“We must never forget what happened here”

The 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar as described by British PM David Cameron today as “a deeply shameful event in British history” even as he added: “We must never forget what happened here.”

Indeed, it continues to be a massacre the memory of which comes alive every time one visits Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, like we did when Herman de Beer. a student from South Africa came to live with us and we went to Amritsar with him.

However, to the credit of the British, not only did they take the perpetrator of this massacre, General Reginald Dyer to task, they did so in full public gaze. Winston Churchill called it  “monstrous”.
In 2005, I met Lt Col Nigel Collett, who had written “The Butcher of Amritsar”. The book, published in India by Rupa and Co in 2005, it is the first major dispassionate biography of Gen Dyer. I reviewed the book  interviewed Collett.

You may also like to read the book review and the interview.