Download or read book The Amritsar Massacre written by Nick Lloyd and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 13 April 1919, a fateful event took place which was to define the last decades of the British Raj in India. At 5:10pm on that day, Brigadier-General 'Rex' Dyer led a small party of soldiers through the centre of Amritsar into a walled garden known as the Jallianwala Bagh. He had been informed that an illegal political meeting was taking place and had come to disperse it. On entering the garden, Dyer's men immediately lined up in formation. Dyer then gave the order to open fire on the huge crowd that had gathered there. 379 people were killed and at least 1,000 more were wounded in what has became known as the Amritsar Massacre. Nick Lloyd here provides a highly readable, but detailed account of the most infamous British atrocity in the entire history of the Raj. He considers the massacre in its historical context, but also describes its impact in uniting the people of the sub-continent against their colonial rulers. The book dispels common myths and misconceptions surrounding the massacre and offers a new explanation of the decisions taken in 1919. Ultimately, it seeks to examine whether the massacre was an unfortunate and tragic mistake or a case of cold-blooded murder, and one which would fatally weaken the British position in India.

Download or read book Amritsar 1919 written by Kim A. Wagner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Chronicles the run up to Jallianwala Bagh with spellbinding . . . focus. . . . Mr. Wagner’s achievement is one of balance . . . and, above, all, of perspective.” (The Wall Street Journal) The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 was a seminal moment in the history of the British Empire, yet it remains poorly understood. In this dramatic account, Kim A. Wagner details the perspectives of ordinary people and argues that General Dyer’s order to open fire at Jallianwalla Bagh was an act of fear. Situating the massacre within the “deep” context of British colonial mentality and the local dynamics of Indian nationalism, Wagner provides a genuinely nuanced approach to the bloody history of the British Empire. “Mr Wagner argues his case fluently and rigorously in this excellent book.” —The Economist “Written with a humane commitment to the truth that will impress.” —The Times “Skillfully maps a tale of growing tensions, precipitate action, and troubled aftermath.” —The Telegraph “A compelling account” —Financial Times “Wagner's postmortem of an imperial disaster should be widely read.” —R.A. Callahan, emeritus, Choice “The fullest, and by far the most authoritative, account of the causes and course of the Jallianwala massacre in any language.” —Nigel Collett, author of The Butcher of Amritsar “Mining a variety of sources – diaries, memoirs and court testimonies—[Wagner] uncovers fresh perspectives and examines the relation between colonial panic and state brutality with sophistication, sincerity and style.” —Santanu Das, author of India, Empire, and First World War Culture “Analytically sharp but gripping to read, the book is a page-turner”—Barbara D. Metcalf, co-author of A Concise History of India “An important book.” –Yasmin Khan, author of The Partition

Download or read book The Amritsar Massacre written by Vanessa Holburn and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history and impact of one of the most heinous acts of colonial repression suffered in British India—a massacre that continues to divide opinion today. The shocking massacre of 379 unarmed Indians in the enclosed Jallianwala Bagh park on the command of a British army officer on April 13th, 1919 is considered a brutal example of colonial abuse. Immediately afterwards martial law was established with harsh penalties and punishments. Often considered as the darkest period of the Raj, the massacre helped galvanize the Indian Nationalist movement, making full independence inevitable. Yet both the Queen and former prime ministers have side stepped calls for an apology for the mass shooting during official visits to Amritsar. One hundred years on, is it time to say sorry? This book examines the context in which the infamous event took place—and asks why something that happened 100 years ago remains so controversial. Did the order to fire prevent further native and imperialist bloodshed in the Punjab? Was enough done at the time to investigate if General Robert Dyer acted alone or with the full support of his superiors? Who was ultimately responsible for the 1,650 rounds of ammunition discharged that day? Readers will discover how tensions within the region—and political and professional ambitions on both sides—combined to create a chain of events that signaled the beginning of the end for the British Raj. “The author has reviewed this background, the people and politics involved, and left the reader to decide whether there is any need or merit for contrition. It is an interesting review that casts some new light on an infamous event in history.” —Firetrench

Download or read book The Patient Assassin written by Anita Anand and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate twenty-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions. When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second Indian revolt. What happened next shocked the world. An unauthorized gathering in the Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael’s law enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled public park, blocking the only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the crowd, which numbered in the thousands and included women and children. The soldiers continued firing for ten minutes, stopping only when they ran out of ammunition. According to legend, nineteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in the attack, and remained surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible. The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex—but no less dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traced Singh’s journey through Africa, the United States, and across Europe until, in March 1940, the young man finally arrived in front of O’Dwyer himself in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient Assassin “mixes Tom Ripley’s con-man-for-all-seasons versatility with Edmond Dantès’s persistence” (The Wall Street Journal) and reveals the incredible but true story behind a legend that still endures today.

Download or read book The Butcher of Amritsar written by Nigel Collett and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-10-15 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 13 April 1919, General Reginald Dyer marched a squad of Indian soldiers into the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, and opened fire without warning on a crowd gathered to hear political speeches. This is an account of the massacre set in the context of a biography of a man whose attitudes reflected many of the views common in the Raj.

Download or read book Eyewitness at Amritsar written by Amandeep Singh Madra and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amritsar Massacre is an iconic episode that is often compared to Sharpeville or Bloody Sunday. The shooting in 1919 of hundreds of unarmed Indian civilians stands as one of the defining moments in the history of the British Empire and the Indian struggle for independence. Many books have been written on the subject yet none make more than a cursory use of the rich body of visual material connected to one of the most brutal events in the history of British India. Eyewitness to Amritsar includes a unique range of portraits of key historical figures, political cartoons, newspaper photographs, propaganda posters as well as secretly recorded images that were smuggled out of India in 1919. Each image is accompanied by eyewitness accounts to provide context and a chronological narrative covering not only the massacre but also its prelude and aftermath. Eyewitness at Amritsar offers an attractive and accessible resource that allows readers to engage directly with this defining historical event.

Download or read book The Amritsar Massacre 1919 written by Stationery Office (Great Britain) and published by Stationery Office Books (TSO). This book was released on 2000 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovered editions are historic official papers which have not previously been available in a popular form, created from the archive of the Stationery Office in London. This volume details the events in Amritsar, the Punjab, in 1919.

Download or read book Emergency Chronicles written by Gyan Prakash and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern India On the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country. In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor. Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India’s modern history. Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi’s desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy’s troubled relationship with popular politics. Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency’s origins to the moment of India’s independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights. He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights. Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism. Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.

Download or read book Amritsar written by Alfred Draper and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 1981 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based On Unpublished Material, It Tells The Fascinating Story Of Political Intrigue And Expediency, Deception And Deliberate Concealment Of The Truth, It Tells The Story Of Jalianwala Bagh Massacre.

Download or read book Jallianwala Bagh written by V.N. DATTA and published by Penguin Enterprise. This book was released on 2021-08 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a meticulous exploration of the primary sources and oral testimonies of the survivors and victims of 1919, V.N. Datta crafts a unique and first-hand narrative of the most violent event and its legacy in the history of modern India and provides a complex picture of the city of Amritsar, where he grew up. Jallianwala Bagh is a rigorous account of the causes, nature and impact of the carnage that shook the nation and irreparably wounded its collective consciousness. A pathbreaking study that moves the focus away from the frames of imperialism and nationalism, Jallianwala Bagh brings a local and an altogether different scholarly perspective on imperial, racial and military violence in the twentieth century. This highly readable work in its revised edition is of tremendous historical and contemporary value.

Download or read book City of Ghosts written by Bali Rai and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1919 and Amritsar is a city on the brink of rebellion. Riots, violence and tension spill onto the streets . . . Bissen Singh fought bravely for the British Empire during World War One. Now he waits patiently for news from England. Gurdial, a young orphan, is desperate to marry Sohni, the daughter of a rich and evil man. And Jeevan, Gurdial's oldest friend, is swept up in the revolution and changing beyond all recognition. Bissen, Gurdial and Jeevan are looking to the future whilst trying to escape ghosts from the past. But as the fight for Amritsar reaches a terrifying climax, their lives will be changed for ever. An epic story of love and life, war and death from multi-award-winning author Bali Rai.

Download or read book Khooni Vaisakhi written by Navdeep Suri and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2019-04-19 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jallianwala Bagh. 13 April 1919. Twenty-two-year-old Nanak Singh joins the mass of peaceful protestors agitating against the Rowlatt Act. What then turns out to be one of the worst atrocities perpetrated by the British Raj, and a turning point in India's independence movement, also becomes a life-changing experience for Nanak Singh, who survives the massacre, unconscious and unnoticed among the hundreds of corpses. After going through the traumatic experience, Nanak Singh proceeds to write Khooni Vaisakhi, a long poem in Punjabi. The poem was a scathing critique of the British Raj and was banned soon after its publication in May 1920. After sixty long years, it was rediscovered and has been translated into English for the first time by the author's grandson, Navdeep Suri. Featuring the poem in translation and in original, this bilingual book is accompanied by essays from Navdeep Suri, Punjabi literature scholar H.S. Bhatia and BBC correspondent Justin Rowlatt. Khooni Vaisakhi is not only a poignant piece of protest literature but also a historical artefact and a resurrected witness to how Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims came together to stand up to colonization and oppression in one of India's darkest moments.

Download or read book Jallianwala Bagh written by Rakhshanda Jalil and published by Niyogi Books. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the butchering of unarmed innocents, is a historic event that haunts the human mind even after the lapse of a century. 1650 rounds fired in a matter of ten minutes, the blocking of exits, preventing help reaching the injured are all acts of unmitigated bestiality. Through a selection of prose and poetry – The direct outcome of this horrific event and an introduction that traces the history of events leading to the massacre – Rakhshanda Jalil, a literary historian and translator from Urdu and Hindi, attempts to open a window into the world of possibilities that literature offers to reflect, interpret and analyse events of momentous historical import. The selection offers ways of ‘seeing’ history, of exploring how an incident that stirred the conscience of millions, one that had far-reaching implications for the National freedom struggle and British rule, found its way through pen and Paper to reach the nooks and crannies of popular imagination filtered through the mind of the creative writer. The stalwarts and acknowledged doyens of Indian literature featured in this volume include Saadat Hasan Manto, Mulk Raj Anand, Krishna Chander, Abdullah Hussein, Bhisham Sahni, Ghulam Abbas, subadhra Kumari Chauhan, Sarojini Naidu, sohan Singh Misha, Muhammad Iqbal, Josh malihabadi, Nanak Singh, to name a few. A collection that can pave the way for further research.

Download or read book The Skull of Alum Bheg written by Kim Wagner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising, or The Indian Mutiny as historians of an earlier era described it. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti- colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution. Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the 'Mutiny'.

Download or read book Martyrdom to Freedom written by Rajesh Ramachandran and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commemorative volume taken out on completion 100 years of the important historical incident; contributed articles.

Download or read book Britain s Pacification of Palestine written by Matthew Hughes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-03 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British Army's devastating effectiveness against colonial rebellion is exposed in this military history of Britain's pacification of the Arab revolt in Palestine.

Download or read book State Violence and Punishment in India written by Taylor C. Sherman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring violent confrontation between the state and the population in colonial and postcolonial India, this book is both a study of the ways in which governments in India used collective coercion and state violence against the population, and a cultural history of how acts of state violence were interpreted by the population.