THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE

Grey River Argus, 12 November 1920, Page 6

THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE

The five European members of the Hunter Committee on tlie disorders in, the Punjab have issued a white washing report, based purely on the official evidence which was submitted to them, painting the Government of the Punjab and even the administration of, martial law, white, and adding a faint j touch of grey to their pictures of General Dyer and Colonel Johnson. The methods of examination employed in this inhuman document have been .twofold. They excuse some of the worst examples of military tyranny, and halfeensurc the rest. They select two acts of General Dyer at the Jallianwala Gagh as "open to criticism, " (1) his firing without giving a chance to the people to disperse, and (2) his firing after the crowd had begun to scatter. They append a hesitating censivre to "fancy punishments," such as the crawling order, and the most humiliating of the salaaming orders, and they disapprove of too much flogging. • But, in general, they defend the use of martial law for preventive and punitory purposes, the use of aeroplanes and their particular "advantage" to India, and the use of machine guns against bodies of Indian villagers "observed" from the air. They also, propose a code for the regulation of. attacks by, aeroplane. The three Indian members, while agreeing with the Majority on some points of fact, declare that the conduct of General Dyer was j inhuman and un-British, severely censure the administration and long continuance of martial law, and reject tho •Majority's theory that the riots amounted to "rebellion."

Having to choose between these two reports, Mr Montagu, with a decided and impressive gesture, has taken his stand by the Minority and has induced the pabinet to join him in stern disavowal of the method and spirit of ;the unjab Government. The Secretary of State, in a momentous dispatch, declares that General Dyer's action was a "complete violation" of the principle of the minimum use of military farce, censures his inhumanity in neglecting the wounded as tlxey lay in the Jallianwala Bagh, and describes his crawling order as an offence against ' ' every canon of civilised government." The dispatch offers a formal compliment to Sir Michael O'Dwyer, but condemns a spirit calculated not only to humiliate Indians as a race but to flout civilised standards, and regrots that the Majority of the Committee failed to mark these -'not uncommon" examples of the temper of martial law in the unjab. For the future, Mr Montagu points to an abandonment of the fatal Ordinance IV., of 1919, and to a strict regulation of the usg of bambing aeroplanes. But regulation is not enough. Indian opinion will nbver permit a second recourse to indiscriminate firing from the air. As for General Dyer, he has been dismissed from the army, and his case has been referred to the Army Council, which, we presume, will at once order a courtmartial. The lesson has been an exemplary one, but Mr Montagu has saved British India. — "The Nation" (London).