Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
  • Jallianwala Bagh Massacre April 10, 2009

    source: http://balchin-richards.net

    Ann Richards & Christopher Balchin message on the 1919 Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, in Amritsar

    IT is 80 years since my countrymen committed the vile massacre of hundreds of innocent men, women, and children at Jallianwala Bagh.I feel, more strongly than I can say, ashamed of England and what was done there in the name of the Empire. I wish I could tell every person in India how intensely I hate the injustice surrounding the entire British Raj, the false, ugly notion, upon which the British Empire was based, that Englishmen were more civilised, more intelligent, simply better than the people of India — whose culture was already over 4000 years old when the first British ships arrived. I am so sorry it ever happened.

    On April 13, 1919, General Reginald Dyer ordered his men to open fire on unarmed civilians, gathered peacefully in religious celebration and in protest at the harsh recently-imposed law outlawing assemblies. Nearly 400 of them were killed and thousands were wounded. Many jumped into the well and died rather than face the bullets. Had General Dyer been able to bring armoured cars into the compound the number of persons killed and wounded would have been even higher. He then issued an order forbidding anyone to help the poor, wounded, dying victims.

    I am sure that Dyer, who was born and raised in India, and spent years living there, did not see the Indian people as having the same kind of reality as his own thoughts and feelings. He saw them with contempt, as servants inferiors, to be commanded for their own good. This is shown graphically in another order he gave at Amritsar, to have every Indian person crawl past the place where a British woman was assaulted.If he had seen the people of Amritsar as having the same depth as himself — and I wish so much that he had — he could never have done what he did.

    Studying India we have learned about the great Ashoka who lived over two thousand years ago. His armies conquered Kalinga-present-day Orissa-a region previously outside his empire, leaving thousands dead. But, H.G. Wells writes:

    The expedition was successful, but he was disgusted by what he saw of the cruelties and horrors of war. He declared... that he would no longer seek conquest by war, but by religion ... He organised a great digging of wells in India, and the planting of trees for shade. He appointed officers for the supervision of charitable works. He founded hospitals and public gardens. He had gardens made for hte growing of medicinal herbs...He created a ministry for the care of the aborigines and subject races. He made provision for the education of women. He made, he was the first monarch to make, an attempt to educate his people into a common view of the ends and way of life. For eight and twenty years Ashoka worked sanely for the real needs of men. (The Outline of History, Macmillan." New York, 1920, p. 431-43)

    My students and I have been deeply affected by the change in Ashoka. He went from a conqueror to someone who saw those who seemed different from himself, those of a different race, the people who had been conquered, and the woman of India — at a time of limited freedom for women — as having meaning. The great change in him, for which he has been loved for centuries, stands for something every person is hoping for. Personally, I feel my life has been added to tremendously by what I have learned about him, and by the wealth of culture, languages, land and peoples of India. I need them to be fully myself.