India -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1947; India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; India -- Social conditions
The reader will be in a position now to understand the meaning of
Mahatma Gandhi’s letter to the Viceroy of India, dated August 1,
1920, and quoted on page 114 in which Gandhi gave his reasons for his
decision not to coöperate with the British Government of India. It
may be recalled that one of Mahatma Gandhi’s reasons was the “callous
disregard of the feelings of Indians” betrayed by the House of Lords.
It must be remembered here also that the massacre of Jallianwalla
occurred on April 13, 1919, and it was exactly a year and three months
later that Mahatma Gandhi made his decision to boycott the British
Government. During this interval he had persistently hoped for a change
in the British attitude.
The massacre at Jallianwalla was only one part of the awful Punjab
story. What occurred at Amritsar and other towns in the province during
the martial days of 1919 was even more shameful and unworthy, “on
account of the outrage of human dignity it involved.” The issuing of
crawling orders and the throwing of bombs from aeroplanes over peaceful
towns constituted in part the doings of the military and police during
the unfortunate days of martial law. Nor was that all. Mrs. Sarojini
Naidu, the first woman president of India, said while speaking on the
“Punjab wrongs” before a large London audience (Kingsway Hall, June 3,
1919):
“My sisters were flogged, they were stripped naked; they were
outraged.”
The ingenuity of the English officials during the martial law period in
inventing fancy punishments showed itself conspicuously in the town of
Kasur where, according to the findings of the Congress sub-committee,
“1. School boys and men were whipped, ‘with no particular object,’ and
there was no question of any martial law offense. Prostitutes were
invited to witness the ceremony.
2. People were made to mark time and climb ladders.
3. Religious mendicants were washed with lime.
4. Those who failed to salute Europeans were made to rub their roses on
the ground.
6. Public gallows were erected which were later abandoned. In all,
eighteen persons were hanged in the Punjab during the martial law
regime, many of whom were totally innocent.”
We shall give below the evidence of Gurdevi, the widow of Mangal Jat,
before the Congress sub-committee on what had occured at Manianwalla:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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