Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I, like so many others, take this opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate and for expressing so eloquently the horror of that day; what it must have been like; and how he appreciated that horror for the first time. That is something that we should all take away from the debate.

I will move on to why, 100 years on, I feel that it is almost inconceivable that we are still discussing whether we should apologise for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In this place, we so often pride ourselves on calling for action by others—other countries and Governments—to end injustice. In the last week, we have railed against injustice in Brunei; we have talked at length about injustice all over the world; and we have pondered the 25th anniversary of the horrors of Rwanda. Yet here we are, 100 years later, with this crime and horror on our national conscience, debating whether to apologise.

For me, there is no question; there is no other action but to apologise. It is important that we do so for many reasons. The horror of the massacre, the injustice of it and the mistakes that were made at the time must be acknowledged or we will—as hon. Friends have said—be condemned to repeat them. It is time that we expressed the respect that we feel for our Sikh communities throughout the country, in my Edinburgh West constituency and beyond, and for what their community has suffered at the hands of the British empire. It is important that our constituents feel that respect and know that we do not just acknowledge the massacre, but apologise for what was done 100 years ago.

As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) said, it is also important that we do not just apologise and walk away, but that we see that as a beginning to highlighting that moment and using it to educate our own children about a past that was not as perfect as is often portrayed in our schools. It was not as wonderful to be part of the British empire as we often claim. We must acknowledge that, although we should not be trapped in the past as some say, we need to recognise the crimes that were committed and the people who were affected. Although we can never change that, we can at least go some way to alleviating the pain that is felt, simply by saying two words that sometimes seem so difficult: “We’re sorry.”