Harking back: Are the lessons of a 100 years still relevant?

The aim of this piece is certainly not to compare the situation in Lahore 100 years later, but to put the situation then in a ‘peoples’ perspective. The very word ‘satya’ in Sanskrit means ‘the truth’. The trigger that led to the fatal Jallianwala Bagh tragedy had its roots in the anti-colonial activities in the Punjab and Bengal, which were heavily involved in the Ghadar Movement with its roots among the Punjabis immigrants in California, USA, as also in the Indian Army Mutiny of 1915,

and added to this were the exceptionally high taxes extracted by the British themselves suffering from extraordinary World War One spending. Added to this, of all things, was the Muslim sympathy for Turkey and its crumbling Ottoman Empire. It was a lethal mix.

As we research Lahore of 1919 as just another ‘case-study’ in the larger jigsaw of the anti-colonial struggle, we see a number of reasons tension rose to such a level that they burst forth in the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh in April 1919. When we study history we notice that the suffering of the common man is often ignored, let alone even mentioned. Yet it is the common man whose grievances lay the foundation for political and social struggle and change.

At the start of the war the colonial rulers had put in place strict financial controls, which meant low credit availability. At the start of the 1913 credit squeeze a number of banks had started to crash, and Lahore was in the middle of a severe recession. New businesses were not being created as older ones crashed at an amazing speed. The small trader had jacked up prices and by the time the war was over wheat prices had doubled in 1917. Coupled with this workers and labourers did not see their wages rise. If anything unemployment had hit the population hard.

So before the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy struck, the social conditions were ripe to explode. As a majority of the population of Punjab and Bengal was Muslim, the writings of Muslim writers and poets had shown a marked anti-colonial tone, with Maulana Zafar Ali Khan’s ‘Zamindar’ newspaper of Lahore advocating almost open revolt and support for the Turks, as did Iqbal’s poetry. Interestingly, the Turks to this day are grateful for that support against the colonial armies.

In such circumstances the newspapers, the sole media in those days, faced increased censorship. A lot of journalists were jailed and to add to this the public rallies attracted some of the finest speakers this sub-continent has ever produced. In such circumstances a famine had hit Bengal and large parts of the Punjab, and adding to this a worldwide influenza epidemic had hit the entire sub-continent. The ground for mass discontent was well and truly laid.

In this backdrop the colonial rulers enacted the Rowlatt Act, or more correctly titled the ‘Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919’. This final repressive black law convinced the common man, let alone the political leadership of every shade and hue, that the rulers were determined to crush them. As the Press came under pressure, arrests without a warrant followed and trials without a jury and ‘in camera’ led to indefinite detention. Release was possible only after a written pledge of losing all property if the arrested person further took part in any political, educational or religious activity. The objective was to crush all resistance.

Mind you by this time the colonial rulers had taken note of the increasing influence of the Muslims of Bengal, and in 1911, on the instigation of the richer Hindu families, had undone the Partition of Bengal, which had earlier granted the Muslims of East Bengal more political and economic rights. That grievance had seeped towards the Punjab. In a way the foundations of Pakistan were laid in the minds of the people with that act. Nehru’s intransigence to proportional representation led a secular political future set-up becoming dangerously communal. That mistake still lives with both Indians and Pakistanis. It was in such circumstances that on the 6th of April, 1919, Gandhi announced a ‘hartal’ and Lahore came to a standstill.

The success of the ‘hartal’ in Lahore, in Bengal and also in Delhi, the capital of Imperial India, was followed by widespread rioting in Lahore. What was most problematic was that the people were no longer willing to listen to any political leader, for they were seen as corrupt and followers of their colonial ‘masters’. Gandhi’s ‘satyagraha’ had been launched on the back of immense social and economic unrest, for he was seen as an honest person free of the frills of other leaders who aped their western rulers.

As we study the social situation then, we see that it was the suffering of the common person that laid the grounds for mass unrest. A situation had been reached where even the arrest of a few leaders did not bother the people. The Army was called out and in Amritsar on the 13th of April, 1919, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place. It was to change the political dynamics of colonial India forever.

From this emerged a revolutionary fringe who believed in taking matters in their own hands. It was in such circumstances that the Bradlaugh Hall of Rattigan Road acquired importance all over the sub-continent. Here the revolutionary students of Lahore gathered and from them emerged men like Bhagat Singh and his team of freedom fighters.

The events of 1919 had other more compelling reasons which had more to do with the economic hardship of the people than in Gandhi’s ‘satyagraha’. The First World War price spiral was followed by a very weak monsoon, and for the first time in rural Punjab we have reports of famine, a phenomenon that hits urban settlements with greater effect. It seems that 1919 also witnessed a world-wide influenza epidemic.

The Chief Secretary of the Punjab, Mr John Peronett Thompson, a brilliant Classical Tripos from Trinity College, Cambridge, sent a note to the Viceroy of India, which said: “ … in the Punjab, the granary of India, the people who produce food themselves face starvation and illness. In villages around Lahore most people are just waiting to die. Such conditions are breeding grounds for discontent. In such circumstances all steps to appease those starving will be in our interest …”

So it was that the year 1919 passed with all its historic importance. One hundred years later, it seems, the problem of high prices, of amazingly corrupt leaders, of a credit crunch where, unbelievable as it sounds, private sector lending is negative and bankers remain on edge waiting for a collapse if government borrowing from them were to stop.

In short the government uses the savings of the common man to survive. Added to this is a growing external threat and a media that depends more on rumours and fake news, where TV anchors have become, fatally, more important than those they interview. Everything seems to stand on its head. It seems this ancient land with an ancient civilisation has learnt little from its own follies.