Massacre at Amritsar
After one of the worst outrages in modern British history, Winston Churchill stood up in the House of Commons to label the Amritsar Massacre an act of terrorism.
1919
King George V 1910-1936
After one of the worst outrages in modern British history, Winston Churchill stood up in the House of Commons to label the Amritsar Massacre an act of terrorism.
1919
King George V 1910-1936
On 13th April 1919, thousands of Sikhs crowded into the Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar in the Punjab for a religious festival. Led by intelligence reports to believe that Bolshevik (communist) agitators were among them, General Reginald Dyer quietly shut the gates and gave the order to fire on the crowd. A year later, Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill rose in the Commons to deliver his verdict.
HOWEVER we may dwell upon the difficulties of General Dyer during the Amritsar riots, upon the anxious and critical situation in the Punjab, upon the danger to Europeans throughout that province, upon the long delays which have taken place in reaching a decision about this officer, upon the procedure that was at this point or at that point adopted, however we may dwell upon all this, one tremendous fact stands out — I mean the slaughter of nearly 400 persons and the wounding of probably three or four times as many, at the Jallian Wallah Bagh on 13th April.* 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.
The death-toll is disputed. The British set it at 379, the Indian National Congress at about 1,000. It might have been much worse. Providentially, narrow streets had kept out Dyer’s armoured vehicles and machine-guns.