On 16th April, prior to the information of the incident occurred in Jallianwalabagh, Rabindranath wrote to M.K.Gandhi in an open letter, " without initiating the people in non-violence, the movement launched with this ideal cannot progress - rather it will create problem and will lead to danger." In the mean time the Jallianwalabagh massacre took. The report of which was suppressed by the Government machinary and martial law was imposed in Punjab. Inspite of several measures taken by the Government it took more than a month to spread the news of Jallianwalabagh through out India. rabindranath got the information in about 22nd May when he wrote Ranu from Santiniketan;
" I may bear the dominance of the heaven, but I can't endure the might of this earth.You are in Punjab, you may be aware of the news of Punjab. But the warmth of the grief of this incident had burnt the ribs of his heart." he was seriously ill and could not move to 3rd floor from 2nd . Still he took three measures to protest against this inhuman activities;
1. He wanted to go to Punjab accompanied by Mahatmaji to break the Martial law of no admission in Punjab and face the risk being arrested. He sent Andrews for his consent. but Mahatmaji disagreed as he did not want to see the British rulers perturbed.
2.One day he met C.R.Das and asked him to convene a public meeting to protest against this inhuman activities. He offered himself to act as President of the meeting. The could not be held due to want of speaker.
3. Ultimately Rabindranath thought himself that if he became the only speaker then he could do it in anther way.
He wrote a letter to Chelmsford to disowned his Knighthood in the following lines.
5, Dwarakanath Tagore Lane
Calcutta, May 31st, 1919
Your Excellency,
The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as Bitish subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring ome conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terrible efficient organisation for destructionof human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification. The accounts of insult and sufferings undergone by our brothers in the Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the heartso our people has been ignored by our rulers, possible congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine as alutory lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the butal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority, relentlessly careful in smothering every cry of pain nd expression of judgement from the organs ring the sufferers Knowing that our appeals ave been in vain and that the passion of vengeance is blinding the nobler of statesmanship Government, which could so easily afford to be magnanimous as befitting its physical strength and moral tradition, the very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millionsof my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen., who, for thir so called insignificance, are liable to suffer a degardation not fit for human beings. And these are the reasons which have painfully compelled me to ask Your Excellency, with due deference and reret, to relieve me of my title of Knighthood, which I had the honour to accept from His Majesty the king at the hands of your predecessor, for whose nobleness of heart i still entertain great admiration.
Yours faithfully,
Rabindranath Tagore.
Copies of the letter in different news papers were published.
