10. The British Raj’s Most Notorious Massacre
When April 13th, 1919, dawned on Amritsar, in the Punjab, few could have predicted the dark deeds destined to occur that day. A crowd of about 10,000 Indian civilians gathered to protest the colonial authorities’ recent arrest and deportation of two Indian nationalist leaders. In response, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer of the British Indian Army ordered his troops to open fire on the unarmed protesters. An estimated 1,000 were killed in the ensuing massacre, and 1,500 more were wounded.
The protesters’ grievances went back to WWI and India’s significant contributions to the British war effort. In addition to furnishing material resources and goods, millions of Indians had served their colonial overlords as soldiers or laborers in the war’s various theaters. Even as the Indians fought and toiled on Britain’s behalf, the British authorities in India enacted a series of repressive laws to counteract potential subversion, and gave the military and police broad emergency powers.