It was ninety years ago today

[rachelmanija]

If you don't know about Jallianwallah Bagh, please take a moment to read this account.

"I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself." — Dyer's response to the Hunter Commission Enquiry.

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Damn. I did not know about that.

[seajules]

The "reasoning" behind that quote, that potential teasing or ridicule justifies violence, is at the root of so much ugliness. I didn't know about this one. There are no words.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I think was 15 when I first read about that comment of Dyer's. I still recall thinking that one should never take oneself so seriously that one is willing to kill to avoid looking like a fool...

[seajules]

Most definitely agreed.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I remember reading about the massacre when I researched the Indian revolution and feeling sick to my stomach. I had never seen Dyer's quote. That is hideous.

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

My god.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

To choose to die to avoid looking like a fool, well, that's one's own business (no matter how stupid a choice it is). To choose to kill to avoid looking like a fool--I have no words for that.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

That made me so angry I wanted to cry. Thanks for the link.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I knew about that, a little, because of Paul Scott.

That also reminds me of the Atwood quote. She asked men why they were scared of women: "We're afraid they'll laugh at us," the men said. She asked women why they were scared of men: "We're afraid they'll kill us," the women said.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

In the annals of Rare Instances When You Actually Learn Something From A Hollywood Movie -- I first learned about Amritsar in Gandhi.

(To my dismay, I have been reading a book in Mexico in the 19th C. and have just run across another massacre, a really big one, a really devastating one, I'd never heard of in my life. I guess that's why one reads books in adulthood, but sometimes I feel desperately uninformed.)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I learned it from Gandhi too!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

That statement... wow. I know Imperial Britain produced a lot of men like that, but to see it put so plainly. Wow again.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I did not know about this. Thank you for posting.