I need help with an Amritsar Massacre project.?

Question

I need to have 3 primary sources on the Amritsar Massacre. I can't find anything. I would also like to have someone who is an expert that I can e-mail questions to. Thanks!

I know about the massacre I just need primary sources. I got a newspaper article from 2005, but I dont think that works. Please help. it's due tomorow.

Answer 1

i have just finished a project about it .
i used the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amritsar_Massacre

http://www.amritsar.com/Jallian%20Wala%20Bagh.shtml

http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/india/history/colonial/massacre.html

http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9355249/Massacre-of-Amritsar

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007273/Massacre-of-Amritsar

hope it helps :)

Answer 2

None of you seemed to understand the original question. She was looking for PRIMARY SOURCES. That means eyewitness accounts. Interviews or written accounts from people who were there.

Answer 3

Ask me: [e-mail]

Answer 4

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, also known as the Amritsar Massacre, was named after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in Amritsar, where, on April 13, 1919, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. The firing lasted about 10 minutes and 1600 rounds were fired. Official sources place the casualties at 379. According to private sources, the number was over 1000, with more than 2000 wounded, and Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that they were over 1800.

The gathering
In the morning hours of April 10, 1919, a crowd had been proceeding towards the residence of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, an important city in the Punjab, a large province in the north-western part of the then undivided India, to demand the release of two popular leaders - Dr.Satyapal and Dr.Saifuddin Kitchlew - against whom deportation orders had been issued. The crowd was fired on by a military picket. Later in the day, several banks and other buildings, either housing government property or otherwise emblematic of British rule, were set on fire. The Town Hall, two banks, the telegraph office and a railway goods shed were set alight. The railway station was saved by the arrival of a small force of Gurkhas on a troop train. A European railway guard was beaten to death at the goods shed,three European bank officials burnt to death and another European murdered in the street during this part of the day. An English female missionary was badly beaten and left for dead in the street, she was saved by the intervention of a group of Indians who hid her from the mob in a nearby house. The infantry fired upon the crowd several times during the day, and between 8 and 20 people were killed.

For the next two days the city of Amritsar was quiet, but violence continued in other parts of the Punjab. Railway lines were cut, telegraph posts destroyed, and government buildings burnt, and three Europeans were killed. By April 13th, the decision to place most of the Punjab under martial law had been taken.

On April 13, thousands of people gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh in the heart of Amritsar, one of the major cultural, religious, and commercial towns of Punjab state. The occasion was Baisakhi Day, a religious day. A tradition had been established for Hindus and Sikhs to gather in Amritsar to participate in the Baisakhi festival. Legally, the gathering in the Bagh was in violation of the prohibitory orders banning gatherings of five or more persons in the city, a term of martial law.
The massacre
A group of British Indian Army soldiers consisting of 25 riflemen from the 1/9 Gurkhas, 25 riflemen from the 54th and 59th Sikhs along with 40 additional Gurkhas armed with kukris marched to the park accompanied by two armoured cars. The vehicles were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance.

The troops were commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer who, immediately upon entering the Bagh and without the slightest warning to the crowd to disperse, ordered his fifty riflemen to fire, concentrating especially on the areas where the crowd was thickest. The firing started at 17:15 and lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. During the shooting a total of 1650 rounds were discharged into the crowd. The bagh, or garden, was bounded on all sides by brick walls and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. Since there was only one exit except for the one already manned by the troops, people desperately tried to climb the walls of the park. Many of the people jumped into a well inside the compound to escape from the bullets. A plaque in the monument says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well alone.

After the firing was over, hundreds of people had been killed and thousands had been injured. Official estimates put the figures at 379 killed (337 men, 41 boys and a six week old baby) and 1200 injured, though the actual figure is hotly disputed and many Indian sources put it much higher(see above); the wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared. Debate about the actual figures continues to this day.

Back in his headquarters Dyer reported to his superiors that he had been confronted by a revolutionary army, and had been obliged to teach a moral lesson to the Punjab.

In a telegram sent to Dyer, British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O'Dwyer wrote: "Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor approves." Many Englishmen in India, as well as the British press, defended Dyer as the man who had saved British pride and honour. The Morning Post opened a fund for Dyer, and contributions poured in. An American woman donated 100 pounds, adding "I fear for the British women there now that Dyer has been dismissed."

O'Dwyer requested that martial law be imposed upon Amritsar and other areas; this was granted by the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, after the massacre.

Dyer was called to appear before the Hunter Commission, a commission of inquiry into the massacre that was ordered to convene by Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu, in late 1919. Dyer admitted before the commission that he came to know about the meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh at 12:40 hours that day but took no steps to prevent it. He stated that he had gone to the Bagh with the deliberate intention of opening fire if he found a crowd assembled there.

"I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself." — Dyer's response to the Hunter Commission Enquiry.

Dyer said he would have used his machine guns if he could have got them into the enclosure, but these were mounted on armoured cars. He said he did not stop firing when the crowd began to disperse because he thought it was his duty to keep firing until the crowd dispersed, and that a little firing would do no good.

He confessed that he did not take any steps to tend to the wounded after the firing. "Certainly not. It was not my job. Hospitals were open and they could have gone there," was his response.

Reaction
In the storm of outrage which followed the release of the Hunter Report in 1920, Dyer was placed on the inactive list and his rank reverted to Colonel since he was no longer in command of a Brigade. The then Commander-in-Chief stated that Dyer would no longer be offered employment in India. Dyer was also in very poor health, and so he was sent home to England on a hospital ship.Some senior British officers applauded his suppression of 'another Indian Mutiny'. The House of Lords passed a measure commending him. The House of Commons, however, censured him; in the debate Winston Churchill claimed: "The incident in Jallian Wala Bagh was an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation". Dyer's action was condemned worldwide. He was officially censured by the British Government and resigned in 1920.

However, many in Britain did not condemn Dyer's actions, some labelling him the "Saviour of the Punjab". The Morning Post started a sympathy fund for Dyer and received over £26,000. Dyer was presented with a memorial book inscribed with the names of well-wishers.

In India the massacre evoked feelings of deep anguish and anger. It catalysed the freedom movement in the Punjab against British rule and paved the way for Mohandas Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement against the British in 1920. It was also motivation for a number of other revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh. The Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the King-Emperor in protest. The massacre ultimately became an important catalyst of the Indian independence movement

Monument and legacy
A trust was formed in 1920 to build a memorial at the site following a resolution passed by the Indian National Congress. In 1923 the trust purchased land for the project. A memorial, designed by American architect Benjamin Polk, was built on the site and inaugurated by the then-President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad on 13 April 1961 in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders. A flame was later added to the site. The bullet holes can be seen on the walls and adjoining buildings to this day. The well into which many people jumped and drowned attempting to save themselves from the hail of bullets is also a protected monument inside the park.

The massacre is depicted in Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi with the role of General Dyer played by Edward Fox. It is also depicted in Indian films Rang De Basanti and The Legend of Bhagat Singh.

In 1997, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, participating in an already controversial British visit to the Amritsar monument, provoked outrage in India and in the UK with an offhand comment. Having observed a plaque claiming 2,000 casualties, Prince Philip observed, "That's not right. The number is less." Beginning in 2007, Britain is to teach its schoolchildren about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in its curriculum.


I hope this helps to point you in the general dirrection.