“He [General Dyer] has called an unarmed crowd of men and children—mostly holiday-makers—‘a rebel army.’ He believes himself to be the saviour of Punjab in that he was able to shoot down like rabbits men who were penned in an enclosure. Such a man is unworthy of being considered a soldier. There was no bravery in his action. He ran no risk. He shot without the slightest opposition and without warning. This is not an ‘error of judgment’. It is a paralysis of it in the face of fancied danger. It is proof of criminal incapacity and heartlessness.”
The reader will be in a position now to understand the meaning of Mahatma Gandhi’s letter to the Viceroy of India, dated August 1, 1920, and quoted on page 114 in which Gandhi gave his reasons for his decision not to coöperate with the British Government of India. It may be recalled that one of Mahatma Gandhi’s reasons was the “callous disregard of the feelings of Indians” betrayed by the House of Lords. It must be remembered here also that the massacre of Jallianwalla occurred on April 13, 1919, and it was exactly a year and three months later that Mahatma Gandhi made his decision to boycott the British Government. During this interval he had persistently hoped for a change in the British attitude.
The massacre at Jallianwalla was only one part of the awful Punjab story. What occurred at Amritsar and other towns in the province during the martial days of 1919 was even more shameful and unworthy, “on account of the outrage of human dignity it involved.” The issuing of crawling orders and the throwing of bombs from aeroplanes over peaceful towns constituted in part the doings of the military and police during the unfortunate days of martial law. Nor was that all. Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the first woman president of India, said while speaking on the “Punjab wrongs” before a large London audience (Kingsway Hall, June 3, 1919):
“My sisters were flogged, they were stripped naked; they were outraged.”
The ingenuity of the English officials during the martial law period in inventing fancy punishments showed itself conspicuously in the town of Kasur where, according to the findings of the Congress sub-committee,
“1. School boys and men were whipped, ‘with no particular object,’ and there was no question of any martial law offense. Prostitutes were invited to witness the ceremony.
2. People were made to mark time and climb ladders.
3. Religious mendicants were washed with lime.
4. Those who failed to salute Europeans were made to rub their roses on the ground.
6. Public gallows were erected which were later abandoned. In all, eighteen persons were hanged in the Punjab during the martial law regime, many of whom were totally innocent.”