The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre is one of the most brutal and gory events in India’s history that resulted in the death of about 1,000 people. What accelerates the incident’s gravity is the fact that the British soldiers under Acting Brigadier Reginald Dyer had opened fire in front of a mass of innocent unarmed people.
In the year 1919, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre had occurred on the day of Baishakhi or Vaishaki, a major Punjabi festival, on April 13. Since then, on this day people of India remember the lives of numerous people who died that day and those, who remained alive to recount the horror.
Here are some of the important points regarding the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre that one should know:
1. The incident took place in Jallianwala Bagh, an enclosed garden in Amritsar, Punjab. Hence the massacre is also called Amritsar Massacre.
2. Prior to the incident, an English missionary was attacked by angry mobs, protesting the arrest of two leaders of the independence movement. This led General Dyer to impose Martian Law on April 12, 1919.
3. Under this proclamation, no public gathering was allowed. However, the public was not made aware of the same.
4. The people who came in the Bagh were celebrating Baishakhi and they were not involved in any protest. Women and children were also a part of the crowd.
5. According to witnesses and other written records, no warning was given by the troops before firing.
6. The enclosure had only one opening, which the British troops had covered. This led to such high numbers of casualty.
7. Reportedly, the firing went on till they ran out of ammunition. Dyer came with Baluchi and Gorkha soldiers, who used rifles. Also, two armoured cars with mounted machine guns were also brought.
8. Many tried to escape the guns and jumped into a well, which was inside the garden, to their deaths.
9. Dyer was killed on March 13, 1940, by a man called Uddham Singh, a member of Gadar party seeking revenge for the massacre
10. Rabindranath Tagore renounced knighthood bestowed upon him by the British due to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.
