As I have written here before that there is remarkable historical amnesia among the average Brit apropos the crimes of their empire.
Indeed the generally accepted narrative in the UK is that Britain’s imperial period was largely a benign and liberating experience for those who found themselves as colonial subjects.
This Jackanory has it that the British were charitable to a fault by taking Béarla, cricket and railways to backward savages.
Of course, that is self-serving pish.
Britain raped large parts of the planet for centuries and grew rich on those crimes.
This was particularly true of India.
Here, Shashi Tharoor schools the bright young things of the Oxford Union.
Years ago in the An Phoblacht office, I had an idea of doing an A-Z series of the crimes of British imperialism.
“A” would definitely have been for Amritsar.
Today one hundred years ago the murderous nature of British rule in India was written in blood in the Punjab.
It is generally true that the Irish did not play the same role as the Scots in the Empire.
The latter were very much the middle management out in the colonies.
It was a safety valve providing stability back in Fair Caledonia by exporting mainly men of military age.
The rather late arrival of Catholic emancipation in 1829 meant that the Irish were excluded from many colonial opportunities.
At the start of the 20th century that had started to change.
Consequently, it isn’t a surprise that the Governor of the Punjab who gave the order for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was Sir Michael O’Dwyer from Tipperary.
Here is my piece in the Irish Post from 1993 where I explore the background to this shameful incident.
The British Head of State Frau Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (they changed their name to the Windsor gaff only two years before the massacre) visited Amritsar in 1997.
However, she couldn’t manage to say “sorry” for what British troops had done there in 1919.
Indeed the shooting only stopped because they ran out of ammunition.
Revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was only a matter of time at it arrived on 13 March 1940 at the Caxton Hall in London.
O’Dwyer paid for his crimes with his life.
I have very few revolutionary heroes.
However, Udham Singh is definitely among that small number.
In the 1930s the British authorities suspected that he was in touch with IRA and the Army may have facilitated his revenge operation in London.
At this trial in 1940 he said:
“I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to seek vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?”
Today, a century on, the British should learn of their crimes in places where they were not invited and remained only by force of arms.
Lest we forget…
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Completely off topic. Does ANYONE know what happened in the Ashley v Sevco court case on Friday?
Nothing – the hearing is tomorrow (Monday 15th) I believe.
Right. I thought it was the 12th.
An A to Z series on the crimes committed in the name of British Imperialism would be truly global in its true extent. The catalogue of atrocities is extensive, but well within your scope to uncover and educate those who believe the Empire still exists.
For your A-Z series on the crimes of British Imperialism there’s enough material to go through the alphabet three or four times, I’m sure you could organise a global competition for nominations.
A touching piece Phil.
I am of Punjabi heritage.
Michael O’Dwyer was indeed a cover up merchant and endorser of the general in charge at Amritsar, that Generals name was General Reginald Dyer.
It’s common knowledge the IRA assisted Udham Singh, after he got to Germany then onto Ireland and then to England for him to live for a few years and pick his moment.
Films exaggerate events. The film Gandhi is one such film. But from second hand accounts told to me by family, who has surviving relatives or friends from the massacre, the Gandhi film depiction is accurate.
Many jumped down the well to escape the bullets.
It is an action that will never be forgotten.
Back on that day when the Queen was in, Amritsar, India. her facist husband decided to state to onlookers, there’s at the site.
“The numbers of dead are exaggerated”……wow.
Many of the killers that day were indeed Indian themselves in the army. There lies the rub. Some were Muslim or Hindu some Sikh.
Despite all this. Me. Born here in Scotland to immigrant parents in the 80s, found it very difficult to come to terms with the whole sorry episode.
However it is this. If anybody wishes to question why I am here. Born here. It is partly incidents like that that give me as much right to be here than anyone who’s can trace their ancestry back hundreds of years on this island.
I am at peace with the past, I have always made it known I voted NO in the Indy ref. There is this narrative that Scots were a subjugated people in the empire. not so, they were willing co conspirators. Their eagerness to get involved is what caused Union in first place.
See DARIEN ADVENTURE if in doubt.
Anyway today Britain must come and stay at full terms with its past and move on in the knowledge. A bit like Germany has come to terms (I think it has) with its Nazi past.
The fact that I am here, class myself as British with a small b (refuse to go with the British notions that DER PEEPEL have!!). Is the legacy of this attack.
The fact the Irish the Caribbean people the African people the Chinese people and many more, are all here the descendants and call Britain, Scotland England wales , home. Is the positive legacy, of a most dark and disgraceful period in British history.
The Britain of Jeremy Corbyn, Drake, Emelie Sande, Raheem Sterling, Neil Lennon, and so many many more is my Britain, and we are all here to stay.
A Britain in which my Celtic minded soul can be alive and thrive. Amongst the Scottish bigoted scum that is the Huns. A Britain that has BNP and tommy Robinson
My Britain of the good guys in earlier paragraph will win.
Thanks for the piece Phil. Genuinely fighting back tears.
HH
Well written and very well said.
Phil – what a lot of British people, in particular the far-right groups such as EDL, tend to forget when they suggest that immigrants “go back to their own country” is that if they also repatriated the wealth and the assets stripped from their mother country, the UK would be financially (as well as morally) bankrupt. Indeed, Elizabeth Windsor’s favourite hat would be minus the Star of India!
Scots too, are either forgetful or ignorant (or both) that our forebears played a very large part in The Empire. For example, Tate & Lyle in Greenock built their wealth from processing the raw sugar cane that arrived from the Caribbean, grown and harvested by African slaves. Same story applies to the likes of Gallagher and H&O. Wills on Glasgow’s Alexandra Parade. The profits from these activities had to be entrusted to banks, none more so than the likes of the Bank of Scotland, RBOS, etc who, in turn, lent their money to the shipyards on the Clyde, to build more vessels to carry these valuable cargoes to our shores, as well as making routine trips to Africa, to take more slaves 1000’s of miles from their homes. “We” showed other would-be empires how it was done, hence the French, Belgians, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and others decided to give it a go.
As the auld Scots saying goes, “wha”s like us?”.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/16/scotland-guyana-past-abolitionists-slavery-caribbean
The above is an interesting read, about Scottish involvement in Guyana. We Scots should be embarrassed and ashamed of what we done to “Jock Tamson’s bairns”.
The brits are extremely good at killing in large numbers. Where starvation and bullets, are their weapons of choice. They forget easily, and the narrative is stuck too.
Good piece Phil
BBC 2 I think are doing a documentary on the massacre.
do you have a title for the programme,Sean.Thanks in advance HH
Don’t forget probably the most powerful and long lasting weapon that they deployed, assimilation. The British Empire remind me of the Borg from the Star Trek series, they too tried to obtain power through the absorption of others into their system. Look at the ruling classes and landed gentry from every “assimilated” nation, their offspring’s were indoctrinated into a very British culture and education system. Hence the multitude of so called clan chieftains with dandy Oxford accents and ruthless outlooks towards those purported to serve them.