LONDON, Mar 28 : Two weeks ahead of the 106th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, a Conservative MP has urged the British government to admit what went wrong and formally apologise to the people of India.
Bob Blackman, the MP for Harrow East, was speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday when he recalled the deadly massacre in Amritsar on April 13, 1919 when people had gathered to celebrate Baisakhi festival and sought an apology.
“On April 13, 1919, families gathered very peacefully in the Jallianwala Bagh to enjoy the sun, to enjoy a day out with their families. General Dyer, on behalf of the British Army, marched his troops in and ordered his troops to fire on those innocent people until they ran out of ammunition,” Blackman said.
“At the end of that massacre, 1,500 people were dead and 1,200 injured. Eventually, General Dyer was disgraced for that stain on the British Empire. In 2019, the then Prime Minister Theresa May recognised this was a stain on British colonial rule in India.
“But could we have a statement in government time this the anniversary of this will be on the 13th of April this year, when we’re in recess. So, could we have a statement from the government admitting to what went wrong and formally giving an apology to the people of India,” Blackman, who has been an MP continually since May 6, 2010, said.
Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House, thanked Blackman for “raising this important matter of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which, as he says, is one of the most notorious and shameful episodes in the history of British colonialism, particularly in India.”
“I will absolutely make sure that Foreign Office ministers have heard his question today, and I will suggest that perhaps they bring forward a statement in advance of the anniversary,” Powell said.
A memorial stands at the very place where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place more than a century ago. According to the official website of the Amritsar district administration, the memorial commemorates the 2,000 Indians who were killed or wounded, shot indiscriminately by the British under the command of Gen Michael O’Dyer on April 13, 1919 while participating in a peaceful public meeting.
The incident proved to be a major turning point in India’s freedom struggle.
In 1919, the 100th year anniversary of the massacre, May had told the British Parliament that the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh of 1919 “is a shameful scar on British Indian history” and “We deeply regret what happened and the suffering caused.”
The very next month that year, at a Baisakhi reception at Downing Street in London, May repeated the UK government’s deep regret over the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
According to media reports then, Jeremy Corbyn, the then leader of the Labour party, had called for “a full, clear and unequivocal apology”.
Earlier, former British prime minister David Cameron had described the incident as “deeply shameful” during a visit in 2013 but also stopped short of an apology, a Guardian report had said then. (PTI)
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