The tragedy of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre happened on April 13, 1919 when the British forces fired indiscriminately on a large and peaceful gathering of protesters, killing over 1,000 people and wounding hundreds of them.

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Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Day remembers the heinous act of killing around 1000 non-violent protesters and pilgrims and injuring another 1000 who had assembled in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab for Baisakhi celebrations on the command of Reginald Edward Harry Dyer.

Punjab was restive since the promulgation of the Rowlatt Act  1919 and had seen intermittent violent protests in March.  It was in this charged atmosphere that orders of deportation for Satyapal and Dr. Saifuddin Kichlew came into circulation. The public responded agitatedly and spontaneously against the deportation order, and a public meeting was convened in the nearby park to denounce the deportation of two leaders.

            On April 13, 1919, around 10,000 people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in the afternoon to condemn the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew. They included unarmed men, women, and children of all ages. Dyer reached the spot with 50 soldiers armed with rifles. The soldiers trapped the visitors and launched an indiscriminate fire. The firing continued for the next ten minutes, killing 379 people officially and wounded 1,500 more.

                    The British Crown did not punish Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, or Colonel Reginald Dyer for the indiscriminate shooting.

Mahatma Gandhi renounced his Kaisar-i-Hind medal in protest of this massacre. Gurudev Tagore returned his Knighthood.

Gandhi described The Hunter Commission Report on the Punjab Disturbance as a ‘whitewash’.

Jallianwala Bagh shattered the faith that the people had in the British sense of justice and fairness. For many native Indians, the massacre of unarmed civilians represented a profound betrayal of the trust they had invested in the British to govern them with wisdom, justice, and fairness.

  Shaheed Udham Singh

A revolutionary nationalist, was born on 26 December 1899, at Sunam, in the then princely state of Patiala.

The brave Indian revolutionary, to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, assassinated Sir Michael O’Dwyer. He was sentenced to death and hanged for the murder on July 31, 1940.

                 Rowlatt Act gave enormous powers to the police to arrest any person without any trial, or reason whatsoever. The purpose of the Act was to curb the growing nationalist upsurge in the country