- Tuesday, May 07, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
RENOVATION of Jallianwala Bagh complex in the northern Indian state of Punjab has sparked an outrage among Indians as the beautification of the site, which the country remembers with horror, has allegedly erased the signs of history.
On April 13, 1919, the garden site located in the city of Amritsar was witness to one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of India’s freedom struggle. Hundreds of Indians, including women and children, were indiscriminately shot at by British troops under the order of brigadier general RH Dyer when they came there to attend a public meeting at a time when the authorities had imposed martial law in Amritsar to ban public gathering due to a rise in public demonstrations. More than 2,500 people were either killed or injured. Several jumped into a (martyrs’) well to save themselves and perished. The troops stopped only when their ammunition ran out.
The massacre remains one of the lowest points of British colonial rule in India. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore had rejected the Britisher’s knighthood title to protest the massacre.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (28) virtually inaugurated the renovated complex but once the renovated complex was opened for public viewing, criticism started flying in. It has been alleged that in a zest to give the site a facelift, the planners have actually erased the signs of history that made the place a memorable one.
Renovated complex of Jallianwala Bagh Smarak being dedicated to the nation. https://t.co/qvgSvFD422
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 28, 2021
For instance, the walls of a narrow lane, through which the armed British soldiers led by Dyer entered the garden, have been embellished with murals and sculptures to commemorate those who died on the fateful day.
The martyrs’ well has also been covered with a transparent barrier.
While Modi said during inaugurating the renovated Jallianwala Bagh complex that it “will remind the new generation about the history of this holy place and will inspire to learn a lot about its past”, the critics feel the exact opposite will happen.
Kim Wagner, a Danish-British historian of colonial India and the British Empire at Queen Mary, University of London, was appalled with the renovation and called it a “part of the general Disneyfication of the old city of Amritsar”, adding that the revamping of the site “means that the last traces of the event have effectively been erased”, BBC reported.
Devastated to hear that Jallianwala Bagh, site of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, has been revamped – which means that the last traces of the event have effectively been erased. This is what I wrote of the memorial in my book, describing a space that has now itself become history. pic.twitter.com/GypQfrOulq
— Kim A. Wagner (@KimAtiWagner) August 28, 2021
Chaman Lal, a historian at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University said the renovation project had tried to “mystify and glamourise history”.
“People visiting Jallianwala Bagh should go with a sense of pain and anguish,” he told The Hindu newspaper. “They have now tried to make it a space for enjoying, with a beautiful garden. It was not a beautiful garden,” he added.
Noted historian Irfan Habib called it a “corporatisation of monuments” which has been done “at the cost of history, cost of heritage”.
“It is absolutely gaudy…Why should there be murals on the wall?” he asked.
Leaders from the opposition also criticised the government over the move.
Former Indian National Congress president Rahul Gandhi called it an insult to the martyrs. In a tweet written in Hindi, he said, “Such an insult to the martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh can only be done by those who do not know the meaning of martyrdom. I am the son of a martyr – I will not tolerate the insult of martyrs at any cost. We are against this indecent cruelty.”
जलियाँवाला बाग़ के शहीदों का ऐसा अपमान वही कर सकता है जो शहादत का मतलब नहीं जानता।
मैं एक शहीद का बेटा हूँ- शहीदों का अपमान किसी क़ीमत पर सहन नहीं करूँगा।
हम इस अभद्र क्रूरता के ख़िलाफ़ हैं। pic.twitter.com/3tWgsqc7Lx
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 31, 2021
Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said, “Sometimes the places evoke pain and serve as a reminder to what we lost and what we fought for. Trying to ‘beautify’ or ‘modify’ those memories is doing great damage to our collective history.”
British Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill tweeted in response to Wagner’s disappointment: “Our history being erased. Why?”
Our history- being erased! Why?
— Preet Kaur Gill MP (@PreetKGillMP) August 28, 2021
Shwait Malik, a Punjab parliamentarian from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party who is also in the Jallianwala Bagh Trust, defended the renovation saying, “These sculptures in the lane will make visitors conscious of those who walked in on that day… Earlier, people walked this narrow lane without knowing its history, now they will walk with history”, according to BBC.
