Call to cleanse blood-stained history with Queen’s visit

Talking to The Indian Express, Jagmohan Singh, a professor of computer science and nephew of Bhagat Singh, said, “If Japan can apologise to Korea for excesses against Korean women who were used for the pleasure of the soldiers, there is no reason why Britain should not apologise to us. The backlog of the history should be cleansed within this century.”

Many are taking the very decision of the Queen in visiting the Martyrs Memorial at Jallianwala Bagh as a gesture of atonement. The British High Commissioner to India, Sir David Gore Booth, who visited Amritsar on July 22 along with a 12-member team to chalk out the Queen’s visit here also visited the Jallianwala Bagh. The British High Commissioner’s remarks in the visitors’ book at the Martyrs Gallery in the Bagh indicate the mood of his government: “I feel privileged and touched to have this opportunity to visit Jallianwala Bagh and pay my respects at what is a beautiful monument that reminds us all of the sadness of history.”

Jagmohan and some others feel that a direct apology would be a better gesture. As per the tentative programme, Queen Elizabeth II will visit the Golden Temple and Jallianwala Bagh and a civic reception in her honour will be held in the beautiful heritage building of Khalsa College, Amritsar. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh on the Baisakhi of 1919 was a turning point in the freedom struggle for it shocked the whole world and was a conscience-jerker for all Indians. Poet Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood following the gruesome incident.

A public meeting was being held at this place which was an open enclosure with tall buildings on all four sides and only a narrow passage leading up to it. Some 25,000 men, women and children gathered there and many of them came here after offering their prayers at the Golden Temple. The meeting was called in protest against the ban on the people’s right to assemble and protest following the imposition of the Martial Law by the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dyer.

Soon after the meeting started, General Dyer came through the narrow passage along with his troops and opened fire on the people. Official figures of the time said that 379 people were killed on the spot and thrice as many wounded to die later. The unofficial number of the dead runs into four figures. “It was a peaceful meeting but the British rulers tried to give it the colour of sedition. It was painful to see the scene given such a colour even in Attenborough’s Gandhi’. They showed a turbaned speaker brandishing the sword and making a fiery speech. Such militancy by the Sikhs against the British did not come up till 1921,” says Jagmohan.

The Jallianwala Bagh memorial is also seen as a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity and interestingly Pakistan Television showed a feature on it which has been much appreciated by the people of Amritsar.

However, the Punjab Government is looking forward to the visit of Queen Elizabeth. Says a senior Punjab police officer, “Such a demand will only be a dampener. The remarks of the High Commissioner and the Queen’s visit here are atonement enough.” Surjit Hans, A former professor of history at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, says that this demand is out of place in the present circumstances.

Jagmohan, who has extensively edited and published the writings of Bhagat Singh, has also made a demand for a similar apology for cutting up in pieces the bodies of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru. He adds, “Bhagat Singh in his public statement offered an apology for killing police officer Saunders by saying that he was sorry to have shed the blood of a man but it was done to protest against the atrocities of the British regime. But an apology is still due from the other side.” Pieces of the cut bones are still preserved in the Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Museum at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of Bhagat Singh near Jalandhar.