gathering being organized at Jallianwala Bagh. Of them, 25 were from Baluchistan, which is now a part of Pakistan, and the rest were Gorkha soldiers. These 90 soldiers were armed with guns.

Dyer had also brought a couple of armoured cars with mounted machine guns, but since the entrance to the ground was narrow, he had to leave those cars outside. Dyer had himself stated later on that if he had taken those cars inside the gates the casualties could have been higher. The meeting had started at 4:30 pm – the scheduled time – and Dyer reached the place an hour after that.

Dyer first marched his riflemen to a raised platform and from there he ordered them to kneel and fire. Having got there, they started to shoot on the people who had gathered there. Apart from men, the gathering included women and children. They did not even bother to warn the people who had assembled over there.

It is known that there were so many people at the Bagh that the soldiers had to reload a number of times as they were ordered to shoot with the precise intention to kill. It is said that they fired 1,650 rounds in all! When one considers that the assembly of people at the Bagh was unarmed, the sheer monstrosity and general apathy towards human life reflected in the genocide strikes one’s consciousness.

Lives lost and damaged

At the end of the killing spree, 379 individuals had lost their lives according to estimates by British Raj. Over a thousand persons were wounded to various extents. According to Dr. William DeeMeddy, a civil surgeon at that time, 1,526 people had either died or been injured. Indian National Congress estimates had placed the number of casualties at 1,500 with around 1,100 people losing their lives.

Why did so many people die on that day?

The Bagh was blocked on every side by buildings and houses. There were some narrow entrances but most of them had been locked permanently. The main entry had already been blocked by the shooters. Dyer had not given these people any warning that he was going to shoot them and as such they were not prepared to escape or even plead for mercy.

He had also asked his soldiers to shoot at the densest parts of the gathering. Shooting was, however, not the only cause for these deaths. Many people lost their lives in the ensuing stampede as well. A lot of people tried jumping into the well located in the garden. The plaque at that site says 120 dead bodies had been recovered from the well. The colonial government was also thoughtful enough to have declared a curfew on that night, which ensured that a lot of the wounded people could not be moved on that day. This led to more deaths.

Aftermath

The colonial administration instituted an inquiry committee to look into the genocide in July 1919 – three months after the incident – and invited people to come forward and report any death or injury that may have occurred during that fateful day. It was on basis of that faulty method that it reached its calculations. One can assume here – and rightfully so – that not many people would have been too willing to come forward and thus be marked by the British Raj. In fact, some members admitted that the figure may have been higher than the official statistic.

As is usual in such circumstances, the British government tried its best to make sure that news of the killings did not spread all around. However, it did come to national notice and there was furious backlash. People in Britain got to know of this only by December 1919.

In his communication with his superiors, Dyer termed the unarmed congregation that he slaughtered to be ‘a revolutionary army’. His actions were officially approved by O’Dwyer. He had asked for martial law to be imposed on Amritsar and it was granted by Lord Chelmsford, the-then Viceroy, following the massacre.

Edwin Montagu, then the Secretary of State for India, led Hunter Commission, which was created in later 1919 to look into the incident. Dyer appeared before the commission, but he showed no compunction for what he had done. Since his superiors had supported his actions, the commission did not sentence any disciplinary or punitive measures. He was later, however, found guilty of a mistaken perception of duty and excused from his post.

O’Dwyer was later killed at Caxton Hall, London on 31st July, 1940 by Udham Singh, who had watched the whole event with his own eyes as an orphan...............................................................................