April 13th, 2003
2003 Spring is witness to an outrage against humanity. This is the unprovoked war on Iraq. It has killed maimed and rendered homeless many thousands of Iraqis. The claim made is that the war is being fought by ‘to liberate Iraq’. This great economy with the truth recalls ‘The White Man’s Burden’ invented by the UK to justify its intrusion first into India and then the rest of the world. The motive force was greed for wealth or loot and power to continue to exploit. Gradually and over time an excuse was developed. People of colour were declared inferior especially in morals and deemed genetically incapable of self- rule. They were said to need messiahs from the white world to save them from themselves. The USAmericans need world domination to have effective control of oil resources wherever they can be found and have resurrected this long exploded myth.
‘Take up the white man’s burden
And reap his old reward
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard’
The USA must be prepared for misguided Iraqis blaming and hating them for their altruistic attempt to “better” and to “guard” them.
Meanwhile we can see what happened as a consequence of the British belief in the myth of the White Man’s Burden. The British shot down some 400 unarmed Indians for protesting an unjust law on 13th April 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh Amritsar.
India had given men materials money and moral support to the British in the 1914-18 War in the hope that a British victory would improve their lot. The British had encouraged this belief in private and in public.
In a House of Commons speech (20th August 1917) Secretary of State for India, Lord Montagu stressed the need for ‘increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire’…
Gandhiji’s letter to Lord Chelmsford Viceroy of India on 30th April 1918 stated ‘I recognize that in the hour of danger we must give, as we have decided to give, ungrudging and unequivocal support to the empire of which we aspire in the near future to be partners in the same sense as the dominions overseas. But it is the simple truth that our response is due to the expectation that our goal will be reached all the more speedily’.
700000 Indians were recruited into the British Indian army and 120000 of them became casualties with the dead numbering more than half the total number.
Meanwhile the British were busy cooking up the devil’s brew known as the Rowlatt Act. This was being done in camera by the ‘Sedition Committee’ appointed to advise on how to deal with criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movement in India.
The new legislation called ‘The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act’ provided for a special court of three judges, for quick trials with no appeal allowed. The hearings would be in camera and evidence not admissible under the Indian Evidence Act could be produced. A suspect’s freedom of movement could be curtailed, arrests and searches could take place without a warrant and anyone could be put in jail on suspicion. The Indians called the law
‘Naa Vakeel Naa Daleel Naa Appeal (No lawyer; No arguments; No appeal) and protested.
Indian hopes of victory leading to improvement in their conditions were belied. The special session of the Congress held in Bombay on 29th August 1918 found the British proposals for reform disappointing and unsatisfactory. The British defense was that the Indians must learn to walk before they could run and fly.
Motilal Nehru who had been a moderate until then responded “We cannot learn to walk unless you give us the opportunity to exercise this function. If we keep lying (down) all the time then goodbye to all benefits of the exercise.”
Finding protests unavailing Gandhi launched his first Satyagraha in India.
India saw its very first general strike (hartaal) on 6th April 1919 and the satyagraha movement caught the imagination of the people. Protest meetings were held all over India. The British velvet glove came off and the mailed fist was revealed in all its brutal reality.
The leaders of Amritsar, Dr Saifuddeen Kitchlu and Dr Satya Paul were arrested and deported from the city under the Defence of India Rules. When the news spread a spontaneous procession formed to protest the high- handed action. The police stopped them at a level crossing and opened fire killing many people. Enraged crowds spread all over the city and seized and killed the few white persons they found.
11th April saw Brigadier R.E.H.Dyer arrive and take charge. The satyagrahis announced that they would hold a meeting at Jallianwala Bagh at 4.30 p.m. on 13th April.
13th April was a Sunday and Baisakhi. The public meeting protesting the arrest was swelled by masses visiting the city centre and the nearby Golden Temple for the mela or fair. There were some 10,000 people in the walled space with only one opening.
Dyer decided to teach a lesson to the natives about the power of the British. Without any warning or order to disperse he had his troops take positions and fire upon the crowd. 1.650 rounds were fired in some ten minutes. According to official estimates 379 persons were killed on the spot and 200 wounded.
This is the kind of atrocity inherent in carrying the White Man’s Burden.
Alas!