History: The Butcher of Amritsar by Nigel Collett
THE BUTCHER OF AMRITSAR: General Reginald Dyer
by Nigel Collett
Hambledon and London £25 pp575
When the Queen visited India in 1997, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence, the Duke of Edinburgh put his foot in it in the customary way. Entering Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, he saw a plaque that stated, “This ground is hallowed with the mingled blood of about 2,000 innocent Hindus, Sikhs, and Mussulmans who were shot by British bullets on 13 April, 1919.” The duke suggested that the figure was an exaggeration. There were protests in Delhi by Sikh organisations and an official banquet was cancelled.
As it happens, the duke had a point. About 379 people had been killed, and the figure of 2,000 refers ambiguously to the wounded. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh on the orders of General Reginald Dyer remains the most contentious aspect of British rule in India in the