Amritsar 1919

Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre

First edition hardcover
Author	Kim A. Wagner
Audio read by	Neil Shah
Subjects	History South Asian history Humanities
Published	2019
Publisher	Yale University Press
Publication place	UK
Pages	360[1]
ISBN	978-0-300-20035-5
Dewey Decimal	954/.552
LC Class	DS480.5 .W34 2019

Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (2019), is a book by Kim A. Wagner and published by Yale University Press, that aims to dispel myths surrounding the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that took place in Amritsar, India, on 13 April 1919.

In the absence of any photographs of the event and with significant differences between British and Indian accounts of how many were killed and how and why it happened, Wagner examines primary sources to trace the events leading up to the massacre and then discusses its aftermath. According to Wagner, the background to the massacre starts with the Indian rebellion of 1857 and the subsequent British fear of a recurrence.

By 1919, Indians aspired to greater self-governance, a wish frustrated by the proposals of the Rowlatt Act. The result was Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha movement, which persuaded Indians to pursue nonviolent resistance to the British. Fearing another 1857, events in Amritsar unfolded into Indian political agitation, the arrest of two key Indian political leaders, and British panic. Then came General Dyer's action towards a large peaceful crowd and the killings at Jallianwalla Bagh. British authorities responded with martial law and the arrest and torture of a number of Indians in Amritsar. Contrary to a number of widely held beliefs, Wagners research reveals an alternative number of how many were killed in the massacre, how many were found in the well and an account of why General Dyer acted as he did.

The book was released in 2019, the 100th anniversary of the massacre, and triggered responses in a number of publications including The Hindustan Times, The Telegraph and the London Review of Books. Amongst the reviewers have been Sathnam Sanghera, Andrew Lycett, Tunku Varadarajan and Ferdinand Mount.