Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre), took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on 13 April 1919. The shooting that took place was ordered by Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer.

On Sunday 13 April 1919, Dyer was convinced of a major insurrection and thus he banned all meetings. On hearing that a meeting of 15,000 to 20,000 people including women, senior citizens and children had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer went with fifty riflemen to a raised bank and ordered them to shoot at the crowd. Dyer kept the firing up till the ammunition supply was almost exhausted for about ten minutes with approximately 1,650 rounds fired. Official Government of India sources estimated that the fatalities were 379, with 1,100 wounded. The casualty number estimated by Indian National Congress was more than 1,500, with approximately 1,000 dead.

Dyer was removed from duty and forced to retire. He became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the British Raj. The massacre caused a reevaluation of the Army's role in which the new policy became minimum force, and the Army was retrained and developed suitable tactics such as crowd control. Historians considered the episode as a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.