Reginald Dyer - Reaction in India and Britain

Reaction in India and Britain

Reaction to the massacre varied. A large section of the British population in India condoned it while many Indians were outraged. A Committee of Inquiry, chaired by Lord Hunter, was established to investigate the massacre. The committee's report condemned Dyer, arguing that in "continuing firing as long as he did, it appears to us that General Dyer committed a grave error." Dissenting members argued that the martial law regime's use of force was wholly unjustified. "General Dyer thought he had crushed the rebellion and Sir Michael O'Dwyer was of the same view," they wrote, "(but) there was no rebellion which required to be crushed." The committee reported

• lack of notice to disperse from the Bagh in the beginning was an error
• length of firing showed a grave error
• Dyer's motive of producing a sufficient moral effect was to be condemned
• lack of attention to the wounded was not acceptable

He was met by Lieutenant-General Sir Havelock Hudson, who told him that he was relieved of his command. He was told later by the Commander-in-Chief in India, General Sir Charles Monro, to resign his post and that he would not be reemployed.

Many in Britain supported General Dyer. Rudyard Kipling, who claimed Dyer was "the man who saved India", started a benefit fund which raised over 26,000 pounds sterling, including 50 pounds contributed by Kipling himself. The money was presented to Dyer when he settled in England on his retirement. Dyer was also heavily criticised:

• Pandit Motilal Nehru, father of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, called the massacre the "saddest and most revealing of all."
• Sir Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel Laureate and distinguished Indian educator, renounced his knighthood in protest against the massacre and said, "a great crime has been done in the name of law in the Punjab."
• Sir Shankaran Nair resigned his membership of the Viceroy's Executive Council in the Legislative Council of Punjab. Nawab Din Murad and Kartar Singh called it "neither just nor humane."
• The era of Michael O’Dwyer and Dyer has been deemed "an era of misdeeds of British administration in India."
• During the Dyer debates in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, there was both praise and condemnation of Dyer.
• British Labour Party Conference at Scarborough unanimously passed a resolution on 24 June 1920 denouncing the Amritsar massacre as "cruel and barbarous action" of British officers in Punjab and called for their trial, recall of Michael O’Dwyer and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy, and repeal repressive legislation.
• Rev. Charles Freer Andrews, an Anglican priest and friend of Gandhi, termed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as "cold-blooded massacre and inhumane."
• Brigadier General Surtees said in the Dyer debate that "we hold India by force — undoubtedly by force."
• Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State in India, called it "a grave error in judgement."
• Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for War at the time of the debate in the House of Commons, called it "an episode without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire... an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation... the crowd was neither armed nor attacking."
• Herbert Asquith observed: "There has never been such an incident in the whole annals of Anglo-Indian history nor I believe in the history of our empire since its very inception down to present day. It is one of the worst outrages in the whole of our history."
• B. G. Horniman observed: "No event within living memory, probably, has made so deep and painful impression on the mind of the public in this country (England) as what came to be known as the Amritsar massacre."