1B. Rowlatt Acts and Amritsar Massacre [*]

Question 1

When was the Montagu Declaration given?

Answer 1

20 August 1917

Question 2

Why did Montagu give the Montagu Declaration in August 1917?

Answer 2

• He was a passionate Liberal who was convinced that a straightforward settlement of British policy towards India was necessary
• He was influenced by the demands for Home Rule created by the two Home Rule Leagues, which hundreds of thousands of Indians had taken part in

Question 3

Why was the 1915 Defence of India Act enforced?

Answer 3

Defence of India Act intended to stop anti-war / revolutionary activity in India during WW1:
This included (but was not limited to)

• Ban on protest
• Imprisonment without trial
• Trial by judges without a jury
• Censorship
• House arrest of suspects

Question 4

What was the reasoning behind the Rowlatt Acts 1917?

Answer 4

• 1917 - Government of India afraid that economic and political turbulence would create a dangerous situation for the Raj → appointed Scottish judge S.T. Rowlatt to head a comission to investigate revolutionary activity
• July 1918 - Rowlatt Commission isolated Bengal, Bombay and the Punjab as centres of revolutionary activity, recommended that old wartime controls should be continued to control the situation.

Question 5

What was the reaction to the Rowlatt Act?

Answer 5

• Every single one of the 22 Indian members of the Indian legislative Council opposed the measure, though they were outvoted by the appointed officials
• Jinnah and several of his colleagues resigned from the council
• Jinnah wrote a furious letter to Chelmsford accusing him of neither being responsible to the people nor in touch with Indian public opinion.

Question 6

When did the Rowlatt Act become law? When was it repealed?

Answer 6

The Rowlatt Act became law in March 1919, and was repealed in 1922

Question 7

When were anti-Rowlatt Act hartals organised?

Answer 7

30 March and 6th April 1919

Question 8

How did the 1919 Hartals spiral into violence?

Answer 8

• The arrest of the two organisers, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satya Pal, triggered rioting which escalated into an anti-Raj protest.
• Banks were stormed, buildings torched and three Europeans killed

Question 9

Who suffered from the violence of the 1919 Hartals → protest?

Answer 9

• Marcia Sherwood was brutally beaten, but saved from certain death by Hindus who found and treated her
• By 11th April, over 100 European women had taken refuge in Gobindargh Fort to seek refuge

Question 10

How many forces did Brigadier-General Rex Dyer lead into Amritsar on 12th April?
How many were British?

Answer 10

1,000 troops, 1/3 were British

Question 11

How did Indians react to Dyer’s show of force on the 12th April 1919?

Answer 11

They were met with jeering crowds which, linked with news of similar rioting in Lahore and Kasur, convinced Dyer that a coordinated uprising was underway.

Question 12

Why was 13th April an unfortunate day for the Amritsar massacre?

Answer 12

• Baisakhi Day - thousands of pilgrims had entered Amritsar to worship at the Golden Temple, thousands more for the associated festivities
• Hundreds of people and their families had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh, a large walled park with only four exits. They intended to stay there for the duration of the festival. Arrangements were also made for a political meeting in part of the bagh to voice opinions on the Rowlatt Act.

Question 13

What did Dyer do on 13th April before the massacre?
How did the people respond?

Answer 13

• Dyer ordered proclamations to be read across the city, warning against the holding of ‘meetings and assemblies’ and establishing a curfew.
• Between 10,000-20,000 people ignored the curfew and gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh
• The political meeting began by passing two resolutions, one calling the repeal of the Rowlatt Act and the other expressing sympathy for the dead of the previous riots

Question 14

How did Dyer create the Amritsar Massacre?

Answer 14

Without a word of warning, Dyer ordered a posse of infantrymen into the narrow entrance into the Jallianwala Bagh.

• They fired 1,650 rounds of live ammunition into the crowd in 10-15 minutes
• 400 people were killed and 1,500 wounded

Question 15

What did Dyer do after the Amritsar Massacre?

Answer 15

Dyer established martial law in Amritsar, however this was augmented specifically to humiliate Indians living there:

• Any Indian who passed a European had to salaam
• Public floggings were commonly carried out, with little regard for the guilt or innocence of the victim
• Crawling Order - any Indian passing along the street on which Marcia Sherwood was beaten had to crawl along it on all fours, in the muck - inflammatory for Hindus, living in a strucutural caste system based on purity.

Question 16

How did news of the Amritsar Massacre reach Britain?

Answer 16

Details of the amssacre were slow to arrive in Britain, and when they did, they divided public opinion, and the Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords.

Question 17

How did the Hunter Commission form?

Answer 17

On 11 November 1919, Lord Hunter and his colleagues arrived in Lahore to ask questions, listen to evidence and reach a conclusion about the events of 11th April.

Question 18

How did the Hunter Commission collect evidence for its report?

Answer 18

Hundreds of witnesses were interviewed to provide evidence and, as martial law had ended and censorship lifted, journalists wrote at length.

Dyer was outmaneuvered by the trained lawyers of the commission into admitting that:

• he would have used machine guns if possible.
• he had not issued a warning before opening fire.
• he continued firing until his ammunition was exhausted.
• he wanted to punish the Punjabis.
• he had even considered razing Amritsar to the ground.

Question 19

What was the result of the Hunter Commission?

Answer 19

Dyer was censured, O’Dywer was gently reprimanded.
The three Indian members of the Commission condemned the actions of both men.

Question 20

How did the Punjab Sub-Committee of Indian National Congress create their own report?

Answer 20

The Punjab Sub-Committee of Indian National Congress set up its own inquiry:

• It heard evidence in advance of the Hunter Commission and completed its own report sometime earlier.
• The Committee examined 1,700 witnesses and published 650 verified statements.
• Their final report, which included graphic photographs, amounted to a savage indictment of the government of India by the Raj, and was calculated to arouse deep feelings of anger and resentment among the Indian subjects of the Raj.