The historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre: ‘an essential but unacknowledged strategy of empire’ Joash Lawrence Vol. 7, pp. 18–34 | ISSN 2050-487X | www.southasianist.ed.ac.uk 2020 | The South Asianist 7: 18-34 | pg. 18 Vol. 7, pp. 18-34 The historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre: ‘an essential but unacknowledged strategy of empire’ JOASH LAWRENCE University of St Andrews This essay challenges the historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, India. Drawing on colonial and postcolonial source materials, in addition to contemporary discussions and scholarship that places the 1919 events in the context of the longue durée of British colonial violence and historiography, this essay assesses the appropriateness of a potential centenary apology by the British. The Amritsar massacre remains one of the most rounds, Dyer marched his troops out of the important and controversial events of British square.1 Britain placed the official death count rule in India. Yet, many historians have at 379, but Indian estimates have ranged to over struggled to interpret it due to the ways in 1000.2 The disagreement over the number of which, in isolation, it can appear as an deaths is typical of the uncertainty and debate aberration. On the 13th of April 1919, Brigadier surrounding the massacre. Reginald Dyer led fifty of his riflemen, On the face of it, the massacre appears to composed of regiments of Gurkhas and Sikhs, be a vastly cruel overreaction by Dyer to a to the Jallianwala Bagh where an estimated crowd supposedly defying his proclamation 20,000 Indians had gathered. A square wholly against meetings, and therefore evidence of enclosed by the backs of houses and boundary either a brutal state or one crazed officer. walls, Jallianwala Bagh had only four narrow British historiographies commonly view the exits, which were broad enough for just two event as singularly atrocious and people to use at a time. A little after 5 p.m., unrepresentative of the wider Raj. Indian Dyer led his troops in to face the crowd and historiographies, on the other hand, analyse the within thirty seconds, without warning, opened massacre as signifying the crystallisation of fire on them. After firing approximately 1650 triumphant British brutality, which meant that 1 Alfred Draper, Amritsar: The Massacre that Ended the 2 Savita Nahrain, The Historiography of Jallianwala Raj (London, 1981), pp.1-10. Bagh (London 1994), p. 1. 2020 | The South Asianist 7: 18-34 | pg. 19 India could no longer justify being under Historiographies of the Jallianwala Bagh ‘benign’ British rule and led to the nationalist massacre: British, Indian and sociological movement and independence. Two traits shared British historiography has obscured and by these conventional perspectives is their marginalised its colonial guilt. Long-term acceptance of the strength of the British Raj, continuities have been masked by the and of violence being a fundamentally new and emphasised singularity of events such as the un-British development, hence its analysis in Amritsar massacre and the British response to isolation. Accordingly, the common the Mau-Mau rebellion. There has been a periodisation of the massacre fits within the marked reluctance amongst imperial historians brackets of 1918-1947, following the idea that to engage in scholarship regarding lesser- the First World War constituted the watershed known yet analogous instances. Where moment. Influential is the idea put forward by continuities have been recognised they have Akira Iriye that ‘the Great War proved to be the been with regards to other European countries, 3 Swan song of Empires.’ However, a growing stressing the supposedly un-British nature of volume of scholarship, regarding the empire the atrocities. Susan Kent, a British historian, state in the nineteenth century, has revealed has argued that ‘[w]ith Amritsar…the both weakness and insecurity as key traits, with country…had behaved in ways of the enemy violence being continually utilised out of panic only recently defeated’; whereas regarding the 4 and anxiety. British response to the Mau-Mau rebellion, This essay will begin with an assessment Eric Griffith-Jones, a British lawyer who of the highly influential and much-cited speech served as Attorney General of Kenya from by Churchill, before moving on to examine the 1955 to 1961, claimed that British practice was problematic historiography and the uses and ‘distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi abuses made of the event in seeking Germany or Communist Russia’. 6 Seemingly, reductionist conclusions of culpability. In light the fact that such actions were typical of brutal of recent historiographical developments and British counter-insurgency is hidden by British by placing the massacre within its broader defeat of genocidal opponents. historical context, the concluding part of this British representations of the massacre essay will explore the appropriateness of have been highly influenced by Churchill’s Cameron’s 2013 statement at Jallianwala Bagh response. In a parliamentary speech, Churchill and discuss the renewed calls for an apology claimed the massacre was ‘an episode without made in 2017, by both Shashi Tharoor and precedent or parallel in the history of the British 5 Sadiq Khan. Empire… It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation’.7 Asquith 3 Akira Iriye, quoted in Kim Wagner, ‘Calculated to releases/mayoral/visit-to-the-golden-temple-in-amritsar- Strike Terror: The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle 0 (Accessed: 07 February 2018). of Colonial Violence’, Past and Present 233 (2016), p. 6 Susan Kent, Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in 196. Britain, 1918-1931 (New York 2005), p. 85; Eric 4 Mark Condos, The Insecurity State (London, 2017). Griffith-Jones, quoted in Patricia Owens, Economy of 5 Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Did to India (London 2017), p.8; Sadiq Khan, cited in Social (Cambridge, 2015), p. 179. London Assembly (2017) Mayor of London makes 7 Winston Churchill quoted in Lachlan Cranswick (2008) historic visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Winston Churchill's Amritsar Massacre Speech - July Available at https://www.london.gov.uk/press- 8th, 1920, U.K. House of Commons. Available at 2020 | The South Asianist 7: 18-34 | pg. 20 agreed: ‘there has never been such an incident rendered it possible.’11 That Churchill’s in the history of our empire from its inception assessment of Jallianwala Bagh was not due to to the present day’.8 By emphasising its a conscience with regards to innocent Indian singularity, Churchill and Asquith were able to life, is observable from his conduct towards condemn the event yet allow the image of India during World War Two. Churchill, over empire to remain relatively untarnished. this time, diverted food stocks away from India, Churchill claimed, ‘this is not the British way leaving millions starving. He did this not to of doing business’, highlighting that the feed starving people, but to build stockpiles of atrocity was not a British responsibility.9 It was food in Europe. His argument was that the instead solely attributable to one-man, Indians were a ‘beastly people with a beastly Brigadier Reginald Dyer. Synchronously, the religion’ and that it was their own fault for nationalist Indian congress report described the ‘breeding like rabbits’.12 Churchill harboured action as ‘un-British’, as if there was some no respect for Indian nationalism, peevishly defined Britishness that had been defied. The questioning ‘why is Gandhi not dead?’.13 British necessity to detach from violence is Due to its purported singularity and un- explained by longstanding ideas of civility, as British nature, the massacre has been viewed well as ideologies of ‘exceptional’ minimum within Britain as outside the national history force. The British, unlike the French or and aberrant, and therefore not a matter for Germans, supposedly did not bring violence to national guilt or intense scholarship.14 This has their empire but civility and justice, employing highly limited British historiography. Two their specific skill in obtaining ‘hearts and groups have dominated: historians of a military minds’. Bailkin has identified a ‘longstanding background for whom the event does constitute mythic “peaceableness” of the British and the a matter of interest, being an important point in British investment in the rule of law.’ 10 the practice of counter-insurgency, and popular Standing in opposition to the implicit threat of writers who, attracted to the drama of the event, violence which upheld British colonial rule, seek to bring the massacre to a wider audience. this myth obscures the historical reality, Neither of these groups have sufficiently influencing successive historiographies. tackled the complicated long-term issues Churchill’s condemnation of Jallianwala surrounding the massacre. Generally, they have Bagh was arguably made solely to preserve the accepted the exceptional horror of the event and constructed image of the empire necessary for sought to explain it through Dyer’s its continuation. This was due to the basis of the individuality, investing in the relative empire in India; in 1873 it was argued that the guiltlessness of the wider empire. supposed rule of law constituted ‘a moral Nigel Collett (an ex-officer) in 2005 conquest more striking, more durable, and far penned the strongest example of this approach, more solid, than the physical conquest which one hailed within British reviews as ‘surely the http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm 11 Fitzjames Stephen, quoted in Frances Hutchins, The (Accessed: 29 January 2018). Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India 8 Herbert Asquith, quoted in Ibid. (New Jersey 1967), p.126. 9 W. Churchill, quoted in Ibid. 12 W. Churchill, quoted in S. Tharoor, Inglorious Empire, 10Jordanna Bailkin, ’The Boot and the Spleen: When p.116. Was Murder Possible in British India?’, Comparative 13 Churchill quoted in Ibid., p.