Amritsar 1919

by Kim Wagner

  At 3am, Gerard and Jacob roused O’Dwyer from his sleep and an impromptu meeting was held, which included Kitchin and Thomson, still in their nightgowns.75 Irving’s coded telegram had arrived at Lahore, but was undecipherable and so no-one knew exactly what had occurred in Amritsar just over 30 miles away.76 Jacob handed O’Dwyer the report from Irving, which read as follows:

  A meeting had been advertised for 4.30 that day, and the General had said he would attend it with 100 men. I did not think that the meeting would be held, or if held would disperse, so I asked the General to excuse me, as I wanted to go to the Fort.

  I learnt that the Military found a large meeting of some five thousand men, and opened fire without warning, killing about two hundred. Firing went on for about ten minutes.

  I went through the city at night with the General, and all was absolutely still.

  I much regret that I was not present, but when out previously with the Military the greatest forbearance had been used in making the people disperse. I had absolutely no idea of the action being taken.77

  This was not a report of the events at Jallianwala Bagh, as much as an attempt by Irving to absolve himself of any responsibility. Gerard had been quite vocal in his denunciation of Dyer’s actions and blamed the absence of a civil official for what had taken place.78 Melicent later described the exchange between her husband and the Lieutenant-Governor:

  Then Gerard (as was his way) spoke his mind. He told Sir Michael that unless he wanted trouble in the future with the leaders & to stir up bitter political feeling both immediately & for years to come, he should immediately go to Amritsar himself – have Dyer replaced – & admit a mistake had been made – not in the actual firing – but in the amount that was done.79

  Although Gerard was not in possession of much information concerning the shooting at Jallianwala Bagh, and indeed no-one was at the time, he had gathered enough from speaking to Dyer and others at Ram Bagh to grasp the scale of massacre. In his diary-entry for 14 April, Chief Secretary Thompson described the meeting:

  Proceed at 4.10 to go over to Govt House. Wathen, Principal of Khalsa College, had arrived in excited state about Amritsar. ‘Only British troops fired. Shot men down like rabbits as they ran. Manjha up. Only thing that could save situation was that L.G. should disown action taken.’ D.C. was not there. He never thought meeting would take place. It was actually no British troops fired at all. In fact none were there. 1650 rounds fired – 50 rifles from 9th Gurkhas, 54th Sikhs + 59th Sind Rifles + 40 Gurkhas with kukris. Firing was under orders of general. Seems to have been a bloody business – 200–300 killed in a garden. Probably it will be justified by result.80

  O’Dwyer was visibly annoyed by the excitable principal’s attitude and Gerard was later told by Kitchin that the Lieutenant-Governor strongly objected to being addressed in such a manner.81 Gerard was eventually dismissed and returned to Amritsar, while O’Dwyer ordered Kitchin to find out from Dyer what had happened. At 6am on 14 April, Kitchin arrived at Amritsar, having rushed down from Lahore for the third time in as many days.82 He went straight to see Dyer:

  ‘Well, General, what about it?’ He said, ‘I have done my duty. It was a horrible duty. I haven’t slept all night, but it was the right thing to do.’ He asked me what Sir Michael O’Dwyer’s view was, and I told him that at the moment he had not expressed an opinion.83

  What Kitchin did not tell Dyer was the fact that he had been sent to Amritsar for the explicit purpose of ensuring ‘that there should be no more firing’. Gerard’s critique had, in other words, not fallen on completely deaf ears. It would also seem that Dyer was anxious for O’Dwyer’s approval, and even Kitchin must have questioned, in hindsight, the prudence of goading the military towards increasingly drastic measures to crush the ‘rebellion’.

  While the British authorities in Amritsar and Lahore had been busy throughout the night, the dead remained abandoned and exposed inside Jallianwala Bagh. One woman, however, had refused to leave her husband’s corpse despite the curfew. Like so many others, Ratan Devi had rushed to the Bagh to look for a relative but, by the time she found her husband, in a heap of bodies on the blood-soaked ground, there was no-one to help her carry him away.84 Alone in the dark, Ratan Devi pleaded with people in the surrounding houses but no-one came to her aid. And so she spent the night by the side of her husband’s corpse in what had become a garden of the dead:

  I found a bamboo stick which I kept in my hand to keep off dogs. I saw three men writhing in agony, a buffalo struggling in great pain; and a boy, about 12 years old, in agony entreated me not to leave the place. I told him that I could not go anywhere leaving the dead body of my husband. I asked him if he wanted any wrap, and if he was feeling cold, I could spread it over him. He asked for water, but water could not be procured at that place.85

  Finally, as the sun rose early next morning, Ratan Devi’s friends came and helped carry her husband’s body home. She finished her mournful story:

  I saw other people at the Bagh in search of their relatives. I passed my whole night there. It is impossible for me to describe what I felt. Heaps of dead bodies lay there, some on their backs and some with their faces upturned. A number of them were poor innocent children. I shall never forget the sight. I was all alone the whole night in that solitary jungle. Nothing but the barking of dogs, or the braying of donkeys was audible. Amidst hundreds of corpses, I passed my night, crying and watching. I cannot say more. What I experienced that night is known to me and to God.86

  In the early hours of 14 April, the acrid smell of funeral pyres once again greeted the inhabitants of Amritsar. This morning, however, the dead could be counted in the hundreds. Lal Gian Chand was among the hundreds of grieving families who were cremating their relatives at the Hindu Durgiana temple just outside the Lohgarh Gate: ‘There was nobody present there, to register the number of the dead persons. Within one hour of our arrival in Durgiana, about 70 more dead bodies came for cremation, and others were following.’87 At the Sultanwind Gate, a local villager observed the constant stream of corpses being taken to the Muslim burial ground outside the city for an hour and a half.88 By nightfall, bodies were still being removed from Jallianwala Bagh. ‘It was thus,’ Girdhari Lal noted laconically, ‘that the people of Amritsar held their Baisakhi fair.’89

  CHAPTER 10

  FORCES OF TERROR

  14–30 APRIL

  On the morning of 14 April, Dyer wrote up a report of his actions to be submitted to his superior in Lahore, Major-General Beynon. The report covered the period since he had arrived at Amritsar on 11 April, but, most importantly, contained Dyer’s first account of what had taken place at Jallianwala Bagh:

  I was aware that the inhabitants had been warned they were not to hold meetings or followings, and that if they did so they would be fired on. To further enforce my wishes, a proclamation was proclaimed on morning of 13th by beat of drum in many of the main streets of the city, warning the inhabitants that unlawful acts would be punished by military force. On my way back from the city I was informed that the disaffected characters of the city had ordered a meeting in the Jallianwallah Bagh at 16.30 hours. I did not think this meeting would take place in the face of what I had done.

  At 16.00 hours I received a report from the police that a gathering was beginning in the place mentioned above.

  I immediately sent picquets to hold various gates of the city and marched with 25 rifles, 9th Gurkhas, and 25 rifles from detachments of 54th Sikhs F.F. and 59th Rifles F.F. making a total of 50 rifles, and also 40 Gurkhas armed with kukris. Two armoured cars also accompanied this party.

  I entered the Jallianwallah Bagh by a very narrow lane which necessitated my leaving my armoured cars behind.

  On entering I saw a dense crowd estimated at about 5,000; a man on a raised platform addressing the audience and making gesticulation with his hands.

  I realized that my force was small and to hesitate might induce attack. I immediately opened fire and dispersed the crowd.
>
  I estimate between 200 and 300 of the crowd were killed. My party fired 1,650 rounds.

  I returned to my Headquarters about 18.00 hours.

  At 22.00 hours accompanied by a force, I visited all my picquets and marched through the city in order to make sure that my orders as to inhabitants not being out of their houses after 20.00 had been obeyed.

  The city was absolutely quiet and not a soul to be seen.

  I returned to Headquarters at midnight. The inhabitants have asked permission to bury the dead in accordance with my orders. This I am allowing.

  Your most obedient Servant

  R.E. Dyer

  Brig.-General, Commanding 45th Brigade1

  The estimate of the casualties he had inflicted, Dyer later explained, was based ‘on experience in France, which pointed to one man killed for every 6 shots fired being a reasonable estimate’.2 The only assessment made by Dyer was thus based on the 1,650 rounds fired, with no consideration of the size of the crowd, nor indeed the layout of Jallianwala Bagh. Given how the point-blank firing into a densely packed crowd actually differed from the battlefields of France, this could hardly be described as ‘a reasonable estimate’. This was a somewhat perfunctory report, yet, considering that Dyer, his superiors in the military, and the Punjab administration, all perceived Amritsar to be ‘in a state of open rebellion’, there would have been no need to elaborate on his threat assessment, nor to explain why opening fire had been necessary. Indian crowds were considered to be inherently dangerous, as O’Dwyer himself made quite clear: ‘Anyone who knows what the condition of the Amritsar mob was at the time will realise that once having tasted loot and blood, nothing but force would have had any effect to disperse.’3 The wording in Dyer’s report, ‘to hesitate might induce attack’, did not exclude the possibility that he had already decided to open fire if he found a crowd to have gathered, nor does it suggest that he opened fire solely because he was outnumbered and afraid of being overrun. The report simply indicated that he believed there was no time to either issue a warning or to fire warning shots.

  When Beynon received the report that morning, 14 April, he immediately sent a reply to Dyer: ‘General Officer commanding Amritsar instructed not to take too drastic measures as he should now have situation well in hand.’4 Beynon later that day relayed the content of the report to O’Dwyer. Since Dyer appeared keen to have his actions approved, as he had indicated to Kitchin at Amritsar in the morning, Beynon asked O’Dwyer whether he could convey this to the General. The Lieutenant-Governor was initially hesitant to give his approval of a purely military matter of which he knew little, but talked it through with his advisers:

  General Beynon [. . .] told me that he believed Dyer’s action had crushed the rebellion at its heart, Amritsar. My own view, based on my knowledge of the people and the opinions of competent judges like the Commissioner, Mr. Kitchin, was that not only did Dyer’s action kill the rebellion at Amritsar but, as the news got round, would prevent its spreading elsewhere.5

  O’Dwyer was eventually convinced, and a telegram was sent to Dyer by aeroplane, since the lines were down: ‘Your action correct and Lieutenant-Governor approves.’6 And so it was that the Punjab Government committed itself in its support for Dyer.7 Immediately after Wathen had handed O’Dwyer Irving’s report in the early hours of 14 April, the Government of India had been informed that an illegal gathering had been dispersed by firing and that about 200 had been killed.8 Following the receipt of Dyer’s report, that too was sent to Chelmsford and the Government at Simla.

  At this point, there were still people lying wounded inside Jallianwala Bagh. Dyer was later to claim that, after he left the Bagh with his troops in the evening of 13 April, people were able to get medical attention.9 While he did allow people to bury the victims early next morning, however, Dyer was being deliberately disingenuous. The curfew had come into operation at 8pm, a couple of hours after the massacre, and Dyer marched through the city before midnight to ensure it was being observed. Dyer had, in other words, effectively prevented medical aid from being rendered to the hundreds of people left behind. He was, furthermore, not alone in actively withholding medical care from the injured in Amritsar. All of those who had been wounded on 10 April, and who were treated by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, were subsequently arrested, and on the 11th and 12th several others were turned away from the hospital.10 On 13 April, when hundreds of people required urgent attention for severe bullet-wounds, people were thus too afraid to approach the hospitals managed by Europeans. Dyer himself acknowledged this: ‘The crowd was [. . .] free to ask for medical aid, but this they avoided doing lest they themselves be proved to have attended the assembly.’11

  Immediately after the shooting, hundreds of wounded were taken to the house of Sub-Assistant Surgeon, Dr Ishar Das Bhati, in Karmon Deori, halfway between Jallianwala Bagh and Hathi Gate. A handful of local doctors and assistants came to help, but without proper medical equipment all they could do was render first aid; many of the injured were too severely wounded and died.12 As the evening wore on, more casualties kept coming in, and one of the doctors, overwhelmed by the impossibility of treating everyone, noted how ‘the whole place in front of the house and the surrounding shops were all full of wounded persons’.13 The effort to save those with injuries, or simply ease their suffering, was brought to an abrupt end when the curfew came into force, as one man who was helping out described: ‘About 8pm some policemen came there, and said that we must all go to our houses immediately; else, as Martial Law had been declared, we were likely to be shot if found outdoors after 8pm.’14 Everyone accordingly withdrew to their houses.

  Many of the wounded who had been fortunate enough to have been taken home, were thus unable to get treatment inside the city once the curfew came into effect on the 13th.15 A 32-year-old man named Davi Chand was taken away by friends after he received three bullet-wounds in the leg at Jallianwala Bagh, as his father recounted:

  On reaching home, medical aid was sent for, but none was available. Some of the Doctors refused to come as it was past seven, and on account of Martial Law persons were afraid to stir out of doors. Others refused to come, being afraid of the Martial Law authorities. Some frankly confessed, that they had been prohibited by the Martial Law authorities from attending on the victims of the Martial Law.

  The result was, that on account of excessive bleeding and for want of medical aid, the bullets having not been extracted, my son expired the next morning, leaving behind him a young widow and 2 orphans.16

  The local doctors nevertheless did everything they could to help next morning, once the curfew was over for the night. Kidarnath, who had been treating the wounded outside Mrs Easdon’s hospital on 10 April, once more found himself busy trying to save the lives of those who had been shot by the authorities. In the days following the shooting at Jallianwala Bagh, he attended to more than twenty patients, and noted the similar locations of their wounds, ‘generally on the back-part and some were on the soles of the feet showing that they had been fired on when they were lying on the ground’.17 An Assistant Surgeon, Dr Devi Das, who treated about thirty people during the aftermath, noted the same pattern: ‘The wounded told me at the time, that they had been shot as they were running away or climbing over the wall which enclose the Bagh. My examination of the wounds also leads me to believe, that this must have occurred in the majority of cases.’18

  Dr Bal Mukund, Smith’s assistant, went to see two patients on 14 April but found that they had serious fractures that required treatment in a hospital. When the patients expressed concern that Smith would not treat them and that they were afraid to approach him for help, Bal Mukund promised to intercede on their behalf. Smith, however, was not inclined to listen to his assistant, as Bal Mukund described: ‘Colonel Smith accused me of going to the Jallianwala Bagh meeting. I denied this. Then he said that he knew that I had been treating the wounded in the city, and that I wanted him also to treat them. He said we should go to Satyapal and Kitc
hlew for treatment.’19 Bal Mukund was subsequently ordered to go to the small railway hospital, next to Govindgarh Fort, which people from the city could not access. Smith, who was armed and in full uniform, told his assistant to remain there until he received further orders, threatening Bal Mukund: ‘If you are absent even for five minutes from there, you will be tied to a tree in the Ram Bagh, and flogged with other badmashes of the city.’20 While it may not have been official British policy, Dyer’s enforcement of the curfew and Smith’s withholding of assistance reflected a callous indifference to Indian lives, and in the aftermath of the massacre, the deliberate negligence added to the death toll. In the early hours of 14 April, Girdhari Lal had gone back to Jallianwala Bagh: ‘As I passed near the corner of the garden towards the bazar near the Hansli, I saw about seven or eight dead bodies lying there still, in and about the manhole. I could not make up my mind after this sight to enter the garden again, and returned home.’21 Later in the day, Girdhari Lal saw the ‘dead bodies being carried in very large numbers’ to the cremation grounds near his factory.22 Dyer was himself actually forced to witness the grim outcome of his own actions when he gave permissions for burials, noting that ‘I saw all the dead bodies going by next morning.’23

  On 19 April 1919, the news reached London and The Times noted briefly that: ‘At Amritsar on April 13, the mob defied the proclamation forbidding public meetings. Firing ensued, and 200 casualties occurred.’24 Crucially, the 200–300 killed in Dyer’s estimation had during the dissemination of the news imperceptibly become ‘200 casualties’.25 Amid reports on the bombing of rioters from aeroplanes at Kasur, and continuing unrest throughout Punjab – and elsewhere in the Empire – the meagre details about the shooting at Jallianwala Bagh thus simply failed to make much of an impression. During the subsequent months, O’Dwyer and his administration at Lahore made no attempts to correct the impression in the imperial metropole that this had been a minor incident. In his communication with Montagu, O’Dwyer thus appears to have been deliberately vague about the numbers and exact circumstances of the events at Amritsar.26 The official line, so far, was that Dyer’s ‘prompt action’ had ‘paralysed the movement before it had time to spread’. Even Gerard, who had little affection for either the Lieutenant-Governor or the military, expressed a similar view: ‘There was a feeling that the British Government had ceased to exist and the meeting which General Dyer fired on was against orders. If General Dyer had gone to the meeting and had come away again without dispersing it, it would have been extremely serious. There had to be some firing; the question was, “How much?”’27