Write a short note on 'The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre'.

what is meant by satyagraha

on 13 aprill 1919 , there was a public meeting which consisted of about 15000 - 20000 people held in jallianwallah bagh .... suddenly general dyer entered the scene and ordereed the troops to fire ...many innocent people were killed as the firing went on till 10 minutes...

On 13 April 1919, people gathered in a small park in Amritsar which was called the Jalllianwala Bagh. The peaceful gathering was attended by men, women and children. General Dyer, a British military officer, stationed a regiment of soldiers at the only entrance of the park, declared the meeting illegal and without warning ordered his soldiers to fire.

Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood I protest. All nationalist leaders condemned this shameful act.

The government leaders martial law in Punjab and resorted to inhuman cruelties to stem the rising tide of protests. However, all this strengthened peoples determination to fight against oppression.

Where is the jallianwala bagh?

On 10 April 1919, two nationalist leaders- Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satya Pal were arrested in Punjab. On 13 April 1919, people gathered in a small park in Amritsar which was called the Jalllianwala Bagh, to protest against these arrests. The peaceful gathering was attended by men, women and children. General Dyer, a British military officer, stationed a regiment of soldiers at the only entrance of the park, declared the meeting illegal and without warning ordered his soldiers to fire. The firing lasted for ten minutes, till all the ammunition was exhausted. More than a thousand people were killed and over twice that number wounded.

The massacre inflamed the anger of the Indians. After the massacre, General Dyer said that he had ordered his troops to fire to teach the Indians a lesson. This added fuel to the fire. There were widespread protests. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood I protest. All nationalist leaders condemned this shameful act. The government leaders martial law in Punjab and resorted to inhuman cruelties to stem the rising tide of protests. People were tortured and newspapers were banned. However, all this strengthened people’s determination to fight against oppression.

~~The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919 when troops of the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer fired machine guns into a crowd of Baishakhi pilgrims, who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab. The civilians, in the majority Sikhs, had assembled to participate in the annual Baisakhi celebrations, a religious and cultural festival for Punjabi people and also to condemn the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satya Pal and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew. Coming from outside the city, many may have been unaware of the imposition of martial law.

The Jallianwalla Bagh is a public garden of 6 to 7 acres (28,000 m2), walled on all sides with five entrances.[2] To enter, troops first blocked the entry by a tank and locked the exit. On Dyer's orders, his troops fired on the crowd for ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few open gates through which people were trying to flee. The British government released figures stating 379 dead and 1,200 wounded.[1][3] Other sources place the number of dead at well over 1,000.[4] This "brutality stunned the entire nation",[5] resulting in a "wrenching loss of faith" of the general public in the intentions of the UK.[6] The ineffective inquiry and the initial accolades for Dyer by the House of Lords fuelled widespread anger, leading to the Non-cooperation Movement of 1920–22.[7]

On Sunday, 13 April 1919, Dyer was convinced of a major insurrection and he banned all meetings; however this notice was not widely disseminated. That was the day of Baisakhi, the main Sikh festival, and many villagers had gathered in the Bagh. On hearing that a meeting had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer went with Sikh, Gurkha, Baluchi, Rajput troops from 2-9th Gurkhas, the 54th Sikhs and the 59th Sind Rifles[8] to a raised bank and ordered them to shoot at the crowd. Dyer continued the firing for about ten minutes, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted. Dyer stated that 1,650 rounds had been fired, a number apparently derived by counting empty cartridge cases picked up by the troops.[9] Official British Indian sources gave a figure of 379 identified dead,[3] with approximately 1,100 wounded. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500 injured, with approximately 1,000 dead.[4]

Dyer was initially lauded by conservative forces in the empire, but in July 1920 he was censured and forced to retire by the House of Commons.[10] He became a celebrated hero in the UK among most of the people connected to the British Raj,[11] for example, the House of Lords,[12] but unpopular in the House of Commons, which voted against Dyer[clarification needed] twice.[13] Among his prominent supporters, Nobel Literature Prize winner Rudyard Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and initiated collections for his homecoming prize.[14] The massacre caused a re-evaluation of the army's role, in which the new policy became minimum force. The army was retrained and developed less violent tactics for crowd control.[15] Some historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.[16]