Jallianwala Bagh

Background: war, constitutional promises and the Rowlatt Act

The massacre emerged from the tensions of the First World War and its aftermath. India had supplied soldiers, money and materials to the British war effort, while people faced rising prices, heavier taxation and shortages. Punjab experienced particularly intense military recruitment and demands for wartime contributions. The influenza pandemic of 1918 added to popular distress. Against this background, the Montagu Declaration of August 1917, promising the progressive realisation of responsible government, raised expectations of political advance.

Instead of ending wartime restrictions, the colonial government enacted the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919, popularly called the Rowlatt Act. Based on recommendations of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, it authorised exceptional measures against suspected revolutionary activity, including detention without ordinary trial. Indian members strongly opposed the legislation. Its passage demonstrated the limited influence of Indian representatives within the colonial legislature.

Mahatma Gandhi organised the Rowlatt Satyagraha, advocating non-violent resistance and a nationwide hartal on 6 April 1919. It was his first attempt at a countrywide satyagraha against the Raj. Participation varied regionally, but the movement widened political mobilisation beyond established elites. In Punjab, the government's coercive response transformed opposition to a repressive law into a much deeper confrontation over colonial authority.

Amritsar unrest and the events of 13 April

On 10 April 1919, the authorities arrested and removed Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, prominent Amritsar leaders associated with opposition to the Rowlatt legislation. A crowd seeking their release confronted the authorities, and firing caused casualties. Violent retaliation followed: banks and other buildings were attacked, Europeans were killed, and missionary Marcella Sherwood was assaulted. These events explain the administration's anxiety but do not justify indiscriminate force against a subsequent unarmed gathering.

On 13 April, the Baisakhi festival brought many visitors into Amritsar. Thousands assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, an enclosed open ground near the Golden Temple. The gathering included people attending a political meeting and visitors present for other reasons. Dyer had issued restrictions on public meetings that day, but communication was inadequate and not everyone in the Bagh knew of them.

Dyer entered with troops and ordered firing without first warning the crowd to disperse. The ground was surrounded by buildings and walls, with only limited, narrow exits. Two armoured cars could not enter through the narrow approach. Troops fired about 1,650 rounds over approximately ten minutes, directing fire towards dense sections of the crowd and places where people attempted to escape. Some people jumped into a well while trying to avoid the bullets.

The official death toll was 379, while Indian estimates placed the number substantially higher; the precise total remains disputed. Many more were wounded. Dyer made no organised provision for medical assistance, and curfew restrictions compounded the suffering. His subsequent testimony indicated that he intended to produce a wider intimidating or 'moral' effect, rather than merely disperse the assembly.

Martial law, official inquiry and responsibility

A crucial chronological distinction is that the massacre occurred before martial law was formally imposed in Amritsar and Lahore on 15 April. Martial law was subsequently extended to other affected districts. Repression included public floggings, humiliating punishments, summary proceedings and restrictions on movement. The notorious crawling order applied to the lane where Sherwood had been assaulted; it was not an order requiring people to crawl throughout Amritsar.

Reginald Dyer, the military officer who ordered the firing, must be distinguished from Sir Michael O’Dwyer, Punjab's Lieutenant-Governor from 1913 to 1919. O’Dwyer supported the administration's repressive approach and defended Dyer's action. The distinction matters because Udham Singh later assassinated O’Dwyer, not Dyer.

In October 1919, the Government of India appointed the Disorders Inquiry Committee under Lord William Hunter to investigate disturbances in Bombay, Delhi and Punjab. Its Indian members were Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, Pandit Jagat Narayan and Sultan Ahmad Khan. The committee examined Dyer, but its British and Indian members differed significantly in their assessment, with the Indian members issuing a more critical minority report.

The inquiry condemned Dyer's failure to give warning and his continuation of firing. He was removed from command and subsequently retired, but he was not criminally prosecuted for the massacre. British reactions were divided: the House of Commons condemned his conduct, while influential imperialist supporters defended him. Congress conducted a separate inquiry, associated with leaders including Gandhi, C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru, documenting the massacre and other Punjab atrocities.

Impact on the national movement

Jallianwala Bagh became a turning point because it shattered the claim that British rule rested on impartial justice and Indian consent. The episode involved not merely excessive force by one officer but also official support, degrading punishments and inadequate accountability. Nationalist criticism therefore increasingly targeted the character of colonial government itself.

Rabindranath Tagore repudiated his knighthood through a letter to Viceroy Lord Chelmsford in May 1919. His protest transformed an imperial honour into a public indictment of colonial violence. Gandhi, disturbed by violence during the Rowlatt agitation, suspended the satyagraha in April. This illustrated his insistence that mass resistance required discipline and preparation, even while he condemned state repression.

The Punjab wrongs subsequently became a major grievance behind the Non-Cooperation Movement launched in 1920, alongside the Khilafat issue and dissatisfaction with constitutional reforms. Gandhi returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal and other war-service medals in August 1920; this should not be confused with Tagore's renunciation of a knighthood. The massacre helped bring educated opinion and wider social groups towards a more fundamental rejection of cooperation with the Raj. However, it was one major cause, not the sole cause, of this transition.

Memory, memorialisation and historical interpretation

The massacre retained a powerful place in anti-colonial memory. On 13 March 1940, Udham Singh shot Michael O’Dwyer at Caxton Hall in London, explicitly linking his action to the Punjab tragedy. He was executed on 31 July 1940. Reginald Dyer had already died in 1927.

Independent India institutionalised remembrance through the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act, 1951. The memorial was inaugurated by President Rajendra Prasad on 13 April 1961. Surviving bullet marks and the Martyrs' Well form important elements of the site's commemorative landscape.

For historical analysis, separate established facts from contested casualty estimates and later popular narratives. The site's significance lies in the relationship between coercion, racial hierarchy and political legitimacy. It also provides an example of how public mourning, investigative documentation and symbolic protest can convert a local atrocity into a lasting national political memory.

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