Remembering the Remorse

What does this day teach us in history ?

April 13th, the day celebrated as the birth anniversary of Dada Saheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema and American President Thomas Jefferson but this day is the death anniversary of 1500  people who were shot mercilessly by a cruel colonial General Dyer. The people had gathered in the Bagh for celebrating Baisakhi festival and also to condemn the arrest and deportation of two nationalist leaders Satyapal and doctor Saifuddin. The incident was truly a massacre, a mass killing of innocents. 

                It were the hours of afternoon when Dyer's forces blocked the entry by a tank and locked the exit. On his orders the forces fired on the crowd for almost 10 minutes directing their bullets towards the gates through which people were trying to escape. Colonial Dyer was rewarded in Britain and became a National Hero for taking the lives of innocent pilgrims. Ecentric, but yes, Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling called Dyer 'the man who saved India' and initiated collections for his homecomming prize.

This brutality left people terrified and led to widespread anger throughout the country which later turned into The Non-cooperation movement. The incident led to the birth of great national leaders like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and the revenge full Udham Singh. Fifteen days after the massacre Bhagat Singh came from Lahore to the Jallianwala Bagh and took the the soil of the Bagh with him. A Commission was set up to  enquire about the reasons of the mighty killing. As expected, Dyer was not found guilty and was retired two years earlier.

The souls of the victims rested in peace after 21 years on March 13th when Michael O'Dyer was shot by Udham Singh in London. Next year will mark the 100th death anniversary of the 1919 massacre.