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Updated: May 24, 2025
Mirza Shah was absent from his home gone on a full week's journey, engaged in the settling of some dispute on the confines of his territory. To me there came one afternoon the sultana, attended by one of her women the most trusted one, I knew, for both were from the same country, near to Amritsar, where the famous rugs are woven.
"Big trouble, Sahib Amritsar," answered the fleshly one, wiping the dusty sweat from his forehead, and shaking it unceremoniously from his finger-tips. "Word comes that our leaders are taken. Mahatma Ghandi, also. The people are burning and looting; Bank-ghar, Town Hall-ghar; killing many Sahibs and one Mem-sahib. Hai! hai! Now there will be hartal again; Committee ki ráj. No food; no work.
That during the intervening two days before the 'massacre' there was peace in Amritsar. That the proclamation of the meeting was made the same day as General Dyer's proclamation. That General Dyer's proclamation prohibited not meetings but processions or gatherings of four men on the streets and not in private or public places. That General Dyer ran no risk whether outside or inside the city.
Violence was countered with stern repression. Riotous mobs were mowed down wholesale by rifle and machine-gun fire or were scattered by bombs dropped from low-flying aeroplanes. The most noted of these occurrences was the so-called "Amritsar Massacre," where British troops fired into a seditious mass-meeting, killing 500 and wounding 1500 persons. In the end the government mastered the situation.
The Punjabi Bible, nearly complete, issued first in 1815, had become so popular by 1820 as to lead Carey to report of the Sikhs that no one of the nations of India had discovered a stronger desire for the Scriptures than this hardy race. At Amritsar and Lahore "the book of Jesus is spoken of, is read, and has caused a considerable stir in the minds of the people."
It is possible Grandfather may come too; we are hoping to start soon after the fifteenth, if things keep quiet. Write to me, Roy, telling all you know. Lahore is a hotbed for trouble; Amritsar, worse; but I hope your authorities are keeping well on their guard." From all Roy heard, there seemed good reason to believe they were; in so far as a Home policy of Government by concession would permit.
There were the usual blue-and-white-striped jail-made rugs on the uneven floor; the usual glass-studded Amritsar phulkaris draped on nails driven into the flaking whitewash of the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not match, picked up at sales of dead men's effects; and the usual streaks of black grease where the leather punka-thong ran through the wall.
When they brought my father his change he flung it disdainfully back at them, while the station master stood abashed at this exposure of the meanness of his implied doubt. The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream. Many a morning have I accompanied my father to this Gurudarbar of the Sikhs in the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resounds continually.
There were the usual blue-and-white-striped jail-made rugs on the uneven floor; the usual glass-studded Amritsar phulkaris draped on nails driven into the flaking whitewash of the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not match, picked up at sales of dead men's effects; and the usual streaks of black grease where the leather punka-thong ran through the wall.
But for General Dyer's own statements before the Hunter Commission, one might have pleaded that, left to his own unbalanced judgment by the precipitate abdication of the civil authority, he simply "saw red," though the outbreak of the 10th had been quelled before he arrived in Amritsar, and the city had been free from actual violence for the best part of three days.
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