Jallianwala Bagh – a ‘shameful event in British history’: UK PM David Cameron
On a visit to Amritsar, British Prime Minister David Cameron described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 as “a deeply shameful event in British history.”
“We must never forget what happened here,” he said of the shooting of nearly 1000 peaceful Indian protestors by British troops on the orders of General Reginald Dyer.
“This was a deeply shameful act in British history, one that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as ‘monstrous.’ We must never forget what happened here and we must ensure that the UK stands up for the right of peaceful protests around the world”, Mr Cameron wrote in the visitors’ book at the memorial site. Before that, he paid his respects at the holiest shrine for the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple.
Mr Cameron’s three-day visit to India has focused heavily on the potential of Indo-British ties, particularly business collaborations.
The gesture, coming on the third and final day of a visit to India aimed at drumming up trade and investment. British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the site of a colonial-era massacre in India on Wednesday, February 20, 2013, describing the episode as “deeply shameful” while stopping short of a public apology.
British Prime Minister David Cameron pays his respects at the site of a notorious 1919 massacre of hundreds of Indians by British colonial forces, in Amritsar, India, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013UK PM Cameron David paying tribute to Jallianwalla Bagh Martyr’sBritish PM Cameron David paying tribute to Jallianwalla Bagh Martyr’s
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre), took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on 13 April 1919. The shooting that took place was ordered by Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer.
On Sunday, 13 April 1919, Dyer went with fifty riflemen to a raised bank and ordered them to shoot at the crowd a meeting of 15,000 to 20,000 people including women, children and the elderly had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh. Dyer continued the firing for about ten minutes, till 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 1,100 wounded. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500, with approximately 1,000 dead at the spot.
On 13 April, the traditional festival of Vaisakhi, thousands of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh (garden) near the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar.
An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30 pm, Dyer arrived with a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh. Fifty of them were armed with rifles. Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns; however, the vehicles were left outside, as they were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance. The Jallianwala Bagh was surrounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow entrances. Most of them were kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wide, but was guarded by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles.
Dyer, without warning the crowd to disperse blocked the main exits. He explained later that this act “was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience. Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting toward the densest sections of the crowd (including women and children). Firing continued for approximately ten minutes. Cease-fire was ordered only when ammunition supplies were almost exhausted, after approximately 1,650 rounds were spent.
Many people died in stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into the solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. A plaque in the monument at the site, set up after independence, says that 120 bodies were pulled out of the well. The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew was declared; and many more died during the night. (Courtesy : Wikipedia)
Jallianwala Bagh – Bullet Marks
The Martyr’s well at Jallianwala Bagh
The Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919, months after the massacreJallianwala Bagh massacre memorialNarrow passage to Jallianwala Bagh Garden through which the shooting was conductedMichaelO Dwyer
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