Amritsar Massacre: Centenary

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, in the catalogue of crimes which featured in the defence of empire, from the suppression of the so-called Indian mutiny onwards, the Amritsar massacre is just about the worst. The conscience of the world was horrified by the events that other noble Lords have described so well.

Britain in 1919 was a hard, nationalist country; very prominent were the die-hards, the so-called “hard-faced men” of whom Keynes wrote. This was seen in Ireland, in relation to immigrants, and in the anti-Semitism which imposed itself on the Secretary of State for India, the Jewish Edwin Montagu. As it happens, the policy towards the empire and towards India was not so hostile during this period; on the contrary, with the Montagu-Chelmsford report the Government began a process of greater devolution and of bringing the Indians into government. But Amritsar, the pile of corpses in the bagh, changed all that.

The disaster, I believe, was to leave key decisions to the officers on the spot, who often had very limited understanding of the political factors and couched them in right-wing imperialist views. This was particularly true of Dyer. He was asked after the event by the Hunter commission if he had any regrets. He said “no”. He was asked whether he would have proceeded into the bagh himself, and he said “yes”—and just to make sure, he would carry a machine-gun with him. His troops were stationed in an area of the road where people would accumulate, and therefore as many as possible were shot. It was followed by other shameful events: public crawling across the area of the march, and disturbances and public floggings in areas where violence had occurred.

The Government acted in a more positive fashion. Lloyd George dismissed Dyer from his post, though not from the Army. Winston Churchill made a powerful defence of government policy in Parliament. In the House of Commons, there was much backing for General Dyer, particularly interestingly from the Irish Ulster Unionists who equated the treatment of Indian nationalists with the resistance to Sinn Fein in Ireland and the policy of the Black and Tans. The effect was to antagonise all the religious bodies and create a new generation of nationalists: Nehru, the Muslim Jinnah and, of course, Mahatma Gandhi, whose campaign of civil disobedience took on a powerful new course.

What should be done now? As the House has heard, there has never been an official state policy or statement of regret. When the Queen visited India a few years ago, the speech she was given was quite inadequate for the purpose and the Duke of Edinburgh’s off-the-cuff remarks made matters, if anything, somewhat worse. At a time when Britain is becoming more isolated in the world, it is so important to reinforce our ties with India. These events are still resented there. We should have an official statement, if not of regret then at least documenting the facts in plain language, thereby restoring the principles and values for which the British Commonwealth has always stood.