EDITORIAL DISCUSSION – 12thApril, 2019
4. ‘Deep regret’ is simply not good enough
– THE HINDU – 12th April, 2019
Reflections on a massacre – THE HINDU – 12th April, 2019
A SLICE INTO HISTORY …
1. Hundreds of thousands were killed by the Japanese Army in Nanjing Massacre of 1937–38.
2. Atrocities of Indonesian soldiers in East Timor since 1975 onwards.
3. Killing of every male inhabitant of the Persian town of Kernan in 1794 by Agha Mohammad Khan.
He insisted that the eyeballs be brought to him in baskets and poured on the floor.
4. 1940 Katyn massacre
Over 20,000 Polish soldiers and civilians are killed by the Russians.
ANARCHICAL AND REVOLUTIONARY CRIMES ACT OF 1919 … A BRIEF
1. It is popularly known as the Rowlatt Act.
2. It came into force a month before the Massacre in Jallianwala Bagh.
3. It authorized the Government to imprison any person suspected of terrorism living in British India for up to two years without a trial.
4. It shocked most Indians, who had expected to be rewarded, not punished for fighting alongside British in the First World War.
It was enacted in the light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists to organisations of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as during the war.
MORE ON JALLIANWALA BAGH!
1. There were rewards for the Perpetrator Reginald Dyer by the British public.
2. It removed illusions about benign British rule in the country.
3. It also marked the start of a liberation struggle like no other under Mahatma Gandhi.
4. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, in his letter of protest renouncing the Knighthood conferred on him, wrote, “the accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation has been ignored by our rulers”.
WHAT ABOUT INVESTIGATIONS SUBSEQUENTLY?
1. A Disorders Inquiry Committee, known as Hunter Committee was set up.
2. Dyer asserted that his intention had been to punish the crowd, it is to make a “wide impression” and to strike terror not only in Amritsar, but throughout Punjab.
3. The Committee split along racial lines and submitted a majority and minority report.
4. The majority report established Dyer’s culpability but, it let off the Lieutenant Governor, Michael O’Dwyer.
The minority report written by three Indian members was more scathing in its criticism.
WHAT HAPPENED SUBSEQUENTLY?
1. Dyer had become a liability and he was asked to resign his command, after which he left for England.
2. This decision for a quiet discharge was approved by the British Secretary of State, Edwin Montagu after an acrimonious debate, also by the House of Commons.
The conservative House of Lords took a different approach and criticised the Government for being unjust to the officer. Similar sentiments in Dyer’s favour came from the right-wing press, as well as from conservative sections of the public, who believed that he had saved India for the Empire.
VOICES IN UK IN RECENT TIMES!
UNEQUIVOCAL APOLOGY IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR!
1. There are many ways to heal a festering wound between the nations.
2. Justin Trudeau of Canada has formally apologized in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 in 2016.
3. Apologies, regrets and expressions of sorrow are conceptualised with varying degrees of significance and meaningfulness.
WHY THE COUNTRIES NOT IN FAVOUR OF APOLOGIES?
1. State apologies for historical wrongs involve an expansion of state responsibility and require changes in state identity.
2. States refuge to apologize, when their self narratives are disrupted.
3. Sometimes they may become sources of conflict, rather than conflict resolution.
4. ‘Deep regret’ is simply not good enough
– THE HINDU – 12th April, 2019
Reflections on a massacre – THE HINDU – 12th April, 2019
A SLICE INTO HISTORY …
1. Hundreds of thousands were killed by the Japanese Army in Nanjing Massacre of 1937–38.
2. Atrocities of Indonesian soldiers in East Timor since 1975 onwards.
3. Killing of every male inhabitant of the Persian town of Kernan in 1794 by Agha Mohammad Khan.
He insisted that the eyeballs be brought to him in baskets and poured on the floor.
4. 1940 Katyn massacre
Over 20,000 Polish soldiers and civilians are killed by the Russians.
ANARCHICAL AND REVOLUTIONARY CRIMES ACT OF 1919 … A BRIEF
1. It is popularly known as the Rowlatt Act.
2. It came into force a month before the Massacre in Jallianwala Bagh.
3. It authorized the Government to imprison any person suspected of terrorism living in British India for up to two years without a trial.
4. It shocked most Indians, who had expected to be rewarded, not punished for fighting alongside British in the First World War.
It was enacted in the light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists to organisations of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as during the war.
MORE ON JALLIANWALA BAGH!
1. There were rewards for the Perpetrator Reginald Dyer by the British public.
2. It removed illusions about benign British rule in the country.
3. It also marked the start of a liberation struggle like no other under Mahatma Gandhi.
4. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, in his letter of protest renouncing the Knighthood conferred on him, wrote, “the accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation has been ignored by our rulers”.
WHAT ABOUT INVESTIGATIONS SUBSEQUENTLY?
1. A Disorders Inquiry Committee, known as Hunter Committee was set up.
2. Dyer asserted that his intention had been to punish the crowd, it is to make a “wide impression” and to strike terror not only in Amritsar, but throughout Punjab.
3. The Committee split along racial lines and submitted a majority and minority report.
4. The majority report established Dyer’s culpability but, it let off the Lieutenant Governor, Michael O’Dwyer.
The minority report written by three Indian members was more scathing in its criticism.
WHAT HAPPENED SUBSEQUENTLY?
1. Dyer had become a liability and he was asked to resign his command, after which he left for England.
2. This decision for a quiet discharge was approved by the British Secretary of State, Edwin Montagu after an acrimonious debate, also by the House of Commons.
The conservative House of Lords took a different approach and criticised the Government for being unjust to the officer. Similar sentiments in Dyer’s favour came from the right-wing press, as well as from conservative sections of the public, who believed that he had saved India for the Empire.
VOICES IN UK IN RECENT TIMES!
UNEQUIVOCAL APOLOGY IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR!
1. There are many ways to heal a festering wound between the nations.
2. Justin Trudeau of Canada has formally apologized in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 in 2016.
3. Apologies, regrets and expressions of sorrow are conceptualised with varying degrees of significance and meaningfulness.
WHY THE COUNTRIES NOT IN FAVOUR OF APOLOGIES?
1. State apologies for historical wrongs involve an expansion of state responsibility and require changes in state identity.
2. States refuge to apologize, when their self narratives are disrupted.
3. Sometimes they may become sources of conflict, rather than conflict resolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment