Harking Back: Rowlatt and the spirit of Lahore that led to freedom

One of the vilest pieces of legislation enacted by the British was the Rowlatt Act of 1919. From this sprung popular agitation for freedom, which was countered by the colonial rulers by encouraging exceptionally crude communal solutions.

In this short piece it would be of interest to focus on how the Rowlatt Act of 1919 affected Lahore. It goes without saying that the real damage was done in Lahore’s twin-city of Amritsar where the Massacre of Jallianwala took place. But as the leadership of the Punjab was emerging in Lahore, its events are critical to understand that important phase of our freedom fight. The manner in which the colonial rulers devised communal solutions of ‘divide and rule’ to deal with revolutionary activities, so many experts believe, led to the creation of Pakistan. But first the Rowlatt Act.

The legislative name was ‘The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919’ and was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council on the 18th of March of that year. In this draconian ‘law’ even if a threat was perceived it could be termed a ‘conspiracy’ with two years in jail without trial. It was named Rowlatt as the committee that drafted it was led by Sir Sidney Rowlatt, a judge and classics scholar of King’s College, Cambridge. A Lahore newspaper described the Act in a screaming headline: “No Dalil, No Vakil, No Appeal”.

When the draft legislative proposal was printed in the ‘Gazette of India’ on the 18th of January, 1919, the leadership of almost every association of the city gathered in Lahore’s Bradlaugh Hall on Rattigan Road on the 4th of February. They called themselves the ‘Indian Associations of Lahore’ and called the meeting in a notice circulated by Secretary Dani Chand who lived in the old walled city. A heated debate took place.

This led to yet another more formal meeting being called on 8th of March, 1919, at Bradlaugh Hall in which Dr Kitchlew from Amritsar and Pandit Rambhaj Dutt of Yakki Gate Lahore addressed in fiery speeches. The chairman of the meeting was Mian Fazl-e-Hussain. A call was read out from Mahatma Gandhi which called for a vow of ‘Satyagraha’, which means a non-violent non-cooperation of all things British. Most historians believe that this was the turning point in the fight for freedom, which was achieved within 28 years. Suddenly Lahore was seen as a ‘revolutionary city’ all over the subcontinent.

On the 18th of March of that year the Rowlatt Act was passed and six days later Gandhi announced a complete ‘hartal’, a hunger strike and complete stop to all work in every department. Immediately a ban on processions and assembly was put in place. An underground movement started and on the 6th of April, 1919, Lahore came to a standstill. People started emerging from the homes and walking a little distance from one another towards Bradlaugh Hall. So huge was the rush that people started to gather in Lahore’s ‘Gol Bagh’ opposite the Government College, Lahore. Then suddenly a slogan went out ‘Hai, George Mar Gaya’. The whole city resounded with this slogan.

It had become impossible for any European to leave the cantonment area and to come to the ‘civil’ areas of the city. The next two days passed normally and on the 9th of April, 1919, a traditional Hindu ‘Ram Naumi’ procession was taken out in Lahore, as it was in Amritsar, which stressed Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. Slogans of ‘Hindu-Muslim Bhai’ rang all over. This unnerved the colonial forces who saw in this a larger and better organised repeat of 1857. The very next day Dr Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal were arrested and deported from the Punjab. The Rowlatt Act ‘stated’ that people from one State could not engage lawyers from outside their home State. Guards were posted outside government offices and also ‘European’ hotels and even the Lahore Gymkhana Club.

On The Mall students started to gather and shouted ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai’. From Lohari Gate a procession with black flags proceeded along Anarkali Bazaar and joined those on The Mall. Cavalry from the cantonment were rushed in and they fired on the mob. Officially one person was dead and seven seriously wounded. The mob headed to Lohari Gate where again the Cavalry rode in firing on the over 15,000-strong mob that emerged from the gateway. Everywhere the police or soldiers went, people threw rubbish on them from their rooftops.

The next day on the 11th of April a massive crowd of Hindus and Muslims gathered inside the Badshahi Mosque. By British estimates this was the highest pitch of Hindu-Muslim unity. The estimated crowd of 25,000 people gathered inside the mosque. Suddenly it was announced that a ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ had erupted in the Cantonment area. Immediately a ‘Danda Fauj’ was assembled as rumours of British soldiers being killed went wild in the Walled City. Amazingly a fund started to be collected for the ‘langar’ (food) for the imagined ‘army for freedom’.

Opposite the Badshahi Mosque people started attacking Lahore Fort’s Alamgiri Gate. Its railings were pulled down. Inside the fort the 120-strong British force was panicking. From other parts of Lahore news flowed in like the railways had been incapacitated as nearly 70% of the workforce did not turn up. By the evening of the 11th of April the entire city of Lahore rang with slogans proclaiming that freedom had come. Almost every police station in the city was attacked.

Early in the morning of the 12th of April people woke up to see the entire Walled City of Lahore surrounded by police and backed by cavalry. From Delhi Gate Colonel Frank Johnson with 800 police and military soldiers entered the city and went right up to Taxali Gate. This cut the city in half. Amazingly two small aircraft circled over the city to watch out for troubled spots.

But then from the Badshahi Mosque people were moving towards the troops who opened fire on a mob in Heera Mandi. After the first volley of shots killed one man and injured at least five, the ‘Danda Fauj’ bravely attacked. A second round of firing followed at Chowk Heera Mandi. Another man was killed and a few injured. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs all started yelling out ‘Allah-ho-Akbar’ and trying to advance. Firing in the air managed to disperse small groups as they emerged from different narrow lanes. Slowly the fight petered out, especially when news of Gandhi’s arrest spread like wildfire.

In the meantime the military surrounded Bradlaugh Hall on Rattigan Road and removed all posters. At Wagah the railway station was attacked. Lahore leaders like Pandit Rambhaj Dutt, Lala Harkishan Lala and Lala Duni Ram were also deported from the Punjab. Hundreds of students were picked up from their homes by police intelligence officials and their parents warned. Lahore was in a state of shock.

But by the evening of the 13th of April, 1919, news of massacre at Jallianwala Bagh started trickling into Lahore, where on a traditional Baisakhi gathering people condemned the deportation of leaders from Lahore. People talked about thousands being killed by a military force led by Col Reginald Dyer and his Gurkha and Baluchi soldiers. People were stunned into silence by the shock of the massacre. A complete ‘hartal’ in Lahore followed, which lasted till the 18th of April. The concern of hundreds of missing students was uppermost in the minds of parents, as more and more ‘revolutionaries’ were deported.