Location of Amritsar in India
5:30 pm (UTC+5:30)
Target Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religious and political gathering
Attack type massacre
Location Amritsar, India
Coordinates 31.62053°N 74.88031°ECoordinates: 31.62053°N 74.88031°E
Date 13 April 1919
5:30 pm (UTC+5:30)
Target Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religious and political gathering
Attack type massacre
Weapon(s) Rifles
Deaths 379-1000
Injured 1100-1500
In the aftermath of World War I, high casualty rates, increasing inflation compounded by heavy taxation, the deadly 1918 flu pandemic, and the disruption of trade during the war escalated human suffering in India. The costs of the protracted war in both money and manpower were great. In India, long the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire, Indians were restless for independence. More than 43,000 Indian soldiers had died fighting for Britain
The attempts at mutiny during 1915 and theLahore conspiracy trials were still causing fear among the British. Rumours of young Mohajirs who fought on behalf of the Turkish Caliphate, and later, in the ranks of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, were circulated in Army circles. The Russian Revolution had also begun to influence Indians. Ominously for the British, in 1919, the third Anglo-Afghan war began and in India, Gandhi's call for protest against the Rowlatt act achieved an unprecedented response of furious unrest and protests. The situation especially in Punjab was deteriorating rapidly, with disruptions of rail, telegraph and communication systems
On April 10, 1919, there was a protest at the residence of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, a city in Punjab, a large province in the northwestern part of India. The demonstration was to demand the release of two popular leaders of the Indian Independence Movement,Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew, who had been earlier arrested by the government and removed to a secret location. Both were proponents of the Satyagraha movement led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Revolt was in the air, many Army officers believed, and they prepared for the worst. In Amritsar, more than 15,000 people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. This situation deteriorated perceptibly during the next few days. Michael O'Dwyer is said to have believed that these were the early and ill-concealed signs of a conspiracy for a coordinated revolt around May, at a time when British troops would have withdrawn to the hills for the summer. The Amritsar massacre, as well as responses preceding and succeeding it, contrary to being an isolated incident, was the end result of a concerted plan of response from the Punjab administration to suppress such a conspiracy
An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30 pm, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyermarched a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh, fifty of whom were armed with rifles. Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns, however the vehicles were left outside as they were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance. The Jallianwala Bagh was bounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wider, but was guarded by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles. General Dyer did not order the crowd to disperse; indeed he blocked the main exits. His goal, he explained later, was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience.[14] General Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting towards the densest sections of the crowd, including the women and children. He continued the shooting, approximately 1,650 rounds in all, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted. The crowd made no effort to attack the soldiers in any way.
Rabindranath Tagore received the news of the massacre by 22 May 1919, he tried to arrange a protest meeting in Calcutta, finally he decided to renounce his knighthood as "a symbolic act of protest"
The attempts at mutiny during 1915 and theLahore conspiracy trials were still causing fear among the British. Rumours of young Mohajirs who fought on behalf of the Turkish Caliphate, and later, in the ranks of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, were circulated in Army circles. The Russian Revolution had also begun to influence Indians. Ominously for the British, in 1919, the third Anglo-Afghan war began and in India, Gandhi's call for protest against the Rowlatt act achieved an unprecedented response of furious unrest and protests. The situation especially in Punjab was deteriorating rapidly, with disruptions of rail, telegraph and communication systems
On April 10, 1919, there was a protest at the residence of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, a city in Punjab, a large province in the northwestern part of India. The demonstration was to demand the release of two popular leaders of the Indian Independence Movement,Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew, who had been earlier arrested by the government and removed to a secret location. Both were proponents of the Satyagraha movement led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Revolt was in the air, many Army officers believed, and they prepared for the worst. In Amritsar, more than 15,000 people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. This situation deteriorated perceptibly during the next few days. Michael O'Dwyer is said to have believed that these were the early and ill-concealed signs of a conspiracy for a coordinated revolt around May, at a time when British troops would have withdrawn to the hills for the summer. The Amritsar massacre, as well as responses preceding and succeeding it, contrary to being an isolated incident, was the end result of a concerted plan of response from the Punjab administration to suppress such a conspiracy
An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30 pm, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyermarched a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh, fifty of whom were armed with rifles. Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns, however the vehicles were left outside as they were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance. The Jallianwala Bagh was bounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wider, but was guarded by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles. General Dyer did not order the crowd to disperse; indeed he blocked the main exits. His goal, he explained later, was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience.[14] General Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting towards the densest sections of the crowd, including the women and children. He continued the shooting, approximately 1,650 rounds in all, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted. The crowd made no effort to attack the soldiers in any way.
Rabindranath Tagore received the news of the massacre by 22 May 1919, he tried to arrange a protest meeting in Calcutta, finally he decided to renounce his knighthood as "a symbolic act of protest"
