General Reginald Dyer wanted to go all the way in. But he couldn’t. The entrance to Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar was so narrow, it was impossible for any vehicle to pass through. He ordered his troops to enter on foot and take position.
Today, around the same spot where the troops alighted, stands a multinational fast-food joint in a bustling, vehicle-free commercial zone selling everything from phulkaris to burgers. The narrow entrance now has murals. A memorial statue of innocent, unarmed Amritsaris who died in the ensuing gunfire stands at the entryway to the Bagh.
The memorial statue at the entrance of Jallianwala Bagh. | Photo Credit: Kanishkaa Balachandran
Thousands had gathered on a warm evening on April 13, 1919, to listen to speeches denouncing the draconian Rowlatt Act — under which one could be jailed without a warrant — which was used to arrest two lawyers, Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. As resentment against the British rule grew, Punjab was getting increasingly restive. But on Baisakhi, there was a semblance of calm after the storm. The Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, however, feared a repeat of the 1857 uprising. He summoned Dyer, who, without warning, opened fire. Had his armoured car entered the Bagh, many more would have succumbed, he said later, unapologetically. The thought sends shivers.
Visitors at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Corporatisation of monuments
British historian Kim A. Wagner described Jallianwala Bagh as “a wasteground, where buffaloes grazed” (in a 2022 podcast). What you see today is this once-nondescript plot, inaugurated as a memorial in 1961, transformed with manicured rolling gardens, passageways and park benches, over the same soil where bodies were piled one on top of the other. It’s hard to imagine this was the spot of one of the worst genocides during India’s freedom movement.
Since August 2021 — when the memorial was revamped and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — there are four new galleries in different corners of the Bagh that chronicle the history of the freedom movement, the massacre, the brutal bombings against civilians in Gujranwala immediately after Amritsar, tales of Punjab’s iconic revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and others, and more. The main gallery too has a short audio-visual of the Amritsar massacre and its impact.
A flame-shaped memorial in red sandstone is the central Martyr’s Memorial. The well in the corner that many jumped into to escape firing, is an enclosed structure to prevent people dropping coins. Bullet marks on the walls have been preserved. Several families, couples, tourists are all smiles at the memorial, seizing every opportunity to take selfies at vantage points, even in front of the bullet-ravaged walls. Every day, many troop in from the Golden Temple, five minutes away. In the absence of guides, some pop in and out of the galleries like they are merely marking attendance.
The martyrs’ well at Jallianwala Bagh | Photo Credit: Kanishkaa Balachandran
Add to this a sound and light show in the evenings, and it’s no wonder historians have slammed the recent changes, saying that the ‘corporatisation of monuments’ risks erasing history. While the galleries provide a wealth of information to the uninitiated, is a sanitised memorial like this really the most appropriate way to remember the dead? I had mixed feelings.
Visitors look at a wall with bullet marks at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in Amritsar. | Photo Credit: PTI
Doing justice to history
While it’s important to pump in money to make memorials of national interest tourist friendly and accessible, where does one draw the line, especially for those with morbid histories? Germany’s Nazi horrors and genocides by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia are retold in grim detail in their museums. Visiting Tuol Sleng, a school-turned-prison in Phnom-Penh, is a gut-wrenching experience. The stained walls in the classrooms-turned-torture chambers are a reminder of the country’s traumatic past.
Vietnam is a mixed bag when it comes to recounting its war-torn past. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City is a powerful walkthrough of the human and economic cost of war. At the Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi (which held American prisoners of war), though, one would have to take the propaganda with a pinch of salt.
An installation inside the Vietnam War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Partition Museum, a short walk from Jallianwala Bagh, does better justice to history. Built inside the Town Hall, several galleries chronicle the history of India’s political divisions, with audio guides and tales from survivors of the most horrific ordeals. Mercifully, photography is banned, allowing you to move freely without photobombing.
A re-creation of a jail cell at Partition Museum in Amritsar. | Photo Credit: NYT
Meanwhile, at Jallianwala Bagh, I overhear one tourist from Chennai trying to remember the name of “that Vicky Kaushal movie” he watched. I tell him that Sardar Udham (directed by Shoojit Sircar, 2021) is a very fictionalised account of the life of Udham Singh, the man who assassinated O’Dwyer in 1940. There is no conclusive proof that Singh was even in Amritsar that day, according to his revealing biography, The Patient Assassin (2019), by British-Indian journalist and podcaster Anita Anand. Singh’s ashes are displayed in the galleries, but strangely, his statue is partially hidden near the Bagh’s entrance.
In the galleries, a woman, possibly in her 30s, is explaining the exhibits to her two young daughters. Among the predominantly young crowd, generations far removed from the scars of the freedom struggle, they are the exception.
kanishkaa.b@thehindu.co.in
Published - April 11, 2025 11:30 am IST
