Bloodbath and beyond

Vikramdeep Johal

The centenary year of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is witnessing a succession of books on the epoch-making incident that shaped the course of the Indian freedom struggle. Kim A Wagner’s well-researched book is a valuable addition to the literature on the subject. What surprises the reader are the linkages established between apparently unconnected events. The 1919 bloodbath is seen through the prism of the 1857 revolt; also interwoven into the narrative is a lesser-known incident — the Kuka (Namdhari) executions of 1872.

Wagner writes, “Occurring just 15 years after the ‘Mutiny’, the British response to the Kuka outbreak was very much shaped by the memory of 1857. Faced with what he perceived to be ‘an open rebellion’, (Deputy Commissioner) JL Cowan had simply followed the example provided by the ‘Mutiny’ — and the link between the two events was further established by his description of the Kukas as ‘rebels’ and through the manner in which he punished them.”

He further says, “During moments of crisis, the guilt of the individual was more or less irrelevant to the real purpose of the spectacle of punishment: the performance of pure colonial power.” The architect of one such ‘spectacle’, one of the most horrifying in the annals of world history, was Brigadier General Reginald Dyer. The British officer, backed by Punjab Lieutenant Governor Michael O’Dwyer, overshot the immediate aim of enforcing the ban on political gatherings and ordered firing to teach a lesson to the ‘rebels’ and produce a ‘moral effect’.

“The shooting at Jallianwala Bagh was thus ‘calculated to strike terror’ as much as were the mass executions of sepoys during the ‘Mutiny’ or of Kukas in 1872… As a technique of power, the shooting was not simply a means to an end but an end in itself,” the book says. “Every man who escaped from the Jallianwala Bagh,” Dyer once said, “was a messenger to tell that law and order had been restored in Amritsar.”  The extreme step, however, proved counter-productive in the long run as it provided a much-needed impetus to the freedom movement.

After a visit to the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, Wagner wonders why the carnage is not viewed as a historically meaningful event in its own right. He observes that the monument recognises the significance of the massacre only insofar as it served as inspiration for others, as the catalyst of the struggle for Independence.

One of the major sources for the book is a curiosity in itself. It’s the diary of an Englishwoman, Melicent Wathen, wife of Gerard Wathen, then principal of Khalsa College, Amritsar. Her intimate account of the tumultuous April of 1919 in the holy city is a revelation, highlighting the colonial crisis that triggered the excesses unleashed on the residents of Amritsar and neighbouring cities.

There are references to several classic works, including Rudyard Kipling’s On the City Wall and George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant and Burmese Days, which lay bare colonial fears and anxieties that often led to brutal repression. This is surely one of the best books on the 1919 massacre by a British writer, right up there with Nigel Collett’s The Butcher of Amritsar.

The author, who teaches global and British imperial history at Queen Mary University of London, has also written The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (2010) and The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857 (2017). The deep insights into the Indian mutiny that these two books offer are reflected in the Jallianwala Bagh work as well.