Amritsar 1919

Kim A. Wagner reconstructs the crisis in Amritsar in the spring of 1919, following the Rowlatt legislation, nationalist protest and the arrest of local leaders Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. He traces the violence of 10 April, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer’s arrival in the city and the gathering at Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April, where troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd during the Baisakhi festival.

Drawing on official inquiries, court testimony, private correspondence and Indian and British eyewitness accounts, Wagner sets the massacre within a wider culture of colonial anxiety. He examines the roles of Dyer and Punjab lieutenant-governor Michael O’Dwyer, the martial-law regime that followed, and the way fear of another 1857-style rebellion helped turn local unrest into an imperial catastrophe with lasting consequences for Indian nationalism and British rule.