Amritsar Massacre: Centenary

Lord Desai Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, in the brief time I have, I want to concentrate on what the House of Lords did during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the discussions afterwards. It is a particularly sad episode in the history of your Lordships’ House. While the House of Commons condemned Dyer’s behaviour and cashiered him—Edwin Montagu, who was Secretary of State for India, made a very powerful speech and the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, has already quoted what Winston Churchill said that night about General Dyer’s behaviour—the House of Lords debated a Motion saying:

“That this House deplores the conduct of the case of General Dyer as unjust to that officer, and as establishing a precedent dangerous to the preservation of order in face of rebellion”.—[Official Report, 19/7/1920; col. 222.]


It was introduced by Viscount Finlay. There were 10 speakers and, at the end, the Motion was passed.

At some stage, the House of Lords ought to reflect on its own behaviour. I do not have time to go through what was said in any detail, but Viscount Finlay’s objections were mainly that Dyer was misjudged, that he really was facing an armed rebellion and therefore that he had every right to do what he did. He also said that the Hunter Commission, which was appointed to investigate this, had three Indian members, and that that was not the right thing to do because they were partisan, and the partisan commission ruled against Dyer. As it happened, both the majority report and the minority report of the Hunter commission condemned Dyer—but let us leave that aside.

The view was taken that somehow injustice had been done to a brave officer who was putting down a rebellion. The nightmare of the 1857 rebellion haunted some of the officers in Punjab at that time and they overreacted. Punjab was under martial law and it was not only Jallianwala Bagh which was a problem. Throughout April and after, there was martial law in Punjab. Lahore suffered as much as the rest of Punjab and Gujranwala, a small town which is now in Pakistan, was bombed from the air to control what the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, thought was happening. It was a very unusual moment in which Punjab was held almost captive.

I think we ought to reflect on this, when we get the chance. The debate from 19 July 1920, which is in Hansard, should be read by Members of your Lordships’ House and, at another stage, we should ask ourselves whether we should not apologise to the world for what this House did. That at least we can do ourselves—we do not need the permission of the Government.