Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
British troops under General Dyer opened fire on thousands of unarmed Indian civilians gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, killing hundreds and galvanizing the independence movement.
On April 13, 1919, during the festival of Baisakhi, thousands of unarmed Indian men, women, and children gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden in Amritsar, Punjab, to peacefully protest the repressive Rowlatt Act. Without warning, Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire into the crowd. With only one narrow exit, people were trapped. Soldiers fired 1,650 rounds over approximately 10 minutes. The official British count was 379 dead and 1,200 wounded; Indian estimates put deaths at over 1,000. Dyer later stated he intended to produce a "moral effect" on the population. The massacre shocked the world. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood. Gandhi pivoted from cooperation to the Non-Cooperation Movement. For millions of Indians, Jallianwala Bagh shattered any illusion that British rule could be just or reformable.
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