According to him, they gave many suggestions, including wanting to ‘intern in jail the whole three thousand two hundred emigrants who had upto then returned and of whom we had only interned some two hundred in jail and seven hundred in their villages.’ He then set up a system whereby the prominent Sikhs would inform the Deputy Commissioner of the ‘conduct and reputation of the returned emigrants and their supporters’. While this led to a smooth system of functioning, according to him, it also led to the murder of some of the ‘loyal Sikh Sirdars’.
He was also extremely proud of another conspiracy that he had managed to scuttle: ‘Early in 1915, the Bengali Rash Behari, with the Mahratta Brahmin, Pingle, were the brains directing the revolutionary activities of the Ghadr Party, who were mainly Sikhs. Rash Bihari had established his headquarters at Amritsar, where he lived with other Bengalis, whom he and Pingle had brought up from Bengal to assist in bomb-making. These leaders were also active in endeavouring to enlist the support of Indian troops, specially Sikhs and Rajputs, in Northern India.’ Using informants, the British managed to quell the rebellion and on 19 February 1915, there was a raid on four homes in Lahore, during which they captured thirteen of the ‘most dangerous revolutionaries, with arms, bombs, bomb making material’. Though Rash Bihari escaped, Pingle was captured and later hanged. According to O’Dwyer, this conspiracy had ‘tainted’ a Sikh Squadron, which was eventually court-martialled. Eighteen of the regiment were sentenced to death and twelve were actually executed.
By 1919, O’Dwyer had managed to build an even larger network of informants—though he continued to fear a mutiny in the forces—and other conspiracies. As in Amritsar, and elsewhere in Lahore too, the policy of divide and rule (in this case, within the Sikh community itself) had worked and he was now looking forward to leaving his post in Punjab with an enviable reputation. Unfortunately for his plans, this was when the anti-Rowlatt Act movement began to have some repercussions in Lahore, where O’Dwyer was based, at Government House. Fond as he was of his shikar and his anecdotes of how he had cleansed Punjab of rebellion, he was determined not to leave behind a disorderly mess for his successor, MacLagan; he was sanguine about using strong measures.
In Lahore, a city of about 250,000 at the time, people had begun to show an increased interest in political activity, especially against the Rowlatt Acts. When Gandhi announced his Satyagraha Movement, very few in Lahore (unlike in Amritsar) actually took the satyagraha oath. It was the leaders in the city who spread the word about the proposed hartal, and the accompanying call to fast. According to the Hunter Committee Report, a notice was issued on 2 April by the Superintendent of Police that anyone convening or collecting an assembly or directing or promoting a procession in the public streets would have to apply for a licence.
When some leaders met with Fyson, the Deputy Commissioner of Lahore, on 5 April (they were even prepared to abandon the proposed meeting on 6 April), Fyson handed out the following regulations, according to the INC report:
All may endeavour, upto the evening of the 5th, to convince the citizens either for or against the hartal on the 6th April.
On the 6th there should be no canvassing one way or the other.
The meeting may take place, but there should be no inflammatory speech making.49
However, the hartal, probably to the surprise of all, was successful and attended by thousands, including women and children, who also bathed in the river. In this case, women formed part of the satyagrahis. The entire group then formed a procession which went down to the Mall. This was in contravention to the earlier order issued on 2 April, but the police did not interfere, despite some provocation. For instance, the crowd (referred to constantly in the official reports as a mob, even though they were peaceful) chanted ‘Hai Hai George Mar Gaya’ (King George is dead)—which could be considered sedition.
Based on the evidence of witnesses, the INC Report states that on 6 April afternoon there was a meeting at Bradlaugh Hall which was attended by ‘thousands’ and also, on the order of O’Dwyer, by the Superintendent of the CID.50 Once again, it was peaceful, although speeches against the Rowlatt Acts were made.
Interestingly, there are some clear diversions in the memories of those reporting the events in Lahore, depending on whether they were giving their evidence in front of the Hunter Committee or the Congress Sub-Committee.
Thus, the Hunter Committee reported some tensions at an event that was otherwise reported as ‘peaceful’. European police officers who attended the meeting were loudly hooted and hissed at. Resolutions were passed condemning the authorities in Delhi for ‘having fired upon innocent people without justification’, on 30 March. The congregation viewed with alarm and disapproval the orders passed on Kitchlew, Satya Pal and others (banning them from attending and speaking at public meetings, etc.), in the first week of April.
As in Amritsar, on 9 April, which was Ram Naumi, Lahore witnessed fraternisation amongst Hindus and Muslims, and the officials who were with the procession were cheered. Thus far everything was calm, even though Hindus and Muslims were coming together, and this would have alarmed the British.
According to the INC Report, on 10 April, things were about to change, as the news of Gandhi’s arrest spread (the news was published in the Civil and Military Gazette). A spontaneous hartal took place and all businesses were closed at 4 p.m. The Hunter Committee Report also says that word of the resistance and rioting at Amritsar reached Lahore around 3.30 p.m.
Concerned about the death of five Europeans in Amritsar, the administration placed protective pickets in Lahore wherever Europeans were likely to be, such as at the Gymkhana Club, the telegraph office, Government House and European hotels. At 6 p.m., a meeting was held by O’Dwyer at Government House with all concerned officials, and they were apprised of the situation.51
This is where the two accounts of the incidents at Lahore—of the INC Sub-Committee and the Hunter Committee Report—begin to diverge, even more.
Since the Hunter Committee was confined mainly to the official narrative and its witnesses were also from among those who worked for the administration, the evidence that was recorded carried a definite bias. What the victims experienced was vastly different from what the Government of India had recorded and indeed presented before the British Parliament. The evidence was recorded often in camera (as was the O’Dwyer statement), in a very formal environment. Witnesses stuck to the official lines.
But the Congress Sub-Committee recorded its evidences in very different circumstances. None of the witnesses who appeared before it appeared before the Hunter Committee. But the Congress at least used the Hunter Committee Report to verify their facts. It is unlikely that the opposite was true. The principal places where martial law was declared were all visited by the Congress Sub-Committee. The members led by Gandhi stated: ‘In most places, large public meetings were held and (the) public were invited to make their statements to us. The nature of the evidence already recorded was placed before the meetings, and those who wished to challenge the accuracy of the statements made, were invited to send their statements even under the pledge of confidence if they so desired. No contradiction was received by us.’52
About Lahore, the INC report maintains that people formed a peaceful procession but were stopped at Foreman’s Christian College as they were going up the Mall. 300 or 400 of the protestors broke away and wanted to go to Government House and request Gandhi’s release. They were halted again at O’Dwyer Soldier’s Club. It was a repeat of the incidents that took place in Amritsar on 10 April afternoon. In the firing, ‘two or three’ were killed, and many more wounded.53 While the crowd was pushed back till it reached Anarkali Bazaar, near Lohari Gate, it was the police who carried away the dead and wounded. Some effort was made by Pandit Rambhaj Dutt Chowdhari, who lived just outside the city, to calm the crowd, but to no avail, as there was too much noise and he could not be heard. The Deputy Commissioner Fyson gave him just two more minutes and started to fire. Three men were kille
d in the firing. Many more were wounded.54
The Hunter Committee Report, however, does not give such a peaceful image of the crowd, and mentions a lower casualty rate. According to it, the crowd was shouting ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’ and some people were carrying black flags. The police were driven back, despite the joint presence of Fyson, Cocks, Deputy Inspector General (CID), and Clarke, Deputy Superintendent of Police. According to the report, ‘the mob was getting completely out of hand, and, as he had no means of stopping their progress, Mr Fyson ordered the police to fire’. Somewhere between a dozen and twenty shots were fired with the result that one man was killed and around seven wounded.
Cocks, the DIG, also felt that ‘serious consequences might result’, and it was essential to shoot. He said there was imminent danger of the police being overpowered. The HC report goes on to say that though a party of cavalry arrived, the mayhem continued. The crowd refused to disperse and, finally, around Anarkali Bazaar, the gathering swelled to approximately 20,000. Broadway, the Superintendent of Police, and his men had bricks and mud thrown at them for 45 minutes and he was hit five or six times. In retaliation, ‘two or three rounds’ of buckshot were once again fired into the crowd. When it still did not disperse—despite the entreaties of Pandit Rambhaj Dutt Chowdhari—another half a dozen rounds of buckshot were fired. This time, around eighteen men were wounded, of whom three died.
By now, even according to the Hunter Committee witnesses, four Indians had been shot dead, and around 25 injured.
The HC Report is noticeably more precise as it received inputs from the officers but the INC Report continuously gives the overall impression that the crowd was peaceful and unarmed. This reflects the vastly different mood on the two sides. The crowd, as requested by Gandhi, was only prepared for a non-violent protest. However, the administration, as in Amritsar, was alarmed by the sheer numbers. Secondly, the administration would have been unsettled because this was the first time they were seeing an organised crowd comprised of people from all communities. To them this looked even more dangerous. O’Dwyer himself had constantly raised the specter of a brewing ‘revolution’—akin to that of 1857—and so his men would have been on alert, and lastly, the report of the murder of Europeans in Amritsar (regardless of who instigated the disorders) would have put them on edge.
From all accounts, the misreading of the crowd, the reluctance of the British to enter into a dialogue with the satyagrahis and the alacrity with which force was used led to another tragic encounter.
The official account contains no information about those who were wounded—their names or their professions. Even if Indians (who were also British subjects at the time) died brutally due to gunshot wounds, that fact is not described in the official version with the same level of detail and gore as accounts in which Europeans were burnt or beaten to death by sticks. Anyway, if the crowd wanted to be avenged for the murders, they had no guns or ammunition.
In Amritsar, they had to resort to throwing sticks and stones, and burning buildings and sadly, people as well. In Lahore, they threw some bricks and mud. No European was killed in Lahore. Though many Indians were shot, the precise numbers are not found anywhere in the official records.
People in Lahore were upset because the dead and wounded were retained by the authorities and not handed over to their relatives, according to the INC Report. All that the HC Report points out is that the city was ‘dangerously disturbed’ for days.
In many ways, the situation was similar to that in Amritsar. It was felt by the administration that no European could enter the city. Even police posts inside the city were abandoned as it was felt that the presence of European officers could lead to more loss of life. This is despite the fact that the British continued to be safe in Lahore. They were not attacked —but as in Amritsar there was fear that Hindus and Muslims combined could present a formidable force.
Officially it was said that: ‘For about two days the city was controlled by the mob. The Superintendent of Police and Deputy Commissioner took up their quarters in the Telegraph Office.’55 Plainly, this fear was exaggerated. While people may have been gathering in the city, and were obviously troubled and restless, they had not resorted to violence as yet.
The variance between the official and Indian version of events continues into the accounts of the following day. The INC Report for the next day, 11 April, says that the impasse continued; while the HC Report reads many more meanings in the occurrences. The INC Report is quite matter of fact in stating that Badshahi Mosque had seen another large meeting where feelings ‘ran high’, and yet the closeness between Hindus and Muslims persisted. This was an important and unusual turn of events: Hindus were present inside the mosque along with Sikhs and Muslims and yet there was no acrimony.
Perhaps it was to break this visible bond that the police fired upon the crowds coming out of the mosque and returning home, leading to more casualties. Undeterred, the communities drew even closer together in order to help each other. As the hartal was still ongoing, there was a need to provide food kitchens and so langarkhanas were opened for the needy. But they lasted only till 15 April, at which point they were ordered to be shut down.
The HC Report provides more detail, giving a different texture to the events:
On the morning of the 11th April, all the shops were closed, and a huge crowd of Hindus and Mohammedans (said to be around 25,000) collected in the Badshahi Mosque. This crowd was addressed by Rambhaj and others. Inside the gate of the mosque a banner was hung bearing the inscription ‘The king who practices tyranny cuts his own roots underneath.’ Inflammatory speeches were delivered in the course of which allegations were made that the police had fired on the crowd the preceding day after they had retreated and that this action was a tyrannical action. People who wanted to know whether the hartal should be continued or not were told that a committee would decide and that later on this committee was nominated. Towards the end of the meeting, an ex sepoy shouted to the people a false story that the Indian regiments had mutinied in Lahore Cantonment and were marching on Amritsar and Lahore. He added that about 200 or 250 British soldiers had been killed and that he himself had killed six. His announcement was received with great enthusiasm by the people who garlanded him and carried him in triumph to the pulpit of the mosque. A subscription was opened and at least one large sum promised to establish langar khana during the hartal, i.e., free food shops. At the conclusion of the meeting, the mob headed by hooligans carrying sticks marched through the city shouting. On the way they destroyed pictures of the King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress shouting that King George is dead. The band of hooligans referred to was known as the Danda Fauj.56
Far more worrying for the authorities was the continuing closeness between Hindus and Mohammedans: ‘. . .the meeting itself was a very extraordinary one to be held in a mosque. From a Mohammedan point of view, it was a violation of every religious instinct. It represents the highest pitch of the Hindu Mohammedan unity which at this time was spreading rapidly by dint of hatred of the Government.’57 It was an extraordinary admission: the recognition that government antipathy was uniting Hindus and Muslims. There was growing resentment over the fact that Gandhi and other leaders had been peremptorily arrested. Yet the meetings, apart from using abusive language and anti-British propaganda, had been peaceful.
As in Amritsar, this unity became a cause for great concern to the British. There was no empathy or attempt to understand the cause for the unrest and no sympathy was shown for those murdered or wounded by the police, nor for their families. These were all nameless ‘hooligans’ and possibly deserved no better. This instance of blatant racism would have irked Indians immensely, especially those who already had a grouse against O’Dwyer’s regime.
On 12 April, another meeting was held at Badshahi Mosque. This time, the CID Inspector was beaten with ‘sticks’. Obviously, the protestors were irked by the constant monitoring of their movements. On the morning of 12 April itself, the army began to move
in for the first time, under Lieutenant Colonel Frank Johnson (who, as the unfortunate residents of Lahore were to find out shortly, was a ‘trained expert’ in the administering of martial law, having spent many years in Bechuanaland—now known as the Republic of Botswana). He arrived with a mixed column of 800 police and army personnel. Two aeroplanes flew overhead to ensure there was no attack on the troops with ‘bombs’ and that they were not ‘fired’ upon.
As in Amritsar, there was fear that the ‘mob’ would attack. Nobody stopped to ask where the unarmed crowd was likely to get guns or bombs or even aircraft from. However, these were the grim conditions under which Johnson came to rescue the city.
The city remained peaceful, though the crowds were said to be ‘bad tempered’. This was not surprising as, by now, news of the attack by the police and army on the defenceless crowds in Amritsar must have spread. Soldiers travelling between Amritsar and Lahore would have brought the news. These cities did not have large populations. Had just one official phone call been overheard, word would have spread.The hartal meant that all establishments owned by Indians were closed, and so people were free and wandering about.
There were particularly large crowds ‘moving to and fro’ between the Badshahi Mosque and Hira Mandi—which were practically next to each other. The sight of people moving back and forth restlessly made the administration even more nervous. The cavalry was brought in as the DC, Fyson, tried to disperse the crowds. Once again, the crowd retaliated by throwing stones, and was fired upon. One man died and 28 people were wounded in the encounter. It appears that only eight rounds were fired. It must have been a very dense crowd for such a high casualty rate of 29. The police who fired into the crowd had used buckshot (which had a wider impact) and also some rounds of ball cartridge.58 The HC Report later approved of the firing.
Jallianwala Bagh, 1919 Page 15