- On 13 April, India pays tribute to the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives in Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919.
- It was the day when Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops of the British Indian Army to fire their rifles into a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, killing at least 379 people and injuring over 1,200 other people.
- On Sunday, 13 April 1919, Dyer, convinced a major insurrection could take place, banned all meetings. This notice was not widely disseminated, and many villagers gathered in the Bagh to celebrate the important Hindu and Sikh festival of Baisakhi, and peacefully protest the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew.
- Dyer and his troops entered the garden, blocking the main entrance behind them, took up position on a raised bank, and with no warning opened fire on the crowd for about ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few open gates through which people were trying to flee until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted.
- The Hunter Commission report published the following year by the Government of India criticised both Dyer personally and also the Government of Punjab for failing to compile a detailed casualty count, and quoted a figure offered by the Sewa Samiti, a Social Services Society of 379 identified dead, and approximately 1,200 wounded, of whom 192 were seriously injured. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500 injured, with approximately 1,000 dead.
- Dyer was lauded for his actions by some in Britain and indeed became a hero among many of those who were directly benefiting from the British Raj, such as members of the House of Lords.
- Dyer was, however, widely denounced and criticised in the House of Commons, whose July 1920 committee of investigation censured him. Because he was a soldier acting on orders, he could not be tried for murder.
- The military chose not to bring him before a court-martial, and his only punishment was to be removed from his current appointment, turned down for a proposed promotion, and barred from further employment in India. He subsequently retired from the army and moved to England, where he died, unrepentant about his actions, in 1927.
- The level of casual brutality, and lack of any accountability, stunned the entire nation, resulting in a wrenching loss of faith of the general Indian public in the intentions of the UK.
- The ineffective inquiry, together with the initial accolades for Dyer, fuelled great widespread anger against the British among the Indian populace, leading to the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22.Some historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.
- About 21 years later, on 13 March 1940, Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary, shot Michael O’Dwyer dead who was the Lt. Governor of Punjab at the time of the Jalliawala Bagh massacre. The massacre aroused the fury of the Indian people and the government replied with further brutalities. People in Punjab were made to crawl on the streets. They were put in open cages and flogged. Newspapers were banned and their editors were put behind the bars or deported.
- Britain never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed “regret” in 2019.
