Amritsar Massacre: Centenary

Question for Short Debate

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Amritsar massacre.

My Lords, speakers in this debate are limited to four minutes so time is very tight. As ever, if we overrun, we take time from the Minister, so I ask all noble Lords to stick to the allocated time and I thank your Lordships in advance.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for agreeing to our request for this debate. It is a privilege to be able to put this Question to your Lordships, surrounded by so many noble Lords who have pledged their support to encourage the Government to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Amritsar massacre. I hope that the Government will finally realise that now is the time to make amends and offer a formal apology for the atrocities; I will come to that later in my speech. I declare my interest as a member of the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration Committee.

Much has been written about what happened on 13 April 1919 in the Jallianwala Bagh. Jallianwala is a place and “bagh” is the Punjabi word for “park”. I myself come from the area of Amritsar and, even though I was not around at that time, I heard many stories passed down the generations, especially through my grandmother. I have also visited the park many times and seen for myself the bullet holes in the walls and the well from which 150 bodies were extracted. Around the park, many stories are written on placards and stones, and it is impossible to come away from the place without tears rolling down your face. It is a shocking event to recall, even after 100 years. As Winston Churchill said during a debate in the other place:

“That is an episode which appears to me to be without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire. It is an event of an entirely different order from any of those tragical occurrences which take place when troops are brought into collision with the civil population. It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/1920; col. 1725.]

People, including children, had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh to protest about the arrest of some of their leaders earlier in the week. Martial law was in force at the time. Brigadier General Dyer took the view that the gathering was not only illegal but an expression of defiance against the authorities. Ordering his soldiers to the spot, he blocked all the exits. The people were trapped like rats, and fired upon without warning or any order to disperse. The firing continued on the crowd until the soldiers ran out of ammunition. It is not clear how many people, including children, died that day. But many who were injured and died later were not counted—they had been afraid of going to hospital in case they would be arrested for having defied the martial law.

My Lords, for such a critical period in India’s history, this short debate cannot give true justice to the thousands of lives that were lost, injured and impacted on, on that tragic day, 13 April 1919, at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, India. On the instructions of Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, General Dyer ordered troops to fire on men, women and children who had come together to enjoy and share one of the most auspicious days in the Sikh calendar, Vaisakhi.

I was born in Amritsar. In fact, my mother went into labour with me at the Shri Harmandir Sahib Gurudwara, the Golden Temple, where she went for her daily prayers with my grandmother. I feel incredibly blessed to have started my life in the most revered religious place of the Sikh faith. I have visited Jallianwala Bagh and the Golden Temple many times, often when I needed to take difficult decisions or when I was looking to start a new venture. I go there for clarity in my decision-making process and to reflect on the impact my decisions will have on others.

Why is this relevant to the debate today? This massacre did not just affect the Sikh community; it was a turning point in the minds of those who were leading the free India movement. That most horrific day in history remains in the memories of Indians all over the world even today. This act of complete disregard—opening fire on innocent people who had no escape routes or an opportunity to voice their protests—is truly a black cloud in British history. As such, when world history is taught, it is and must be relevant to have these events recorded and taught in history lessons for a number of purposes, among them teaching the importance of identifying the consequences of decisions that were wrong.

I am extremely grateful for the work and support of Lady Kishwar Desai in getting the Partition Museum built and opened in Amritsar, enabling people to have an understanding of India’s past from an Indian perspective. Even today, when I visit the Jallianwala Bagh, there is an eerie atmosphere—a feeling of sadness lingers in the air. How do we right this terrible wrong? I was pleased when the former Prime Minister David Cameron visited and paid his respects at the memorial. I was also pleased to see Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh go there to pay their respects.

My Lords, in the brief time I have, I want to concentrate on what the House of Lords did during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the discussions afterwards. It is a particularly sad episode in the history of your Lordships’ House. While the House of Commons condemned Dyer’s behaviour and cashiered him—Edwin Montagu, who was Secretary of State for India, made a very powerful speech and the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, has already quoted what Winston Churchill said that night about General Dyer’s behaviour—the House of Lords debated a Motion saying:

“That this House deplores the conduct of the case of General Dyer as unjust to that officer, and as establishing a precedent dangerous to the preservation of order in face of rebellion”.—[Official Report, 19/7/1920; col. 222.]

It was introduced by Viscount Finlay. There were 10 speakers and, at the end, the Motion was passed.

At some stage, the House of Lords ought to reflect on its own behaviour. I do not have time to go through what was said in any detail, but Viscount Finlay’s objections were mainly that Dyer was misjudged, that he really was facing an armed rebellion and therefore that he had every right to do what he did. He also said that the Hunter Commission, which was appointed to investigate this, had three Indian members, and that that was not the right thing to do because they were partisan, and the partisan commission ruled against Dyer. As it happened, both the majority report and the minority report of the Hunter commission condemned Dyer—but let us leave that aside.

The view was taken that somehow injustice had been done to a brave officer who was putting down a rebellion. The nightmare of the 1857 rebellion haunted some of the officers in Punjab at that time and they overreacted. Punjab was under martial law and it was not only Jallianwala Bagh which was a problem. Throughout April and after, there was martial law in Punjab. Lahore suffered as much as the rest of Punjab and Gujranwala, a small town which is now in Pakistan, was bombed from the air to control what the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, thought was happening. It was a very unusual moment in which Punjab was held almost captive.

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Loomba is a recognised advocate of the rights of women, especially widows, and he has a formidable reputation as a philanthropist, both in the UK and in his home state of Punjab. Once a Liberal, he crossed to the Cross-Benches, saying that he wished to,

“concentrate on issues such as human rights”,

so it is natural that he should be concerned about this event, alongside many others.

Horrific as the massacre was, my first instinct was that this was too long ago and we cannot continue to regret events so far in the past. In the last 100 years, there have been many other incidents that should never have occurred. For India and Pakistan, partition will be the most prominent of all and well within living memory. Then of course I remembered the extended families—the grandchildren and great-grandchildren—who still live in and around Amritsar with the memory and the scars of that terrible day.

Of course, there were genuine fears which led to the attack and it is easier to judge with hindsight. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said, the 1920 vote in favour of General Dyer was disgraceful and should never have happened. We cannot wipe it from the record, but we can try to put it straight today. We all respect the decision of the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Loomba, to create education programmes that will ensure that this event is not forgotten. I am glad to say that my 14 year-old grandson told me today that he is already aware of it.

Uniquely brutal and misguided as the general was, the event must also be seen in the context of the decline of British imperialism and a gradual change in British attitudes. It was a turning point that helped Gandhi to reframe the remarkable doctrine of non-violence and satyagraha. It soon led to the salt march of 1930, the twists and turns in Whitehall and the inevitable political path up to partition and independence in 1947. But there is a paradox. Even at the time of the massacre, there were strong intellectual and cultural ties between the two countries. I lived in India in the 1960s and visited the Ramakrishna Mission on the Hooghly, where relations of mine were influenced by Swami Vivekananda even before 1900. I also became aware of the common ground that existed in the 1920s between Tagore in Bengal and many English families, including the Elmhirsts of Dartington. Last year saw the centenary of Sister Nivedita, who was born Margaret Noble and is still a legend in Bengal. These facts are to be set alongside the terrible event we are discussing.

In these few minutes, we should also be concerned about India today and the importance of human rights now. There has been another appalling massacre in Kashmir. To my mind, the ethnic divide in India is the most critical humanitarian issue in the coming election. With few exceptions, Indian Muslims are emphatically not terrorists. To my personal knowledge, they are upholders of dignity, integrity and many human virtues. Mr Modi does not have a good reputation among the Muslim minority and he has encouraged discrimination and worse in Maharashtra and in great cities such as Ahmedabad, where there are substantial Muslim populations. Talk of the resurgence of Congress under new leadership may be premature, but the Prime Minister, instead of flag-waving at Pakistan, needs to be more sensitive to the needs of his own Muslim minorities.

My Lords, we must put this appalling atrocity in context. It led from the First World War, in which more than 1 million Indians served and 74,000 made the ultimate sacrifice, in the expectation that after the war they would be rewarded with some measure of self-government. The punitive Rowlatt Act went back on this totally. Of course, there were protests in Punjab in March and April 1919. Then we had the actions of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, with the backing of the lieutenant-governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

The people who gathered peacefully—up to 15,000 people from the outskirts on Baisakhi day on 13 April—were Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, and included women and children. They assembled in the walled garden, which the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, spoke about. I thank him for initiating the debate. It was a popular spot. Many of them probably had no idea that they were doing something supposedly illegal. When Brigadier-General Dyer came there, he ordered the firing without any warning. They did not fire in the air; they just fired at these women, children and non-violent individuals. They fired 1,650 rounds, officially killing 379 people, but it was probably nearer 1,000, with more than 1,000 wounded. They virtually ran out of ammunition. This is why it is called the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The worst thing is that Dyer never showed any remorse or regret. In fact, he said that he had personally directed the fire towards the exits. He called the victims “the targets”, which were very “good”. He forbade his soldiers from giving any aid to the wounded. He forbade the families from coming to attend these people for 24 hours. This is barbarism at its worst. Then he was rewarded in Britain with £26,000 from a public campaign and presented with a jewelled sword of honour. The poor families and the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre were given 500 rupees each. It is no wonder that my friend, the Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, who wrote the book Inglorious Empire, has said:

My Lords, I am glad that we have the time to debate this important issue. I thank my noble colleagues for securing the required time.

This is a very sad story, and one for which the key facts deserve to be retold. On Sunday 13 April 1919, a large group of mainly Sikhs, but also Hindus and Muslims, had gathered in the courtyard of the Jallianwala Bagh. It was the day of Baisakhi, a Sikh festival, and a large gathering had formed. However, many were not celebrating. Many were merely civilians, living their lives, engaging in commerce and providing for their families. The atmosphere, above all, was peaceful.

That was until Reginald Dyer, now widely known as the butcher of Amritsar, arrived. He sought to disperse the crowd, not by peaceful but by wholly unjustified and entirely disproportionate means, firing over their heads and shooting into the crowds fleeing through the narrow exit passageways, the largest of which he blocked off with armoured vehicles. He later stated that he only stopped his soldiers firing due to a lack of ammunition. Some 1,600 innocents were murdered, with up to 1,000 more injured. I believe that this shameful event was the trigger for what became the independence movement.

The reaction back home was immediate and scarcely less shameful. It ought to be a black mark on the reputation of this place that in July the following year we voted to condone the massacre and the man who led it. Following the censure of Mr Dyer in the other place, this House passed a Motion that,

“this House deplores the conduct of the case of General Dyer as unjust to that officer, and as establishing a precedent dangerous to the preservation of order in face of rebellion”.

In a particularly ill-informed speech, Viscount Finlay went on to say that Dyer,

“took every step to avert bloodshed in the way of warning the population and endeavouring to secure that the law should be obeyed without recourse to arms”.—[Official Report, 19/7/1920; col. 227.]

He said those words despite claiming to have read the Hunter commission, the minority and majority report of which both recognised that no notice was given of the opening of fire, and that lethal force was used as the first resort, not as the last. I confess that going over that debate again has made me extremely sad at the disregard for human life shown in this place at that time.

There are those who say that the past is a foreign country which ought to be left and disturbed as little as possible. There are those, including the previous Administration, who have refused to offer up a full apology, although good steps have been taken, most notably by the Queen and the previous Prime Minister, to address the immense hurt and suffering caused at that time. But more needs to be done. It is the mark of a solemn and grown-up country to apologise for past crimes. Justin Trudeau was content to apologise for the shameful record of his country in turning away Jewish refugees in 1939. Tony Blair was content to apologise in 2007 for the UK’s record of slavery. I ask the Minister directly: what good reason is there, in this auspicious centenary year, to withhold a full and frank apology for the massacre?

My noble friend Lord Loomba’s eloquent speech and the erudite account by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, in The Rediscovery of India, of what occurred on 13 April 1919 at Amritsar, Jallianwala Bagh, remind us that brave Indian soldiers returning from World War I trenches wanted change. They then encountered two entirely different men: Mahatma Gandhi, with his commitment to peaceful change, and General Reginald Dyer, who, as we have been reminded, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons had resorted to,

“frightfulness… the inflicting of great slaughter or massacre… with the intention of terrorising not merely the rest of the crowd, but the whole district or the whole country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/1920; col. 1728.]

A group of people had peacefully gathered to hold a prohibited public meeting. The response was wholly disproportionate and excessive. Although the House of Commons excoriated Dyer by denouncing his actions as an act of “brutality” that had “stunned this entire nation”, your Lordships’ House offered Dyer accolades. Perhaps today we can atone and help to heal that shocking moment of our history.

While we mark the Amritsar massacre, we must not neglect the other frightful tragedies currently unfolding in many parts of the world, in countries such as Burma and Sudan, which, like the Punjab, I have visited. On 12 February 2019—72 years since 12 February 1947, when ethnic and religious minorities in Burma, including the persecuted Rohingya Muslims and Kachin Christians, were promised autonomy within a federal Burma—over a thousand Karennis peacefully protested against the erection of a statue to General Aung San, the founder of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese army. The United Nations reported:

“Police fired rubber bullets and used batons and water cannons injuring up to 15 protesters in Loikaw, the capital of Kayah State and home to the Karenni ethnic minority”.

My Lords, in the catalogue of crimes which featured in the defence of empire, from the suppression of the so-called Indian mutiny onwards, the Amritsar massacre is just about the worst. The conscience of the world was horrified by the events that other noble Lords have described so well.

Britain in 1919 was a hard, nationalist country; very prominent were the die-hards, the so-called “hard-faced men” of whom Keynes wrote. This was seen in Ireland, in relation to immigrants, and in the anti-Semitism which imposed itself on the Secretary of State for India, the Jewish Edwin Montagu. As it happens, the policy towards the empire and towards India was not so hostile during this period; on the contrary, with the Montagu-Chelmsford report the Government began a process of greater devolution and of bringing the Indians into government. But Amritsar, the pile of corpses in the bagh, changed all that.

The disaster, I believe, was to leave key decisions to the officers on the spot, who often had very limited understanding of the political factors and couched them in right-wing imperialist views. This was particularly true of Dyer. He was asked after the event by the Hunter commission if he had any regrets. He said “no”. He was asked whether he would have proceeded into the bagh himself, and he said “yes”—and just to make sure, he would carry a machine-gun with him. His troops were stationed in an area of the road where people would accumulate, and therefore as many as possible were shot. It was followed by other shameful events: public crawling across the area of the march, and disturbances and public floggings in areas where violence had occurred.

The Government acted in a more positive fashion. Lloyd George dismissed Dyer from his post, though not from the Army. Winston Churchill made a powerful defence of government policy in Parliament. In the House of Commons, there was much backing for General Dyer, particularly interestingly from the Irish Ulster Unionists who equated the treatment of Indian nationalists with the resistance to Sinn Fein in Ireland and the policy of the Black and Tans. The effect was to antagonise all the religious bodies and create a new generation of nationalists: Nehru, the Muslim Jinnah and, of course, Mahatma Gandhi, whose campaign of civil disobedience took on a powerful new course.