Consider the following statements with reference to the Jallianwala Ba...
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre:
- The Jallianwala Bagh massacre or the Amritsar massacre of 13th April 1919 accounts for the gruesome execution of hundreds of innocent people by the Gurkha British Indian army on the orders of the then Anglo-Indian Brigadier R.E.H. Dyer. Hence statement 1 is correct.
- These people were protesting peacefully against the Rowlatt Act 1919. Hence statement 2 is not correct.
- Jallianwala Bagh became a key point in the history of India’s struggle for independence and it is now an important monument in the country.
- The Jallianwala Bagh tragedy was one of the causes that led Mahatma Gandhi to begin organising his first large-scale and sustained nonviolent protest (satyagraha) campaign, the Non Cooperation Movement (1920–22).
- The Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore renounced the knighthood that he had received in 1915.
- The then government of India ordered an investigation of the incident (the Hunter Commission), which in 1920 censured Dyer for his actions and ordered him to resign from the military.
Consider the following statements with reference to the Jallianwala Ba...
The correct answer is option 'A', i.e., statement 1 only.
Explanation:
1. Brigadier R.E.H. Dyer was responsible for the Massacre:
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, also known as the Amritsar Massacre, took place on April 13, 1919, in Amritsar, Punjab, during the British colonial era in India. It was a brutal incident where British troops under the command of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer opened fire on a crowd of unarmed Indian protesters.
Brigadier General Reginald Dyer was indeed responsible for the Massacre. He ordered his troops to open fire on the crowd without any warning or attempt to disperse them peacefully. The firing lasted for about ten minutes until the ammunition supply was exhausted. As a result, hundreds of innocent people were killed and thousands were injured.
2. The people killed were protesting against the Vernacular Press Act:
The second statement is incorrect. The people killed in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre were not protesting against the Vernacular Press Act. The Vernacular Press Act was enacted in 1878, more than 40 years before the Massacre. It was a law introduced by the British colonial government to control and censor the Indian vernacular press. The Act imposed restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression of the Indian press.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, on the other hand, was a result of widespread protests against the repressive Rowlatt Act. The Rowlatt Act was passed in 1919 by the British government, which gave the colonial authorities sweeping powers to arrest and detain Indians without trial. The people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh were protesting against the Rowlatt Act and demanding its repeal.
In conclusion, statement 1 is correct as Brigadier R.E.H. Dyer was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. However, statement 2 is incorrect as the people killed were protesting against the Rowlatt Act, not the Vernacular Press Act. Therefore, the correct answer is option 'A', i.e., 1 only.