In the War Diary of the 2nd (Rawalpindi) Division, an entry dated 14 April, 6 p.m., is by another pilot who also flew over Gujranwala: ‘Lieutenant Kirby, RAF, confirmed report of bombing of Gujranwala and stated he had fired successfully into rioters. Subsequently had forced landing near Wazirabad. Rioters proposed to burn his aeroplane, but he was able to start his engine and get away.’95
The sorry saga of the bombing did not end there. The next day, Lieutenant Bodkins was once again sent to check on the situation, reconnoitre the damage to the railway lines, and also ‘take offensive action on any large gathering of people.’96 While Gujranwala itself was quiet (the terrified residents would have remained indoors following the assaults), Bodkins saw approximately 20 people one mile to the west, whom he scattered by firing his machine gun. More worryingly, he bombed a gathering of about 50 men, in a semi-circle outside a house, being addressed by a man standing at the door. They could have collected there for any purpose at all. But Bodkins dropped a bomb, which hit the adjoining house, and blew up the side of it. Nothing was, or is, known of the damage. For all we know, 50 people could have been either killed or wounded just that day alone.
In the evidence he gave to the Hunter Committee, Carberry said he had been ordered to disperse the crowds ‘going or coming’.97 This was clearly not the case at the Khalsa Boarding House, and yet bombs were dropped there.
However, when questioned further, he said he was bombing and shooting the people in ‘their own interest’.
Q: You first bombed and they began to run away into the village?
A: Yes.
Q: That is over the houses in the village?
A: Yes. I suppose some of the shots hit the houses.
. . .
Q: You fired the machine gun into the village; you may be thereby hitting not those people whom you dispersed, but other innocent people into their homes?
A: I could not discriminate between the innocent people and other people. I tried to shoot the people, who ran away and who I thought were coming to do damage.
. . .
Q: Your object seems to be to hit or kill more people of that crowd, although they had begun to disperse, and were running away after the bombs were thrown?
A: I was trying to do it in their own interest. I also realised that if I tried to kill people, they would not gather again and do damage.
He told the Hunter Committee he had fired 150 rounds, adding for clarity, ‘You must understand it was no good firing at the houses. I was firing at the natives into the native city.’
As we know from Amritsar and Lahore, this was only the beginning of the miseries that the people of Gujranwala would have to endure. To begin with, when O’Brien came back to Gujranwala, he said he was given a ‘blank cheque’.
During the cross-examination by Setalvad, he said, ‘I had a conversation with the Chief Secretary on the telephone on the 15th and said to him, I might probably have to take certain actions and I hope they will be legalised afterwards if done in good faith.’
‘But that was before the declaration of Martial Law?’ asked Setalvad.
The answer was ‘yes’.98
This was probably the beginning of the Indemnity Act, which was subsequently introduced to protect all those who had been officially asked to terrorise the people of Punjab.
Having got his clean chit in advance, O’Brien could now begin to teach the natives a ‘moral lesson’ they would not forget. On 16 April, the day after the second bombing of Gujranwala, while things remained quiet, martial law was declared, and the arrests began. As in other towns and districts, most people had no idea what their crime was. They were picked up—sometimes not even allowed to get dressed, if roused from sleep.
In Gujranwala, as in Amritsar and Lahore, even those who had tried to help the administration in the riots of 14 April, like the Governor of the Arya Samaj Gurukul, Ram Rallya, found themselves handcuffed on 16 April. Twenty of them were chained and made to march through the streets. They were taken to Lahore in an open truck. No facilities were provided of any kind.99
Next, O’Brien wanted to force the shops open and keep them open. So a notice was issued called ‘Notice under Martial Law Rule No. 2’:
As we have come to know that some shop-keepers, who live within the Municipal limits of Gujranwala, shut up their shops when the army and the police people go to them to purchase articles, or that they refuse to sell the articles to the army or the police soldiers for a reasonable price. Therefore, the undermentioned orders are issued that after the publication of this Notice, those shopkeepers, who would be found acting as mentioned above, would be arrested, and they would be liable to be punished by flogging.
(Sd) F.W. Berberry
Lieutenant Colonel
Officer Commanding, Dist Gujranwala
18/4/1919100
Martial Law Notice No 7 was another harsh and racist measure, in which Indians were forced to salute all Europeans (as mentioned earlier in the chapter). Even British soldiers had to be saluted, and offenders were likely to be flogged.
In other orders, students had daily compulsory attendance to salute the Union Jack. Curfew had been imposed and railway travel was forbidden. According to the INC Report, ‘Men of status were made to clean drains in the bazar, although in some cases the municipal sweeper had already cleaned them.’101
Almost all the important leaders of Gujranwala were eventually arrested and though summary courts had been set up, many among them were never even tried. Not everyone who was punished was arrested; however, sometimes the treatment outside the jails was far worse. In many areas of Gujranwala people were flogged, arrested, and their properties taken away.
Given that such difficult conditions prevailed in other places in Punjab as well, it was only natural that the disorders would spread.
Kasur, a small town of 25,000 in Lahore district, also felt the full weight of martial law. There had been a reluctance in Kasur to participate in the hartal or satyagraha until early April. It was only on 11 April that Nadir Ali Shah, a local shopkeeper, went about requesting that the shops be closed—possibly following the news of Gandhi’s arrest and the events in Amritsar and Lahore on 10 April.
Everyone, including school children, joined in enthusiastically. A meeting was held where lawyers showed their solidarity with the anti-Rowlatt Act Movement and Gandhi’s call for a hartal.
On 12 April, as the hartal continued, Shah, definitely an unsung hero of the agitation (he was among those who were later hanged for their role in the agitation) took out a funeral march for ‘liberty’ using an upturned charpoy with a black flag on it. There were cries of lamentation, and the beating of breasts just as in a Muharram procession.102 This form of grieving had been propagated by Durga Das, editor of Waqt.
In the evidence recorded by the Hunter Committee, it was suggested that some of the people who behaved defiantly during the ‘disorders’ at Kasur had come from Amritsar. In that case, their anger would have been palpable as they would have escaped the increasingly miserable conditions in the city, following the violence on 10 April.
Once again, understandably, there is a divergence in the details given about the disorders in Kasur, in the INC Report and the Hunter Committee Report. The INC Report focusses more on the travails of the people, while the Hunter Committee Report is more conscious of the official stance.
The crowd at Kasur threw stones at windows and broke down doors of government buildings. The telegraph office was ransacked and furniture set on fire, telegraph wires were cut, and all the goods inside the railway building were looted or wrecked. No one, including the constable posted there, tried to stop the protestors. The railway stations were key points for agitators to target for a variety of reasons: they were a symbol of British governance, and as part of the hartal, the protestors wanted to halt the trains, and stop all movement and activity at the station.
However, the situation in Kasur quickly got out of hand. When the crowd reached the station, there were t
hree trains, which had arrived from Lahore, Patti and Ferozepur (also spelt as Ferozepore in the HC Report) respectively. The Ferozepur train had eleven Europeans on board, including a British family with three children. Their presence immediately escalated the violence, leading to the death of two Europeans and around five or six of the Indian protesters. As always, we know precisely, by name, what happened to the Europeans, but we know very little about the Indians, except for those like Khair Din, an Inspector in the Railway Accounts, who helped the British family to safety.
Two of the British officers were badly beaten but managed to escape and found shelter in a nearby village. The family with the three children found refuge in a gatekeeper’s hut with Khair Din. It was he who finally, with the help of another lawyer, Mohi-ud-din, took the family to the nearby village of Kot Halim, and from there to the bungalow of the DSP, Sardar Ahmad Khan. Two other British officers escaped, though one of them was badly beaten.
However, two warrant officers on the train who were armed with revolvers, were killed. They had been standing at the door of the compartment when the train halted at the station and fired at the crowd, hurting one man on the foot. They were chased down the platform and beaten to death with sticks. By the time the DSP arrived, it was too late.
The events at Kasur seem extremely violent when seen in isolation but if we see them in the context of the killings and oppression underway in Amritsar and Lahore, and even Gujranwala, as well as other small towns and villages of Punjab (of which we will see a few more examples), the anger in the crowd, though reprehensible, is not difficult to understand.
As the violence spread, there were attempts to loot the tahsil (or the Revenue Office) and the Munsif’s Court (or the Civil Court). Sub Inspector Bawa Kharak Singh defended the tahsil along with some armed men. It is important to note that so far, at Kasur, many of the officers coming into contact with the crowd were Indians. They were trying to protect government property, as well as save European lives, all the while trying to persuade the crowd to disperse.
Around this time, it seems slogans in praise and support of Mahatma Gandhi, Kitchlew and Satya Pal were raised. Slogans against the British Raj were also raised. To the credit of the outnumbered police officials—as the crowd was said to be around 1,500 to 2,000—no aggressive moves were made by them. The crowd asked the police to join the agitation, which they resisted. Thus far, the Sub Inspector had only flung bricks at the crowd and received them back as well. Now, as things began to spiral out of hand, he fired a few shots in the air.
Up to this point, there had been no casualties in this particular encounter.
Things changed with the arrival of Sub Divisional Officer Mitter, when orders were given to fire. Fifty-seven rounds were fired with ‘some ten or a dozen muskets taking part’.103 Four men died and many more were wounded. Some were arrested. It is important to note that the crowd is described in the HC Report as ‘low class people, sweepers, skin-dyers etc., and not of the more respectable classes. The Deputy Superintendent of Police noticed in it some strangers to Kasur.’ The report goes on to state that ‘We uphold the decision to fire upon this mob and think it should have been fired upon before the Deputy Superintendent of Police arrived.’
The comment on the status of the crowd is important as it shows how deeply the anti-Rowlatt Act agitation had affected everyone; even the poor, mostly daily wagers, were driven to protest the arrest of their leaders. The common assumption by the British would have been that these were ‘hooligans’. In actuality, these were probably just very ordinary people protesting not just the recent oppression, but also the economic hardships they had been experiencing in Punjab under the regime of O’Dwyer.
It was only in the afternoon of 12 April that troops arrived from Ferozepur. On 15 April, more reinforcements were brought in and on 16 April, martial law was imposed, though by then, all was quiet. According to the HC Report, an ‘Indian gentleman’ on the Ferozepur train had gone on a tonga to summon the troops from Ferozepur. We also know from the HC Report that Sherbourne (whose family had been rescued from the train) had been disguised as an Indian—wearing a turban and armed with a revolver—and had gone to Ferozepur to get help.
At Kasur, the fury of the people had subsided in a few hours. But as it was thought that the Indian Sub Divisional Officer had not been tough enough, he was replaced by a British officer, Marsden, and the administration of martial law was given over to Colonel Macrae and later to Captain Doveton.104 Both these officers excelled at brutality.
People were punished as cruelly as they were elsewhere. More arrests started from 16 April. As in the other five districts under martial law, whipping was a popular way of inflicting punishment and initially it was conducted in public places. Between five to thirty stripes were administered. Below are the official records of these sentences; Kasur is high on the list, but there were many more which have possibly gone unrecorded:
Lahore—80
Kasur—79
Chuharkhana S.D.—40
Gujranwala—24
Amritsar—32
Gujrat—3
Lyallpur—nil105
Totalling 257, this does not include the flogging of six school boys at Kasur, and the other six flogged in Amritsar who were under trial, supposedly for the attack on Sherwood. It also does not include the flogging resorted to when mobile columns visited the villages. ‘The normal procedure adopted was to strip the person to be whipped and tie him to a frame-work and then lash him.’106
Initially, the flogging was public. Viceroy Chelmsford had written to O’Dwyer, and the latter had replied to him on 21 April, saying that he had told the military authorities that it was ‘very undesirable to have public flogging’. O’Dwyer also told the Hunter Committee that he did not think ‘that there was really any harm in having on the first day a few public floggings which would make the people realise that law was re-established and people who had infringed the law must accept some chastisement.’ But the orders to cease public flogging did not mean that it was discontinued. On 25 April, a railway employee was flogged at the Kasur railway station and the sentences of whipping inflicted by Bosworth Smith of the Sheikhupura sub-division used to be carried out in the court compound after the rising of the court. As the court was at the canal bungalow, this place was, according to Bosworth Smith, ‘not altogether private, and it was not public.’107
However, in Kasur, flogging posts were (according to the INC Report) erected on the railway station platform, and even school boys were flogged. As in other places, they had been part of the agitation, and now they had to be ‘chastised’. In one bizarre case, when the headmaster of a school said that the boys were becoming insubordinate and asked for military help, it was suggested by the Officer Commanding in Kasur that they should be whipped. Therefore, boys from this school and others were assembled in one place. However, the boys who were selected by the headmaster were found to be physically weak. The Officer Commanding rejected these boys and asked Marsden to select more schoolboys from the same school as well as others—the only criteria was that they should be fit to receive the punishment. Marsden (according to the INC Report) said that there was no particular objective to this punishment. There was no investigation and no trial.108
In his cross-examination, Colonel MacRae, who was in charge at Kasur, gave laconic answers to the Hunter Committee, as quoted in the INC Report:
Q: As regards the whipping of school boys, you gave directions that the biggest six boys were to be selected for whipping?
A: Yes, generally speaking.
Q: Their misfortune was that they happened to be big?
A: Of course.
Q: Because they were big, therefore they had to suffer these lashes?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you think it was a reasonable thing to do?
A: I thought so under the circumstances, and I still think so.109
Just as Johnson in Lahore had a whole wedding party flogged, Doveton in Kasur had men flogged in t
he presence of prostitutes. He said he had asked the Sub Inspector to round up some bad characters in front of whom to conduct the flogging and was ‘horrified’ when prostitutes showed up. He added that he could not send them away as he could not find an escort for them. The number of ‘minor punishments’ that Doveton came up with was quite astonishing, including having people whitewashed. There was no one to stop him from humiliating the population in any way that he wished.110
In Kasur, another common punishment for anyone who did not salaam a white person was to have them rub their nose on the ground. Doveton suggested that people ‘liked’ martial law, and they were amused at these punishments, rather than humiliated or terrified. He would have people mark time, skip, climb ladders and even work as ‘coolies’ at the railway station. Like Johnson or Dyer, he too thought of himself as a benevolent dictator. Just as Dyer got himself declared an honorary Sikh at the Golden Temple, Doveton had verses composed in his favour by a Muslim poet.111
‘What happened was,’ said Marsden, ‘Captain Doveton did not want to go through the formalities of trial and sentence. He wanted to do things summarily.’112
Undoubtedly, Punjab was enslaved. Doveton described the terrified population as ‘willing slaves’ while deposing to the Hunter Committee. When asked to explain during the cross-examination by Setalvad, he said, ‘It (willing slaves) means, willing to work in the way you require.’113
After the initial arrests following the events on 12 April at Kasur, the next round of arrests was made on 16 April. One hundred seventy-two people were arrested in Kasur, of whom 97 were discharged without trial. Of the rest, 51 were convicted. Sadly, here too, people who had tried to help the police by calming the protestors were arrested, including Maulvi Ghulam Mohiyuddin and Maulvi Abdul Kadir, who had, in fact, protected the Sherbournes. On 1 May, there was an identification parade in which women and children were included; they had to sit at the railway station, bareheaded, without food or drink, till 2 p.m. Everyone was forced to attend these identity parades. What if someone did not turn up when summoned? Well, then their homes would be destroyed, and their belongings burnt.114
Jallianwala Bagh, 1919 Page 18