Why in News?

The Prime Minister commemorated 102 years of the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy.

About Jallianwala Bagh massacre:

• The event took place on 13th April 1919 in Amritsar, Punjab.
• This tragedy exposed the inhuman approach of the British when the British troops under General Reginald Edward Dyer opened fire into an unarmed crowd including women and children.

Events prior to the Massacre:

• During World War I (1914–18) the British India enacted a series of repressive emergency powers that to combat subversive activities.
• The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 popularly known as Rowlatt Actthat was passed on 10th March, 1919, authorized the government to imprison or confine, even without a trial, any person allegedly associated with seditious activities. It led to nationwide unrest.
• Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satyapal.were arrested while staging a protestagainst this law.

• On 13th April 1919, a crowd of at least 10,000 men, women and children gathered in Jallianwala Bagh to celebrate Baishakhi festival and some had gathered to request release of their fellow leaders.
• Brigadier-General Dyer considered the meeting as flouting of rules and his authority. He thus deployed his troops and ordered them to open fire on the crowd.Events following the Massacre:

• Martial law was imposed in Punjab and there were incidences of public floggings and other humiliations on Indians.
• Indian outrage grew as news of the shooting and subsequent British actions spread throughout the country.
• The Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore renounced the knighthood that he had received in 1915.
• Mahatma Gandhi also surrendered the title of Kaiser-i-Hind, bestowed by the British for his work during the Boer War in South Africa.
• On October, 1919, the Disorders Inquiry Committee (Hunter Commission) was formed to inquire about the massacre. It also included Indian members.
• The Indian National Congress appointed its own non-official committee which included Motilal Nehru, Abbas Tyabji, C.R. Das,M.R. Jayakar, and Gandhi to look into the shootings.