Amritsar 1919 Read online

  The dismissive attitude of her friends that so frustrated Melicent was in all likelihood part of the elaborate charade British officials and their wives were expected to play at all times – though especially during moments of crisis. Rosamond Lawrence described exactly what it felt like to have to ‘carry on as usual’ and, as the wife of a senior official, ‘the strain of being the only woman who knows’.42 At Amritsar, it was indeed likely that Mrs Irving was deliberately making light of the Wathens’ concerns in a conspicuous display of sangfroid. The truth was that, the day before, her husband had completely lost his composure and sent a panicky report to his superior, Commissioner Kitchin, at Lahore.

  Irving’s letter was ostensibly no more than a report on the hartal of 6 April, which had passed off without any serious mishaps and even the mass meeting in the afternoon had been a peaceful affair. ‘So ended a day which a London policeman would have described as a picnic,’ Irving noted, only to abruptly change the tone: ‘Unfortunately, we are not in London and I regard the situation with very grave concern.’43 Irving proceeded to lay out his construal of the events: the hartals at Delhi and Amritsar on 30 March had been carefully coordinated, he suggested, and, following the shooting in the capital, a Swami, or Hindu priest, had subsequently been sent to Amritsar to warn that the same mistake was not to be repeated. The peaceful hartal in Amritsar on 6 April was accordingly a test-run, which in Irving’s opinion ‘proved that the party of anarchy can, on less than 12 hours’ notice, have the whole city at their command in the teeth of the so-called leaders’. Irving’s letter was an exercise in veiled allusions and vague inferences and he kept hinting at the existence of a ‘party of anarchy’ while at the same time admitting that ‘who are at the bottom of this I can not say’. Kitchlew, it was suggested, might be ‘the local agent of much bigger men’, yet their identity remained elusive: ‘Who those are can only be guessed from their rage at the Rowlatt Acts which strike at the root of organized anarchic crime.’44

  The situation at Amritsar, Irving claimed, was furthermore deeply precarious: ‘From one cause or another the people are restless and discontented and ripe for the revolutionists.’ Considering the small size of the military garrison, the Deputy Commissioner insisted that reinforcements were urgently needed: ‘Any resolute action in the city would leave the civil lines almost undefended.’45 If British troops were not available, he suggested that machine guns and armoured car units be despatched instead: ‘As it is we must abandon nine-tenths of the city to a riot, holding only the Kotwali and communications and even so will be hard pressed to defend the station and civil lines.’46 Though nothing more serious than the hartal had occurred, Irving was invoking the image of a British garrison outnumbered and besieged, effectively conjuring a second ‘Mutiny’. It was time, he claimed, for the British to finally assert their authority – by force if necessary:

  We cannot go on indefinitely with the policy of keeping out of the way, and congratulating ourselves that the mob has not forced us to interfere. Every time we do this the confidence of the mob increases: yet with our present force we have no alternative. I think that we shall have to stand up for our authority sooner or later by prohibiting some strike or procession which endangers the public peace. But for this a really strong force will have to be brought in and we shall have to be ready to try conclusions to the end to see who governs Amritsar.47

  At this crucial moment, Irving further lamented, the loyal Indian leaders appeared to have lost all their influence and could no longer be relied upon to gauge the political temperature – ‘the Khan Bahadurs and Rai sahibs are dead’, as he put it. Irving’s final line was nothing short of an admission of defeat for a colonial power after more than a century’s rule in India: ‘I think that things will be worse before they are better and that for the present we must rely on ourselves alone.’48 While Irving’s paranoid reasoning might have made perfect sense in 1857, it reflected a profound misreading of the nature of local unrest in 1919. As such, it had all the markings of panic resulting from an acute breakdown in the relationship between the British authorities and their Indian subjects.

  On 9 April, O’Dwyer was informed by the Government of India that Gandhi would not be deported, but that his movement would be restricted to Bombay.49 This was well short of what O’Dwyer had wanted but meant that the ‘arch-seditionist’ could be kept out of Punjab. The same day, Irving’s letter also reached O’Dwyer, with whom it immediately struck a nerve. As the threat assessment was considered both plausible and urgent, the Lieutenant-Governor decided to remove Kitchlew and Satyapal from Amritsar entirely.50 Yet again, it was past precedent that guided O’Dwyer, as he argued: ‘on a similar occasion in 1907, the deportation of two similar agitators, Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh, had an instantaneous effect in quietening the situation’.51 J.P. Thompson, Chief Secretary to the Punjab Government and O’Dwyer’s secretary, repeated the same refrain, insisting that after the deportation in 1907 ‘the whole agitation collapsed at once’.52 That was not, however, how the residents of Amritsar remembered the affair, and one Indian doctor described how the deportation in 1907 had in fact caused riots and the sacking of a post office.53 The very example used by the Punjab authorities thus seemed to caution against pursuing that strategy. Irving had, furthermore, asked for military reinforcements, but this request went unheeded and for O’Dwyer there was little doubt as to the best course of action: ‘At that time there was the danger of an outbreak. Everything would have been lost if it had been postponed. That is the view I took. When confronted with a serious situation, I have generally found that prompt action is the best way of dealing with it.’54 Rather than consulting the officials who would have to deal with the matter, O’Dwyer went over the head of both Kitchin and Irving and instead met with the irascible Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, who came over from Amritsar. O’Dwyer asked Smith whether he thought that the deportation of Kitchlew and Satyapal would be likely to cause any disturbance, but the lieutenant-colonel assured him that it would not and that ‘the Khatris and Kashimiris [Hindus and Muslims] would not offer any open resistance’.55

  Among the residents of Amritsar, it was widely rumoured that Smith had gone to Lahore to convince O’Dwyer to deport the two leaders and, whether this was true or not, there can be little doubt that he was instrumental in that decision.56 This was typical of the Punjab school, to ride roughshod over regulations and formal bureaucratic structures and instead leave it to the ‘man on the spot’ to do as he saw fit. In this case, however, the ‘man on the spot’ was not Irving but Smith. As a recent arrival in Amritsar, O’Dwyer argued, Irving ‘was not aware of the full situation’. Smith, on the other hand, he considered to be in possession of ‘unique knowledge of Amritsar and great influence’.57 Smith did indeed have very strong views on the nature of the unrest that he shared with O’Dwyer:

  In my opinion these hartals had nothing to do with religion, but [. . .] they were designed and organised by Mr Gandhi or by a revolutionary organization behind him for the purpose of developing a little discipline and a revolutionary spirit, and [. . .] I had no doubt from the great success of the hartal on 6th April 1919, that they intended to have another hartal at no distant date on which the red flag would be heaved up everywhere at the same time [. . .] and [. . .] once it went out of hand I was confident that reasoning with these people would be of no avail – that prompt force would be necessary.58

  Such was the ‘expert’ advice on which O’Dwyer based his strategy. While Smith was expounding his theories about the ‘Russo-German Bolshevist organization’ allegedly behind the Rowlatt protests, Kitchlew, Satyapal, Hans Raj and hundreds of other volunteers were celebrating the religious festival of Ram Naumi at Amritsar in spectacular fashion.

  Ram Naumi was primarily a Hindu festival but on 9 April 1919 it came to serve as a marker of Hindu–Muslim unity. Chabils, for the traditional charitable distribution of water, milk or sherbet, were established throughout Amritsar, and Hindus and Muslims openly dran
k water from the same vessel. Although both Kitchlew and Satyapal had been banned from engaging in political activities, they put a lot of effort into ensuring that the popular mobilisation continued and that the anti-Rowlatt protests did not lose momentum.59 The secretary of the Satyagraha Sabha, the Muslim medical practitioner Dr Bashir, could assume some of the practical responsibilities, yet it fell to volunteers like Hans Raj to transcribe, print and distribute the Satyagraha vows and lists of signatories.60 As Hans Raj could both read and write English, the rootless youth suddenly found himself as the joint secretary of the Sabha and deeply involved in the organisation of the Ram Naumi festivities.

  The Indian journalist Malaviya described the religious pageant, in which people dressed up as Hindu deities were taken through the city:

  The procession was the grandest of recent years. Thousands of Muhammadans led by Dr Kitchlu joined the Hindu god’s triumphal march and rent the skies with the soul-entrancing swell of ‘Hindu Musalman ki-jai.’ Thousands raised their cries to bless Doctors Kitchlu and Satyapal and Mahatma Gandhi was not forgotten in the joyous enthusiasm of the day.61

  Deputy Commissioner Irving was unexpectedly caught up in the processions and ended up watching the crowds from the veranda of the Allahabad Bank in Hall Bazaar: ‘As a rule they were very civil, every car in the procession stopped in front of me and the band played ‘God save the King.’ A note of disloyalty which struck me was that a party of Muhammadan students dressed to represent the Turkish Army raised a rude demonstration by clapping their hands which is a sign of rudeness up here.’62 What Irving mistook for a public display of disloyalty, however, had a rather more innocuous explanation as the local imam, who organised this part of the procession, described: ‘I raised some money and got up a “swang” [street performance] which consisted of 15 boys, dressed up in coats and trousers which I borrowed from a band-shop, to make them look like Bajawallas [military bandsmen] each with a Turkish cap on his head. This was done to make it clear that this was a party of Mohammedans.’63 Without instruments, the boys were simply clapping and cheering, yet Indian eyewitnesses described Irving as having been deeply upset by the sight: ‘The Deputy Commissioner could not look on the scene without losing his balance and said, “there will soon be a row here”. It was apparent that he was burning with excitement. He went inside the Bank premises and was offered soda to drink, when even his hands shook with excitement.’64 This was a perfect example of the way that British officials misread popular sentiments among the local population. The very notion that Hindus and Muslims might genuinely find common ground was a cause for great concern to men such as Irving. The ‘natural state’ of Indian society was presumably defined by communal conflict and the unity displayed on 9 April was as a result regarded with the greatest suspicion. ‘I saw that they were using religious organizations to serve political ends,’ Irving claimed, ‘which always in the long run means mischief.’65

  When Irving returned from the city that evening, relieved that there had been no real unrest, he found a letter from O’Dwyer awaiting him. Unable to have the two leaders formally deported, O’Dwyer was nevertheless at liberty to pursue whatever action he deemed necessary within Punjab. Deploying the provisions of the Defence of India Act, the Lieutenant-Governor had thus decided to remove Kitchlew and Satyapal to the furthest corner of the province – the hill station of Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas.66 Although this measure was precipitated by Irving’s own letter, written the previous day, the Deputy Commissioner was not prepared for this. The military reinforcements he had requested had not yet arrived, but the urgency of the order left Irving with little choice:

  Government wanted me to do it quietly. If I had thought that the situation was out of hand and I could not do it without disorder, that consideration would have been paramount and I would have said, ‘no; it cannot be done without reinforcements.’ But in the meantime news would have got out about, and there would probably be a strong agitation to prevent Dr. Kitchlew being taken away, and by delaying I should have rather given away the Government’s case.67

  In the evening of 9 April, Irving thus held a hastily called meeting at his bungalow attended by Captain J.W. Massey, Officer Commanding the Station, Mr J.F. Rehill, Superintendent of Police, Mr R. Plomer, Deputy Superintendent of Police, and, just returned from Lahore, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith too.68 The key concern was how to arrest the two leaders the next day and get them out of Amritsar ‘without any fuss’, as Irving put it.69 As a result, the preparations were largely kept secret, even from most of the Anglo-Indians of Amritsar.70

  While Irving and the others were quietly making their plans in Amritsar, Gandhi was on his way to Delhi by train. At the small station of Palwal, Gandhi was taken off the train and sent back to Bombay under the provisions of the Defence of India Act.71 ‘My arrest makes me free,’ Gandhi subsequently told his followers, while reminding them to abstain from violence:

  There is a fundamental difference between their civilization and ours. They believe in the doctrine of violence or brute force as the final arbiter. My reading of our civilization is that we are expected to believe in soul-force or moral force as the final arbiter and this is satyagraha.72

  CHAPTER 4

  LIKE WILDFIRE

  10 APRIL

  Around 8am on Thursday 10 April, both Kitchlew and Satyapal received a letter from Irving, asking them to come to the Deputy Commissioner’s house in the Civil Lines at 10 am. The two leaders had already been served with orders to refrain from political activities, but did not think much of the summons, as Satyapal noted: ‘I did not at all attach much importance to the matter and went about my daily rounds as usual.’1 Hans Raj was as usual on hand at Kitchlew’s house, and went with the Muslim barrister in a ghari to the Civil Lines, along with another volunteer, Jai Ram Singh. Satyapal arrived shortly after and, while Hans Raj and Jai Ram Singh were made to wait outside on the road, the two leaders entered the compound. ‘We had hardly to wait for a few minutes in the tent pitched outside,’ Satyapal recalled, ‘when we were called in. There were a number of other Europeans. Among them I recognised Mr. Rehill, Superintendent of Police, and Mr. Beckett, Assistant Commissioner, introduced himself to me. The Defence of India Orders were at once placed in our hands, and we were asked to leave Amritsar at once.’2

  Outside, Hans Raj and Jai Ram Singh had noticed British troops positioned along the road when they arrived and speculated whether Kitchlew and Satyapal were about to be arrested.3 These were a detachment of Somerset Light Infantry that Massey held in reserve in case an attempt was made to rescue the two Indian leaders.4 Waiting nearby, Massey was informed that ‘Drs. Kitchlew and Satyapal had arrived and had been arrested and they were waiting for the second motor car to turn up. This car was lent by Mr. J.F. Preston, Skin Merchant of Amritsar, which was unavoidably detained in the city procuring petrol. It eventually turned up.’5 According to Irving: ‘The chief arm against rescue was the secrecy of our operations. I decided that they would be 30 miles on their way to Dharamsala before any one knew about it.’6 Kitchlew and Satyapal were allowed to write letters to their families before they were bundled into the vehicles, with four soldiers dressed for a hunting-party to avoid raising suspicion.7 The senior-most police officer at Amritsar, Superintendent of Police Rehill, was the only one who knew the way to Dharamsala, and who could furthermore drive, and so he took charge of the furtive escort operation.8 Meanwhile, Hans Raj and Jai Ram Singh were told to wait on the veranda of the Deputy Commissioner’s house lest the news of the deportation spread before Kitchlew and Satyapal were far enough away. ‘There was a military escort with guns in each car,’ Satyapal remembered, and ‘the cars were driven at high speed and we did not halt till we got to the Nurpur Dak Bungalow’, 50 miles away.9 The party travelled the entire day and only reached their destination, Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas, at eight o’clock that evening. With the deportation having apparently come off without any glitches, the soldiers were marched bac
k to Ram Bagh, while the remaining officials returned to their duties at the kutchery and elsewhere.

  After more than half an hour, Irving finally came out and told Hans Raj and Jai Ram Singh to deliver three letters from the two leaders: one for Mrs Kitchlew, one for Satyapal’s father, Mani Ram, and another for a female relative.10 The two volunteers then got in the ghari and hurried back to the city to deliver the letters and spread the important news. When Mani Ram read the letter from Satyapal, he noted proudly that ‘he did not care if his son was even killed, if it was on behalf of his own kind’.11 Having delivered the two other letters, Hans Raj and Jai Ram Singh then went to the house of Dr Bashir. With the deportation of Kitchlew and Satyapal, people who had so far only played lesser roles in the organisation of meetings and hartals suddenly found themselves at the fore of the popular movement. The Satyagraha organisation at Amritsar had only ever been a rather loose group of local community leaders, lawyers and doctors, supported by various volunteers. Dr Bashir thus emerged by default as the person to whom people looked for leadership on 10 April 1919. When Bashir heard the news, he got angry, saying that Indians had long tolerated the oppression of the British, but that the deportation ‘had exceeded the limit and they would bardasht karo [tolerate] it no longer’.12 The doctor told the two volunteers to hurry to the telegraph office, outside Hall Gate, and notify Gandhi and the Satyagraha Sabha in Bombay, as well as several Indian newspapers.13