Amritsar 1919 Read online

  Just outside the enclosure of the Darbar Sahib, visitors could climb the Baba Atal tower, which offered what a travel guide at the time described as a ‘marvellous panorama’: ‘In the back ground the old grey buildings of the city stretch out in an ever-widening circle. Some aspire towards the blue sky, while others crouch low as though shunning observation. Immediately beneath lie the green waters of the tank . . .’51 From this vantage-point, the white and gold of the temple provided a glaring contrast to the sand-coloured maze of the surrounding city, where locals could be seen flying kites from the rooftops.52

  As a major manufacturing centre for textiles, leather and metal goods, Amritsar also attracted many traders and merchants. The city was one of the most important entrepôts for European piece goods, and had a significant export in hides, grains and raw cotton. During the festivals of Diwali (October–November) and Baisakhi (April), Amritsar also hosted two major cattle and horse fairs, the biggest in the region.53 Just after the turn of the century, the American travel writer, Eliza Scidmore, described the old city at the height of its economic prosperity:

  How we revelled in the streets and bazaars beyond! The quarter of the shoemakers, where gaudy Mohammedan slippers dangled in gorgeous strings and bunches, and leather-workers bent over rainbow tasks! The wool-shops, where Bokhara camel’s wool and Kashmir and Rampur pashmina cloths overflowed from open sacks and bales! And yarn-shops, hung over with skeins of every colour! Dye-shops, where turban lengths hung dripping with every brilliant fluid! Copper and brass and damascened metal shops, and shops for the sale of coarse carpets and dhurries, of skin bottles and earthen bowls, – all were fascinating. The shops, however, were the dens of shawl-shops, where pale, fine-featured Kashmiris sat embroidering shawl borders with silks and gold thread.54

  Amritsar was particularly famous for its big carpet factories, each of which contained hundreds of looms and, when business was thriving, employed thousands of people. The textile industry in Amritsar had grown with the influx of Kashmiri Muslims throughout the nineteenth century, and, when the ‘caprice of fashion’ brought about a slump in the shawl and pashmina market, an emergent carpet industry instead sustained the weaver communities.55

  Further inside the city, a veritable maze of winding alleys sprouted from the main thoroughfares like a crazed spider-web. Some of the alleyways were so narrow that little sunlight ever penetrated the near-permanent gloom and the houses on either side stood close enough for one to touch both at the same time. ‘Bullock-carts crowded us to the wall and camel-trains brushed contemptuously through the narrow bazaars,’ Scidmore wrote excitedly of her exploration of the back-alleys of Amritsar: ‘One camel, loaded with baskets, scraped a destroying path through the tortuous lane, tearing down flimsy awnings and curtains, sweeping signs and trade samples along and tramping them under his spongy feet, while the shrieks of the despoiled tradesmen filled the air.’56 Not everyone enjoyed the crammed spaces of the old city, however. Visiting Amritsar in July 1919, after the rains had set in, the Indian journalist Kapil Deva Malaviya described his initial impressions with undisguised disdain:

  My full-boot was full of mud as I stepped down from the tonga opposite the entrance of a house that was to be my temporary abode in this eventful city. I am ready to depose in any court of law (martial law courts included) that the roads and streets of Amritsar are decidedly the dirtiest I have seen. It has been raining here for the last few days and every street of the town reminds you of the splashy and stinky alleys of the pre-British period, before the establishment of municipalities ushered a new era in the history of Indian cities. And is there a municipality at all at Amritsar? In the most thickly populated parts of the town you find numerous butcher’s shops where meat is sold side by side with other commodities in the most inæsthetic and unhygienic form possible.57

  Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, local municipalities had been one of the few areas of the colonial administration that was partly in the hands of Indians, being responsible for sanitation and public health as well as education and local taxes. At Amritsar, the Municipal Committee, which was almost entirely in the hands of Indian administrators, came in for a lot of criticism from the local press. The unsanitary conditions and increased death-rates within the old city were ascribed to the negligence of the municipality and the ‘carelessness’ of the lower castes, who were supposed to drain the open sewers and remove trash and waste from the streets.58 Located on low-lying land, and in the proximity of several major canals, parts of Amritsar became flooded every year during the rainy season, with mosquitoes breeding in the stagnant water. Diaries describe how people were plagued by flies at day and mosquitoes by night, and an engineering report of the time referred to Amritsar as ‘one of the unhealthiest places in Northern India’.59

  It was not just their physical but also their moral health that concerned the good citizens of Amritsar. In a city of profound religious significance, where sales of liquor were heavily taxed and controlled, the continuing presence of large numbers of prostitutes was an affront to the puritanism of the burgeoning middle class and reform movements such as the Arya Samaj and the Singh Sabha. Home to prostitutes of all kinds, from poor girls belonging to the so-called ‘criminal tribes’, to the traditionally trained tawaif, or courtesans, the red-light district extended from Ram Bagh Gate, right across the Hall Road, and into the Katra Kanhyan neighbourhood south of Hall Gate.60 Local newspapers expressed concern for the morals of the students and clerks who had to pass through those streets, while the British troops, frequenting the numerous brothels, ‘troubled the public’ with their ‘obscene songs’.61 The area was supposedly also inhabited by various badmashes (bad characters) and gundas (hoodlums and strongmen). According to the newspapers, ‘respectable persons are obliged to make special arrangements for their female relations passing through these bazaars, which are frequented by bad characters’.62 One local resident, Mian Feroz Din, described the people who lived in the old city of Amritsar: ‘I know them to be quiet and peaceful generally, but I know that there are some gambling dens in the city, and the people belonging to these dens are badmashes, and they always protect themselves by making regular monthly payments to the police. I believe the authorities know of it. These gamblers are the rowdy lot of the city.’63 Over the years, numerous attempts had been made to force the municipality to expel the prostitutes from the old city, yet time and again such initiatives to ‘clean up the city’ came to nothing.

  The British troops, whose coarse furlough habits caused such concern, were part of Amritsar’s small garrison, which consisted of 184 troops of the 1st Garrison Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, commanded by Captain J.W. Massey. In the event of an emergency, an additional officer and fifteen men from the Indian Defence Force, which consisted of European civilians intended to relieve regular troops during the final years of the war, could also be mustered.64 As had been the case with the Ram Bagh park, the British had also taken over the Govindgarh Fort, situated between the railway line and the old city walls in the sprawling park and open fairground space just west of the Hall Gate. Built in the eighteenth century and later expanded by Ranjit Singh, the fort had once been occupied by a number of French troops in Sikh service. By 1919, the fort had long ceased to be of any practical defensive use, and its token military presence, two officers and forty-four men of the 12th Ammunition Column, Royal Garrison Artillery, was for show more than anything else.

  To the unobservant visitor who revelled in its picturesque scenery, or was repelled by its open gutters, Amritsar might seem as calm as the Pool of Nectar in the spring of 1919. Beneath the surface, however, a pervasive sense of tension and unease prevailed. The Armistice had brought neither peace nor relief to the population of Amritsar. As a hub for trade, Amritsar had been severely affected by the economic dislocation brought about by the war, and the colourful scenes of bustling business and industry encountered at the turn of the century were increasingly a thing of the past. The trade in hides
, for instance, which was mainly in the hands of Muslims, and which relied extensively on export to the German market, was almost completely wiped out as a result of the war.65 Export of foodstuffs to the frontlines of the conflict in Europe and the Middle East further pushed up prices, and while some larger businesses and merchants profited from the war economy, many artisans and labourers could barely afford to feed or clothe themselves.66 An official report at the time commented on the living conditions of labourers in Amritsar:

  A great number live in narrow lanes. Their social status is low; an ordinary clerk getting Rs. 39 per mensem in an office claims superiority over a skilled labourer who is getting Rs. 100 monthly. The conditions of an unskilled labourer is still worse, the most fortunate among them gets free quarters to live in factories and mills, others hire common shops in batches of ten or twenty, the remaining are houseless and sleep their nights away on platforms of closed shops.67

  For those already living from hand to mouth, eking out a meagre living as day-labourers or menial workers, the combination of low wages and high prices was devastating. The price for essential foodstuffs more than doubled compared to pre-war levels, and a further increase to the salt duty, for instance, exacerbated the financial distress of the poorest among the local population, fuelling resentment towards the colonial authorities.68 People could not afford to illuminate their own houses and the inadequacy of street-lighting, during a period when the price of kerosene oil was increasing, gave rise to complaints over the Municipal Committee, which had imposed new taxes.69

  Indian mill owners and grain dealers were among the few who benefited financially from the war, especially as the price of wheat almost doubled between October 1917 and February 1919. When the authorities intervened in the trade after the end of the war, however, wheat was seized and sold at fixed rates or despatched to the troops still stationed in Mesopotamia. Since the British were, as a rule, reluctant to interfere in the dynamics of the ‘free market’, this measure was only applied sparingly, and while it was not nearly enough to overcome food shortage it was sufficient to cause widespread resentment among grain dealers.70 Government intervention was usually perceived as being entirely self-serving, and one of the most persistent rumours concerned the profits made by the British when grain was requisitioned.71 The ill-timed introduction of a new income tax in Amritsar merely exacerbated the distrust of the Government.72

  Not only did the conclusion of the war fail to bring relief, but the situation actually got worse and prices were higher by 1919 than they had ever been before.73 In addition to the pressures of contributing to the war effort, the adverse impact of inflation and the rising cost of living, the region further suffered the effects of disease and environmental disasters. In 1917, a heavy monsoon led to a deadly outbreak of malaria in Punjab, which was immediately succeeded by an equally devastating plague epidemic.74 The following year, the monsoon failed, which badly affected the sowing of crops, and which again made the food shortage the following year even more acute. At a time when wheat was still being exported to Europe or Mesopotamia, Punjab thus had the worst harvest in half a century.75 To make matters worse, the subcontinent was subsequently visited by the global influenza pandemic, which was deadlier there than anywhere else, claiming the lives of some 12–18 million people. The pandemic first reached Amritsar and other major cities of Punjab in August 1918 and by the time it had passed, five months later, upwards of 1 million people had died.76

  Just as the disruption to global trade caused by the war had sent ripples all the way to the bazaars and street-stalls of Amritsar, so too did the radical transformation of the worldwide political landscape. The Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916 had provided a spectacular example of armed resistance to British rule, and although the outbreak had quickly been put down, unrest in the oldest colony of the Empire persisted. Likewise, the Russian Revolution of 1917, which not only renewed fears of the spread of Bolshevism but also revealed in no uncertain terms that the empires of old were far from indestructible. Among the Muslims of India, however, it was the impending disintegration of the Ottoman Empire that caused the greatest concern as the war drew to an end.

  Filling the ranks of British regiments in large numbers, Indian Muslims had to reconcile colonial service with fighting their fellow co-religionists – be they tribesmen on the North-West Frontier, Sudanese Dervishes or, more recently, Turkish troops during the world war. By 1919, Indian Muslims rallied around the cause of the so-called Khilafat movement, which sought to prevent the dismemberment of the Islamic territories resulting from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.77 As caliph of Islam, the Ottoman sultan was a religious as well as a political figurehead for Muslims worldwide and British expansionist policies in the Middle East put them on collision course with their Muslim subjects. Muslim identity in India was strongly influenced by the pan-Islamic sentiments of the Khilafat movement during this very period. While the relative strength of British rule in India was inextricably linked to the fate of the Empire elsewhere, so too were the lives of millions of Indians shaped by events outside the subcontinent.

  Among the Hindus of Amritsar, the revivalist Arya Samaj movement, in particular, had gained ground and a strengthened sense of communal identity was being actively cultivated through religious education, reform and activism.78 Although the Arya Samaj was ostensibly a religious organisation, rather than a political one, its followers’ commitment to the principle of swaraj, or self-government, meant that the Punjab Government was inclined to view the activities of the movement as inherently inimical to the interests of British rule.79 This suspicion harked back to the unrest of 1907, when many of the leaders of the protests had been active members of the organisation. Within the Sikh community of Amritsar, and in Punjab more generally, there was also a concerted effort to forge a separate communal identity apart from that of Hindus, with whom Sikhs were often grouped. At the same time, the Akali or Gurdwara Sikh reform movement was seeking to take back control from the colonially supported Mahants, or class of priests who managed religious institutions, including the Golden Temple.80 For most of the local communities in colonial India, religion was the only means by which they could legitimately and effectively engage in local politics, and political and economic conflicts and tensions were often expressed through religious movements and issues.

  Apart from a minor riot recorded in 1897, the relationship between the different religious groups in Amritsar had nevertheless been almost entirely free of open conflict. In 1918, however, a violent clash between the followers of the Muslim Club and the Hindu Sabha Club led to the death of one person following a cricket match. During the run-up to elections for the Municipal Council in January 1919, communal tensions again manifested themselves powerfully in the mobilisation of the local electorate.81 The election was bitterly contested and shaped by a particularly complex set of issues: a certain numbers of seats on the Municipal Council were usually reserved for Hindus and Muslims, respectively, but in 1919 Sikhs were for the first time awarded three seats of their own.82 The Sikhs’ seats, however, were taken from those formerly reserved for Hindus, which weakened their position relative to that of the Muslim members. The election thus developed into a contest between candidates arraigned along communal lines.83 One of the candidates was Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew, a Muslim barrister and member of the local branches of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, who succeeded in harnessing the Khilafat issue to garner support from his local co-religionists.84 Complicating this communal dynamic, however, was the fact that the Deputy Commissioner, an Englishman and a member of the administration, was elected president of the council. This obviously went counter to the aspirations of ‘Indianisation’ and caused considerable resentment among the Indian candidates, some of whom withdrew in favour of others who represented the Indian National Congress party.85 The election thus saw national issues come to the fore and, to some extent, even take precedence over local interests.

  The biggest cause of turmoil an
d tension, however, was the introduction of a new ward system, which divided the candidates and electorate into specific neighbourhoods. This led a number of candidates to recruit local gangs to canvas voters and, in some instances, to intimidate other candidates.86 ‘The chiefs of the rowdies of the city organised gangs,’ according to the irascible Civil Surgeon of the city, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Smith, ‘and interfered with the men who were candidates for the election.’87 Local power-brokers, such as Mahasha Rattan Chand and Chaudhri Bugga Mal, known as Ratto and Bugga, rose to prominence during the election by mobilising gangs of gundas, or strongmen, based on neighbourhood affiliation, trade guilds and patronage networks.88 Ratto, for instance, lived in the part of Amritsar city known as Ahluwallia and could rely on what he referred to as his Pandees, or men, to campaign on the streets on behalf of his preferred candidate.89 Ratto was furthermore a member of the Hindu Sabha Club and both he and Bugga had been involved in establishing Akhalas, or schools for physical exercise for boys and young men at Amritsar.

  Nationalist politics and communal conflicts were accordingly enmeshed with local power dynamics and neighbourhood turf wars. The election for the otherwise uninspiring Municipal Council of Amritsar led to the ascent of a body of younger and politically more active leaders, who relied on local power-brokers and networks within the city to mobilise people and advance their cause.90 Crucially, the election provided the British authorities with a first taste of what political mobilisation in Amritsar might look like. Deputy Commissioner F.H. Burton actually ordered the police to take action against the gangs of ‘rowdies’, and, alongside the disturbance caused by the platform agitation, the unrest of the municipal election established a significant precedent in terms of how local Indian politics was regarded by the British.91