Reginald Dyer

Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer CB (9

October 1864 – 23 July 1927) was a
British officer of the Bengal Army and later
the newly constituted Indian Army. His
military career began serving briefly in the
regular British army before transferring to
serve with the Presidency armies of India.
As a temporary brigadier-general he was
responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre in Amritsar (in the province of
Punjab). Considered "the Butcher of
Amritsar", Dyer was removed from duty; he
was criticised both in Britain and India, but
he became a celebrated hero among
people with connections to the British
Raj.[2] Some historians argue the episode
was a decisive step towards the end of
British rule in India.[3]
 Reginald Edward Harry Dyer

Dyer circa 1919

Nickname(s) The Butcher of

Amritsar

Born 9 October 1864

Murree, Punjab, British
India

Died 24 July 1927 (aged 62)

Long Ashton,
Somerset, England

Allegiance British Empire

Presidency of Bengal
 British India

Service/branch British Army

Bengal Army
Indian Army

Years of service 1885–1920

Rank Colonel

Commands held Seistan Force

25th Punjabis

Battles/wars Third Anglo-Burmese

War
Chitral Expedition
First World War

Awards Companion of the

Order of the Bath
Mentioned in
Despatches (2)

Spouse(s) Frances Anne Trevor

 Ommaney (m. 1888-
1927 his death) [1]

Children Gladys Mary b. 1889

Ivon Reginald, b. 1895
Geoffrey Edward
MacLeod, b. 1896 [1]

Early life

Major Reginald Dyer at the Delhi Durbar of 1903

Dyer was born in Murree, in the Punjab
province of British India, which is now in
Pakistan. He was the son of Edward
Abraham Dyer, a brewer who managed the
Murree Brewery, and Mary Passmore.[4]:3[5]
He spent his childhood in Murree and
Shimla and received his early education at
the Lawrence College Ghora Gali, Murree
and Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. He
attended Midleton College in County Cork,
Ireland between 1875 and 1881.

Assignments
In 1885, soon after graduating from the
Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Dyer
was commissioned into the Queen's Royal
Regiment (West Surrey) as a lieutenant,[6]
and performed riot control duties in
Belfast (1886) and served in the Third
Burmese War (1886–87). He was then
transferred to the Bengal Army, initially
joining the Bengal Staff Corps as a
lieutenant in 1887.[7][8] He was attached to
the 39th Bengal Infantry, later transferring
to the 29th Punjabis. He married Frances
Annie Ommaney, the daughter of Edmund
Piper Ommaney, on 4 April 1888, in St
Martin's Church, Jhansi, India. The first of
their three children, Gladys, was born in
Simla, India, in 1889. Dyer served in the
latter in the Black Mountain campaign
(1888), the Chitral Relief (1895) (promoted
to captain in 1896)[9] and the Mahsud
blockade (1901–02). In 1901 he was
appointed a deputy assistant adjutant
general.[10] He was then transferred to the
25th Punjabis.

In August 1903 he was promoted to major,

and served with the Landi Kotal Expedition
(1908). He commanded the 25th Punjabis
in India and Hong Kong and was promoted
to lieutenant-colonel in 1910.[11] During the
First World War (1914–18), he
commanded the Seistan Force, for which
he was mentioned in dispatches[12] and
made a Companion of the Order of the
Bath (CB). He was promoted colonel in
1915,[13][14] and was promoted to
temporary brigadier general in 1916.[15][16]
In 1919, about a month after the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in the Third
Anglo-Afghan War, his brigade relieved the
garrison of Thal, for which he was again
mentioned in dispatches.[17] For a few
months in 1919 he was posted at the 5th
Brigade at Jamrud.

He retired on 17 July 1920, retaining the

rank of colonel.[18]

Background
In 1919 the European population in Punjab
feared the locals would overthrow British
rule. A nationwide hartal (strike action),
which was called on 30 March (later
changed to 6 April) by Mahatma Gandhi,
had turned violent in some areas.
Authorities were also becoming concerned
by displays of Hindu-Muslim unity.[19]:237
Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-
Governor of Punjab, decided to deport
major agitators from the province. One of
those targeted was Dr. Satyapal,[19]:237 a
Hindu who had served with the Royal Army
Medical Corps during the First World War.
He advocated non-violent civil
disobedience and was forbidden by the
authorities to speak publicly. Another
agitator was Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew,[19]:237
a Muslim barrister who wanted political
change and also preached non-violence.
The district magistrate, acting on orders
from the Punjab government, had the two
leaders arrested.[19]:237 On 9 April 1919,
crowds soon gathered at a bridge leading
into the Civil Lines, where the British lived,
demanding a release of the two men.
Unable to hold the crowd back, troops
panicked and began firing, killing several
protesters.

The shooting of protesters resulted in a

mob forming and returning to the city
centre, setting fire to government buildings
and attacking Europeans in the city. Three
British bank employees were beaten to
death, and Miss Marcella Sherwood, who
supervised the Mission Day School for
Girls, was cycling around the city to close
her schools when she was assaulted by a
mob in a narrow street called the Kucha
Kurrichhan. Sherwood was rescued from
the mob by locals.[19]:237-239 They hid the
teacher, who was hurt in the beating,
before moving her to the fort. Dyer, who
was the commandant of the infantry
brigade in Jalandhar, decided to take
action. He arrived on 11 April to assume
command, then instructed the troops of
the garrison regarding reprisals against
the population.

Though authorities initially claimed that

the massacre was triggered by the assault
on Sherwood, regimental diaries reveal
that this was merely a pretext. Instead,
Dyer and O'Dwyer feared an imminent
mutiny in Punjab similar to the Indian
Rebellion of 1857.[20]

Amritsar massacre
Dyer is infamous for the orders that he
gave on 13 April 1919 in Amritsar. It was
by his command that 50 troops, including
25 Gurkhas of 1/9 Gurkha Rifles (1st
battalion, 9th Gurkha Rifles), 25 Pathans
and Baluch, 54th Sikhs and 59th Sindh
Rifles, all armed with .303 Lee–Enfield
rifles opened fire on a non-violent
gathering of unarmed civilians, men,
women and children, at the Jallianwalla
Bagh in what later came to be known as
the Amritsar massacre.

The civilians had assembled at Jallianwala

Bagh to participate in the annual Baisakhi
celebrations which are both a religious and
a cultural festival of the Punjabis. Coming
from outside the city, they may have been
unaware of the martial law that had been
imposed. The Bagh-space comprised 6 to
7 acres (28,000 m2) and was walled on all
sides except for five entrances. Four of
these entrances were very narrow,
admitting only a few people at a time. The
fifth entrance was blocked by the armed
soldiers, as well as by two armoured cars
with machine guns (these vehicles were
unable to pass through the entrance).
Upon entering the park, the general
ordered the troops to shoot directly into
the gathering. Shooting continued until his
troops' supply of 1,650 rounds of
ammunition was almost exhausted.[21] The
shooting continued unabated for about 10
minutes.[22]
Dyer is reported to have, from time to time,
"checked his fire and directed it upon
places where the crowd was thickest";[21]
he did this not because the crowd was
slow to disperse, but because he (the
general) "had made up his mind to punish
them for having assembled there."[21]
Some of the soldiers initially shot into the
air, at which Dyer shouted: "Fire low. What
have you been brought here for?"[23] Later,
Dyer's own testimony revealed that the
crowd was not given any warning to
disperse and he was not remorseful for
having ordered his troops to shoot.[24]
The worst part of the whole
thing was that the firing was
directed towards the exit gates
through which the people were
running out. There were 3 or 4
small outlets in all and bullets
were actually rained over the
people at all these gates… and
many got trampled under the
feet of the rushing crowds and
thus lost their lives… even those
who lay flat on the ground were
fired upon.[25]
The official reports quote 379 dead and
over 1,000 injured. However, public enquiry
estimates,[26] from Government civil
servants in the city (commissioned by the
Punjab Sub-committee of Indian National
Congress)[27] as well as counts from the
Home Political[26] cite numbers well over a
thousand dead. According to a Home
Political Deposit report, the number was
more than 1,000, with more than 1,200
wounded.[28] Dr Smith, a British civil
surgeon at Amritsar, indicated over 1,800
casualties.[29] The deliberate infliction of
these casualties earned Dyer the epithet of
the "Butcher of Amritsar" in India.
Threatening language
The day after the massacre Kitchin, the
Commissioner of Lahore as well as Dyer,
both used threatening language. The
following is the English translation of
Dyer's Urdu statement directed at the local
residents of Amritsar on the afternoon of
14 April 1919, a day after the Amritsar
massacre:

You people know well that I am

a Sepoy and soldier. Do you
want war or peace? If you wish
for a war, the Government is
prepared for it, and if you want
peace, then obey my orders and
open all your shops; else I will
shoot. For me the battlefield of
France or Amritsar is the same.
I am a military man and I will
go straight. Neither shall I move
to the right nor to the left. Speak
up, if you want war? In case
there is to be peace, my order is
to open all shops at once. You
people talk against the
Government and persons
educated in Germany and
Bengal talk sedition. I shall
report all these. Obey my orders.
I do not wish to have anything
else. I have served in the
military for over 30 years. I
understand the Indian Sepoy
and Sikh people very well. You
will have to obey my orders and
observe peace. Otherwise the
shops will be opened by force
and Rifles. You will have to
report to me of the Badmash. I
will shoot them. Obey my orders
and open shops. Speak up if you
want war? You have committed
 a bad act in killing the English.
The revenge will be taken upon
you and upon your children.[30]

Crawling order
Dyer designated the spot where Marcella
Sherwood was assaulted sacred. Daytime
pickets were placed at either end of the
street. Anyone wishing to proceed in the
street between 6am and 8pm was made to
crawl the 200 yards (180 m) on all fours,
lying flat on their bellies.[31][32] The order
was not required at night due to a curfew.
The order effectively closed the street. The
houses did not have any back doors and
the inhabitants could not go out without
climbing down from their roofs. This order
was in effect from 19 April until 25 April
1919. No doctor or supplier was allowed
in, resulting in the sick being unattended.

Reaction in Britain and

British India
Reaction to the massacre varied. A large
section of the British population in India
condoned it while many Indians were
outraged. A Committee of enquiry, chaired
by Lord Hunter, was established to
investigate the massacre. The
committee's report criticised Dyer, arguing
that in "continuing firing as long as he did,
it appears to us that Colonel Dyer
committed a grave error."[33] Dissenting
members argued that the martial law
regime's use of force was wholly
unjustified. "Colonel Dyer thought he had
crushed the rebellion and Sir Michael
O'Dwyer was of the same view," they wrote,
"(but) there was no rebellion which
required to be crushed."

He was met by Lieutenant-General Sir

Havelock Hudson, who told him that he
was relieved of his command. He was told
later by the Commander-in-Chief in India,
General Sir Charles Monro, to resign his
post and that he would not be
reemployed.[34]

Dyer tried to win over the Sikhs as best as

he could. He forced the manager of the
Golden Temple and Sunder Singh Majithia
to use their influence over the Sikhs, in
favour of the government. As a result,
priests of the Golden Temple invited him
to the sacred shrine and presented him
with a Siropa (turban and sword).[35]

Rudyard Kipling, who claimed Dyer was

"the man who saved India", is alleged to
have started a benefit fund which raised
over £26,000 sterling, including £50
contributed by Kipling himself for Dyer.[36]
Subhash Chopra in his book Kipling Sahib
– the Raj Patriot (2006),[37] writes that the
benefit fund was started by the Morning
Post newspaper and not by Kipling and
that Kipling made no contribution to the
Dyer fund. His name was conspicuously
absent among the list of donors as
published in the Morning Post.
Nonetheless, Kipling clearly admired Dyer.

Dyer was heavily criticised both in Britain

and India. Several senior and influential
British government officials and Indians
spoke out against him, including:
Pandit Motilal Nehru, father of
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime
Minister of India, who called the
massacre the "saddest and most
revealing of all".[38]
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian
Nobel Laureate and distinguished Indian
educator, who renounced his knighthood
in protest against the massacre and
said, "a great crime has been done in the
name of law in the Punjab".[39]
Sir Shankaran Nair, who resigned his
membership of the Viceroy's Executive
Council in the Legislative Council of
Punjab in protest at the massacre.[40]
Punjab Legislative Council members
Nawab Din Murad and Kartar Singh, who
described the massacre as "neither just
nor humane."[40]
Charles Freer Andrews, an Anglican
priest and friend of Gandhi, who termed
the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as a
"cold-blooded massacre and
inhumane."[41]
Brigadier-General Surtees, who stated in
the Dyer debate that "we hold India by
force – undoubtedly by force".[42]
Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of
State for India, who called it "a grave
error in judgement". In a debate in the
House of Commons, he asked, "Are you
going to keep your hold on India by
terrorism, racial humiliation,
subordination and frightfulness, or are
you going to rest it upon the goodwill
and the growing goodwill of the people
of your Indian Empire?"[41][4]:380
Winston Churchill, at the time Britain's
Secretary of State for War, who called
the massacre "an episode without
precedent or parallel in the modern
history of the British Empire… an
extraordinary event, a monstrous event,
an event which stands in singular and
sinister isolation... the crowd was
neither armed nor attacking" during a
debate in the House of Commons. In a
letter to the leader of the Liberals and
former Secretary of State for India, the
Marquess of Crewe, he wrote, "My own
opinion is that the offence amounted to
murder, or alternatively
manslaughter."[4]:382-383[43]
Former Prime Minister and leader of the
Liberal Party H. H. Asquith, who
observed: "There has never been such
an incident in the whole annals of Anglo-
Indian history, nor, I believe, in the
history of our empire since its very
inception down to present day. It is one
of the worst outrages in the whole of our
history."[44]
 B. G. Horniman, who observed: "No
event within living memory, probably,
has made so deep and painful
impression on the mind of the public in
this country [England] as what came to
be known as the Amritsar massacre."[45]

The era of O'Dwyer and Dyer has been

deemed "an era of misdeeds of British
administration in India".[46]

During the Dyer debates in the Parliament

of the United Kingdom, there was both
praise and condemnation of Dyer.[47] In
1920, the British Labour Party Conference
at Scarborough unanimously passed a
resolution denouncing the Amritsar
massacre as a "cruel and barbarous
action" of British officers in Punjab and
called for their trial, recall of Sir Michael
O'Dwyer and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy,
and the repealing of repressive
legislation.[48]

Exile to Britain
Churchill, the then Secretary of State for
War, wanted Dyer to be disciplined, but the
Army Council superseded by him decided
to allow Dyer to resign with no plan for
further punishment. Following Churchill's
speech defending the council's decision
and a debate in Parliament, on 8 July 1920
MPs voted for the government by a
majority of 247 to 37; a motion calling for
approval of Dyer's actions was defeated by
a majority of 230 to 129.[49][50]

On his exile to Britain, Dyer was presented

with a gift of £26,000 sterling, a huge sum
in those days (approximately £1,000,000 in
terms of 2013 PPP), which emerged from
a fund set up on his behalf by the Morning
Post, a conservative, pro-imperialist
newspaper which later merged with the
Daily Telegraph. A "Thirteen Women
Committee" was constituted to present
"the Saviour of the Punjab with the sword
of honour and a purse". Large
contributions to the fund were made by
civil servants and by British Army and
Indian Army officers, although serving
members of the military were not allowed
to donate to political funds under the
King's Regulations (para. 443).[4]:390

The Morning Post had supported Dyer's

action on the grounds that the massacre
was necessary to "Protect the honour of
European Women".[51] The Morning Post
blamed Edwin Samuel Montagu, Secretary
of State (India), for the massacre, and
asked for him to be tried. Montagu, on the
other hand, in a long letter to the Viceroy,
passed the blame to Sir Michael O'Dwyer,
admitting "I feel that O'Dwyer represents a
regime that is doomed."

Many Indians, including Nobel Laureate

Rabindranath Tagore, were outraged by the
fund for Dyer, particularly due to the
families of the victims killed at the
Jallianwala Bagh, who were still fighting
for government compensation. In the end,
they received Rs 500 (then equal to
£37.10s.0d; approximately £1,459 in terms
of 2013 PPP) for each victim.[4]:392

Dyer's response and motivation

Dyer made a series of three conflicting
sets of statements about his motives and
actions. At first, immediately after he
carried out the massacre, he made a
series of partial but slightly varying
explanations with the aim of exonerating
him from any blame. Later, after receiving
approval for his actions from all his
superiors in India, both civil and military,
Dyer stated that his actions were a
deliberate attempt to punish people he
believed were rebels, and to make an
example for the rest of the Punjab that
would stop what he regarded as a
rebellion. Finally, on Dyer's return to
England in disgrace in 1920, his lawyers
argued that his actions, though deliberate
and premeditated, were justified because
he was facing an insurrection and that, on
those grounds, any amount of firing was
permissible.[52]

Dyer wrote an article in the Globe of 21

January 1921, titled, "The Peril to the
Empire". It commenced with "India does
not want self-government. She does not
understand it." He wrote later that:[4]:406-407

It is only to an enlightened people that

free speech and a free press can be
extended. The Indian people want no
such enlightenment.
 There should be an eleventh
commandment in India, "Thou shalt not
agitate".
The time will come to India when a
strong hand will be exerted against
malice and 'perversion' of good order.
Gandhi will not lead India to capable
self-government. The British Raj must
continue, firm and unshaken in its
administration of justice to all men.

In his official response to the Hunter

commission that inquired into the
shooting, Dyer was unremorseful and
stated: "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."[53]

However, in his account of the

massacre[54] Nick Lloyd claims that
although Dyer later claimed to have
undertaken the massacre to "save" British
India, he had had no such idea in his mind
that fateful afternoon. As well as being
"dazed and shaken up" – hardly the
response of a soldier who had had murder
in his mind – all the witnesses recall how
Dyer "was unnerved and deeply upset
about what had happened".
Nigel Collett - author of the biography The
Butcher of Amritsar - is convinced that the
Amritsar massacre preyed on Dyer's mind
from the very day he opened fire. "He
spent the rest of his life trying to justify
himself. He persuaded himself it had been
his duty to act as he did, but he could not
persuade his soul that he had done right. It
rotted his mind and, I am guessing here,
added to his sickness."[55]

Collett, in his book, portrays Dyer as a man

who got on extremely well with his men
and his juniors, while his contemporaries
and seniors were always wary of him.
When he approached a complex political
problem, his one thought was to have
order; his one tool to get it was the gun. He
notes that, at the time of the Amritsar
massacre, Dyer was wracked by ill-health
and separated from his beloved family.
Collett speculates that perhaps this
encouraged Dyer's extreme view that the
Punjab was on the brink of rebellion, with
the empire about to collapse, and feared a
mutiny like that of 1857. The solution, he
decided, was not just to restore order but
to show that the state was in charge. It
was not enough to have shops and
businesses reopen in Amritsar - an
example was needed of the consequences
of insubordination.[56]
Collett quotes Dyer himself on the
motivations that drove him to act as he
did: "...It was no longer a question of
merely dispersing the crowd but one of
producing a sufficient moral effect, from a
military point of view, not only on those
who were present but more specially
throughout the Punjab. There could be no
question of undue severity. The mutineers
had thrown out the challenge and the
punishment, if administered at all, must be
complete, unhesitating and immediate."[52]

Death
Dyer suffered a series of strokes during
the last years of his life and he became
increasingly isolated due to the paralysis
and speechlessness inflicted by his
strokes. He died of cerebral haemorrhage
and arteriosclerosis in 1927.[4]:420-424 On
his deathbed, Dyer reportedly said:

So many people who knew the

condition of Amritsar say I did
right...but so many others say I
did wrong. I only want to die
and know from my Maker
whether I did right or wrong.[4]
The Morning Post remembered him in an
article titled "The Man Who Saved India"
and "He Did His Duty" but the (Liberal)
Westminster Gazette wrote a contrary
opinion: "No British action, during the
whole course of our history in India, has
struck a severer blow to Indian faith in
British justice than the massacre at
Amritsar."

Historian Gordon Johnson commented

that "...Dyer's actions ran counter to Army
regulations. These required that force
should be constrained by what was
reasonable to achieve an immediate
objective; minimum, not maximum, force
should be deployed. Moreover, proper
warning had to be given. On April 13, 1919,
as demonstrated by Collett, Dyer ignored
this. While he may have believed the Raj
was threatened, and may have thought the
mob was out to attack him and his
soldiers, this does not justify his cavalier
abuse of procedure and his indifference to
Indian suffering. In so behaving, he
brought not only death to the innocent but
also destroyed himself and undermined
the empire in which he took so much
pride."[56]

Popular culture
Dyer is played by Edward Fox in the 1982
film Gandhi. Dyer's scenes in the film
depict the massacre as well as Dyer's
testimony to the inquisition panel.

A fictionalised account of Dyer's actions in

Amritsar is contained in the 1981 prize
winning novel Midnight's Children, by
author Salman Rushdie (see List of
Midnight's Children characters) and
depicted in Shashi Tharoor's 1989 The
Great Indian Novel.

Role of Sir Michael O'Dwyer

Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor
of Punjab from 1912 to 1919, endorsed
Dyer and called the massacre a "correct"
action.[57] Some historians now believe he
premeditated the massacre and set Dyer
to work.[58][59][60][61] Many Indians blamed
O'Dwyer, and while Dyer was never
assaulted, O'Dwyer was assassinated in
London in 1940 by Sardar Udham Singh in
retaliation for his role in the massacre.[62]

References
1. The Life Of General Dyer, Colvin Ian,
1929, William Blakwood And Sons Ltd,
London
2. Derek Sayer, "British Reaction to the
Amritsar Massacre 1919–1920," Past &
Present, May 1991, Issue 131, pp 130–164
3. Bond, Brian (October 1963). "Amritsar
1919". History Today. Vol. 13 no. 10.
pp. 666–676.
4. Collett, Nigel (2006). The Butcher of
Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer.
Continuum International Publishing Group.
ISBN 9781852855758.
5. Oxford History of the British Empire
Companion Series Ireland and the British
Empire Kenny, Kevin 2004 Oxford University
Press page 90
6. "No. 25506" . The London Gazette. 28
August 1885. p. 4082.
7. "No. 25766" . The London Gazette. 13
December 1887. p. 6940.
8. "No. 25883" . The London Gazette. 14
December 1888. p. 7141.
9. "No. 26795" . The London Gazette. 17
November 1896. p. 6276.
10. "No. 27362" . The London Gazette. 4
October 1901. p. 6489.
11. "No. 28362" . The London Gazette. 3
May 1910. p. 3072.
12. "No. 30360" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 30 October 1917. p. 11270.
13. "No. 29924" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 30 January 1917. p. 1058.
14. "No. 31787" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 17 February 1920. p. 2046.
15. "No. 29509" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 14 March 1916. p. 2902.
16. "No. 30617" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 5 April 1918. p. 4273.
17. "No. 31823" . The London Gazette
(Supplement). 12 March 1920. p. 3278.
18. "No. 32047" . The London Gazette. 10
September 1920. p. 9148.
19. Chadha, Yogesh (1997). Gandhi: A Life
John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0-471-35062-1
20. Athale, Rtd. Colonet Anil. "What will be
history's verdict on the Ramlila maidan
eviction?" . columnist. rediff.com. Retrieved
9 June 2011.
21. Report of Commissioners, Vol I, II,
Bombay, 1920, Reprint New Delhi, 1976, p
56.
22. Disorder Inquiry Committee Report, Vol
II, p 191.
23. Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, A
Premeditated Plan, Punjab University
Chandigarh, 1969, p 89, Raja Ram; A Saga
of Freedom Movement and Jallianwala
Bagh, Udham Singh, 2002, p 141, Prof (Dr)
Sikander Singh.
24. See: Report of Commissioners, Vol I, II,
Bombay, 1920, Reprint New Delhi, 1976, p
55-56.
25. Statement of Eyewitness Mr Girdhari
Lal, who happened to watch the scene from
the window of his house overlooking the
Jallianwala Bagh: Ref: Report of
Commissioners, Vol I, II, Bombay, 1920,
Reprint New Delhi, 1976, p 10-11.
26. Home Political, Sept 1920, No 23,
National Archive of India, New Delhi
27. Report of Commissioners, appointed by
the Punjab Sub-committee of Indian
National Congress, Vol I, New Delhi, p 68
28. Home Political Deposit, September
1920, No 23, National Archives of India,
New Delhi; Report of Commissioners, Vol I,
New Delhi.
29. Report of Commissioners, Vol I, New
Delhi, p 105
30. See: A Saga of Freedom Movement and
Jallianwala Bagh, Udham Singh, 2002, p
149, Prof (Dr) Sikander Singh; Report of
Commissioners, Vol I, II, Bombay, 1920,
Reprint New Delhi, 1976, p 11.; See also
Talk Page for full text of Dyer's Statement
31. "Some Indians crawl face downwards in
front of their gods. I wanted them to know
that a British woman is as sacred as a
Hindu god and therefore, they have to crawl
in front of her too"Talbott, Strobe (2006).
Engaging India: diplomacy, democracy, and
the bomb . Brookings Institution Press.
p. 245. ISBN 978-0-8157-8301-5.
32. Kent, Susan Kingsley (2009).
Aftershocks: politics and trauma in Britain,
1918–1931 . University of California. p. 37.
ISBN 978-1-4039-9333-5.
33. Brown, Judith M. (1974-09-26).
Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics
1915-1922 . ISBN 9780521098731.
34. Mariners, Merchants and the Military
Too By Phillip E Jones
35. Singh, Khushwant (2004). A History of
the Sikhs: 1839–2004 . Oxford University
Press. p. 167. ISBN 9780195673098.
36. Thakur, Sankarshan (21 February 2013).
"History repeats itself, in stopping short" .
The Telegraph. Calcutta, India. Retrieved
12 August 2013.
37. (New Millennium Publishing, 34 South
Molton Street, WIK 5RG
(newmillennium@UK@.net))
38. Valentine Chitol, India Old and New,
London, 1921, p 312
39. Tribune, Lahore, 16 April 1919, see
Government of India, Home Department,
Political Deposit, August 1919, No 52,
National Archives of India, New Delhi.
40. Punjab Legislative Council Proceedings,
23 Feb 1921, Vol I I.
41. Home Political, K. W., A, 20 June 1920,
Nos 126–194, National Archives of India,
New Delhi.
42. Arthur Swinson, Six Minutes of Sunset,
London, 1964, p 210; cited in Psycho-
Political compulsions of Jallinawala Bagh
by Gurcaharan Singh, op cit, p 156.
43. Mr. Churchill, The SECRETARY of STATE
for WAR (8 July 1920). "Were we right in
accepting, as we have done, the conclusion
of the Army Council as terminating the
matter so far as Colonel Dyer was
concerned, or ought we to have taken
further action of a disciplinary or quasi-
disciplinary character against him?" .
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). House of
Commons. col. 1725–1726.
44. Hansard, 5th sec. Commons, quoted by
Derek Sayer, British Commemoration of
Amritsar Volume, Patiala, 1997, p 24.
45. Amritsar and Our Duty to India, London,
1920, B. G. Horniman, p 7.
46. Government of India, External affairs
Department, File No 1940, Newspapers
(Secret), p 2
47. Army Council and Colonel Dyer
Hansard, 8 July 1920
48. The Times, London, 25 June 1920, cited
in Sayer, British Reaction of Amritsar
massacre, 1919–20, Reprint in Jallianwala
Bagh Commemoration Volume, Patiala,
1997, p 41
49. "Background and Commentary of
Winston Churchill's 1920 British House of
Commons Amritsar Massacre Speech" .
50. "Winston Churchill - Amritsar Massacre
Speech - July 8th 1920, House of
Commons" .
51. Morning Post, cited in Derek Sayer,
British Reaction of Amritsar massacre,
1919–20, reprinted in Jallianwala Bagh
Commemoration Volume, Patiala, 1997, p
45.
52. "Nigel Collet's Review of Nick Lloyd's
Book on the Amritsar Massacre" . 2012-07-
17. "Must we continue to try to evade the
fact that sometimes those who ran the
Empire were capable of catastrophic
failures of judgment? To do so in the
Amritsar affair rights no historic wrongs but
only embitters once more our relations with
the descendants of those who were the real
victims of this tragedy, the Indians Dyer
killed. This is not just a matter of being
right about the past. We need to
understand the history of abuses like the
Amritsar massacre so that if we follow
political paths that put us in similar
positions in the future, we shall go down
them knowing not what may, but what will,
transpire."
53. "Colonel Dyer was hardly remorseful for
Jallianwala massacre" .
54. Lloyd, Nick (2011). The Amritsar
Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful
Day (Rev ed.). I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-
0857730770. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
55. "Dyer consequences - interview with
Nigel Collett" . "He (Dyer) was not racially
prejudiced; his prejudices were anti-
civilian... He was personally interested in
his men, of whatever race. He enjoyed their
company, liked talking to them directly in
his tent and bungalow, recommended many
of them for bravery and service awards and
defended them against civilians. He took
great interest in getting them better rations,
finding them good billets, requisitioned
fans and bicycles for them (all taken from
civilians), whether they were British soldiers
or Indian. They loved him in return. He was
physically a very brave man, renowned for
his courage. Collett's answer is: My
interpretation is that Dyer did what he did to
assuage his deep-seated fears that the
India that was his whole life, and the safety
of his family, were under threat in a new
mutiny in Punjab in 1919, and that, in
Amritsar, he could stop it. But the
explanations he gave later for his actions
were confusing and unconvincing."
56. "A family man whose bloody disposition
sent the British into a spin" . 2006-02-24.
"Dyer faced the traumas of boarding school
in Ireland and the trials of getting through
Sandhurst and obtaining a commission
without the help of patrons. He was a man
with considerable mathematical and
linguistic abilities, but one who never quite
fitted in. He married young, thus missing
out on the comradely life of a young
subaltern. He was never in quite the right
place at the right time to see major action;
he had a short temper; his promotions were
slow in coming and too often in an acting
capacity only. He got on extremely well with
his men and his juniors, while his
contemporaries and seniors were always
wary of him."
57. Disorder Inquiry Committee Report, Vol
II, p 197
58. The Massacre that Ended the Raj,
London, 1981, p 78, Alfred Draper
59. Rajit K. Mazumder, The Indian army and
the making of Punjab (2003) pp 239–40
60. John Keay, India: a history (2001) p 475
61. Lawrence James, The Rise and fall of
the British Empire (1997) p 417
62. "Indian pop video honours activist's
1940 killing of British official" . The
Guardian. 31 July 2015. Retrieved 26 June
2017.
Further reading
Nigel Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar:
General Reginald Dyer , London:
Hambledon & London, 2005
Alfred Draper, The Massacre that Ended
the Raj, London, 1981
Ian Duncan Colvin, The life of Colonel
Dyer, Edinburgh, London : W. Blackwood
& Sons Ltd, 1929
Moreman, T R (2004). "Dyer, Reginald
Edward Harry (1864–1927)" . Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography.
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32947 . Retrieved
7 January 2008. (Subscription required
(help)).
External links
House of Commons debate on Army
Council and Colonel Dyer, 8 July 1920
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/co
mmons/1920/jul/08/army-council-and-
general-dyer
Winston Churchill's Amritsar Speech , 8
July 1920, UK House of Commons

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Reginald_Dyer&oldid=892105709"

Last edited 1 hour ago by Bonadea

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless
otherwise noted.