title: 4. Between Two Massacres: 1857-1919
author: Empire
contenttype: podcast
publication: Empire
published: 2022-08-29T21:00:00-04:00
sourceurl: https://pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/A27C8C/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR6119217924.mp3?updated=1703674354
word_count: 7550
If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of MPa a chat community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter sign up to MPa Club at www.mpaPoduk.com Your planet is now marked for death Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four for a Steps is now streaming on Disney+. We will protect you as a family. Let him off Johnny! Marvel's first family is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. That's fantastic. And critics say it's one of the best superhero movies of all time. Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four for a Steps now streaming on Disney+. We're the PG-13. What time is it, Ben? It's Fabrujane! And welcome to Empire with me and Eta Arnand. And me William Del Rampoul. They're what are we talking about today? We are taking things on from 1857 where we left the last podcast and 1857 left this unbelievable scar across the whole of North India. There were the most disgusting war crimes ever committed probably by the British anywhere in particularly three main cities, Delhi, Lucknow and Karnpur. Certainly tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are beneted, hung, blown from cannons. And anyone who thinks that the British Empire was benign should read the letters of this period. Because even if it's like Dickens are writing delete Delhi, wipe it out, scratch it from the face of the earth. Because what the people in Britain were being fed was this propaganda that... Child eating monstrous natives. Particularly women raping monstrous natives. And there's this idea that the mutineers when they rose up raped every British woman in India and performed unimaginable atrocities. And it's certainly true that the war atrocities at the beginning of the uprising, but they were, you know, fractional compared to the unbelievable retribution men having to lick up the blood in the BB gar, sewn into pigskings and blown from the mouths of cannon. And this went on for months. I mean, there were very organized manhunts. The my book, the last moge was written from a group of papers called The Mutiny Papers, which are very carefully preserved in the National Archives of India. Because they were the evidence used by the lawyers and the prosecutors in 1857 to round up anyone in the in the in the roll court, anyone in the mutineers cap, anyone whose name appears in those documents had a price on their head. And there was bounty being offered. It was literally wild west bounty hunters type of stuff. Exactly. And then rounding up families of people. If you don't find the person, you find the family. And there were stories of, you know, princes who were sort of disguised as f**k ears, living in courts like Udaypur technically beyond the reach of the Raj, who were being caught and brought back to Delhi for bounty 20 years later. So this is a really important moment in the changing of the psyche of two countries. So first of all, Britain now does not see that the time of Octolony and the white moge is dead. You do not trust the natives. That is now the message that is loud and clear going across Great Britain, Westminster in particular. And in particular, the school which turns out the Indian civil service. Because now of course, the other thing that changes is this is now no longer a company that is taking care of business in India. It is a country. It is now state intervention. The East India Company Navy is sold off. The East India Company Army is integrated into the British Army. The East India Company Civil Service is integrated into the Indian Civil Services. Now it becomes. And you get this transformation of company rule into state rule. By 1870, it really makes Queen Victoria the Empress of India. And it's a time when you have a complete realignment also of the elites of India. For the last 600 years, there has been a large Muslim elite in North India. And that does not just mean that there are rulers and civil servants and cavalrymen and militarymen. Culturally, Persianate culture has been the dominant thing. So the kind of poetry that is being written in towns like Lucknow, Hyderabad and Delhi is Indian versions of Hafiz or Ferdousi. Persian is the language of high culture in a way that Sanskrit had been in ancient India. But now everyone wants to speak English. It has to be English, English documents, English and court, English in any kind of civil society. And all civil society is now under the control of the British. We've also got, I mean, the reason we're here today, this podcast is largely about another turning point. So if you think that the mutiny, which we, by the way, if you missed it, go back and listen as a podcast on that. But this is now another major turning point in the relationship between Britain and India. So if 1857 soured a relationship, 1919 marks the beginning of the end of the British Raj. Even though, you know, they're going to stay, stick around for decades longer. There is something that happens in 1919, which flicks a switch in Indian mind. So if you think that the uprising or the mutiny was a thing that flicks the switches in British minds, that now we come and we take it all. And we're not even pretending that we're trading. We are in control. This is our ours. Then 1919 does it to the Indian minds and the Indian psyche. So just, I mean, just a bit of background on the lead up to 1919. After the road has declared an 1858 and India becomes a colony rather than a possession of the East India company. You have a massive change particularly in the military system in India. Previously, there was a tiny white officer elite and all the fighting men were Indian sea boys recruited in North India. Now large numbers of British soldiers that come in particularly Irish and Scots. And so you have large barracks full of white soldiers. And following the unbelievably violent reprisals to 1857, there is virtually no resistance in India for the next 20, 30 years. There is such memories of the unbelievable bloodshedding. The devil's wind. The devil's wind. The no one dares protest. So you have this sort of high Victorian period when British rule and the English language is imposed on India when there is virtually no resistance because people are so scared because the unbelievable bloodshed which had happened in 1857. But another thing has happened which is that the elites have changed. So you've moved from the dominant mugal elite with Persianic culture. And you've had the rise now of the different Hindu casts. You have the, for example, the Delhi bunnies, the bankers. I've become the richest and by far the most prosperous and powerful people in Delhi. And people no longer want to start writing Persian poetry. They want to be like words worth. They no longer wear for smart occasions their traditional dress quite a lot of them adopt European suits and so on. So there is a fundamental sense that not only has British rule been imposed but the whole prestige associated with mugal culture and mugal dress and mugal poet and what's real? No one wants to, that's regarded as old fashion. And if you look at some of the letters from Indians at the time, I mean they could have been written by Euraya heep because the sign-offs of some of these letters of people who have actually let's face it kind of newly learnt English but embraced it. They've embraced high British culture as if it's the best thing in the world. So you know, I most humbly crave your pardon to be disturbing you, yours sincerely. The sign-offs of some of these letters at the time are extraordinary. And you get people like Ghalib who's one of the last survivors from the Mughal elite. He hadn't joined the mutiny. He'd very clearly distance himself between him and the court in 1857. So he's not killed, he survives. When he's pulled, pulled before a British magistrate, he says, are you a Muslim? And he says, well, I don't eat pork but I do drink wine and the magistrate laughs and he gets off. Ghalib dies finally the same year that Mahatma Gandhi is born. And now very clearly the way is not Indo-Persian culture, it's not the Mughal ways, it's not the Islamic. If you want to get on, you become a lawyer and you try to get to London and you want to embrace the whole British thing. And there's a whole generation that grows up that begins to half believe the British propaganda that they are this race that brings justice and civilization. They're fair. They have laws, they have judges, they have order. And it's this that the event in 1919 that we're talking about today shakes that moment of in the late Victorian period between the memories of the reprisals of 1857. And the loss of faith in the British that happens in 1919 is that period that we're looking at now. We are and you were talking about the birth of Gandhi and Ghalib and these enormous figures. There's also not as, doesn't loom as large here in Britain at all but in the north of India looms enormously. A man called Sir Michael O'Dwyer who was born in 1864, he was an Irishman as you were saying in a sort of Irish and Scots, beat a path to India after the mutiny because that's where you make your name, it's where you make your fortune, it's where you become part of the elite. Speaking of Scots, the Scots always like to feel that they're with William Wallace, the resistance, they're totally downcrushed by the English but the reality is that after the Jackbury, when in 1745, after the second rebellion is crushed and Body Prince Charlie disappears overseas, the Scots embrace empire in a far more enthusiastic way than the English and the Scots outnumber the English proportionately hugely in India. You have whole towns and I've seen a picture of a Dundee high school reunion in Calcutta in about 1870 when there are about 400 people around well I mean like Wes with the Irish, I mean you know the story that we're about to tell you is about a man an Irishman very much in the centre of all of this and when I did write a book about this, the patient assassin, to this day I get apology letters from people in Ireland, we had no idea, we had an I will quote one, this bastard was our bastard so let me just tell you let's tell you a little bit about the Michael, Michael Adwaiar as he was born was born in Tipperary and he was an Irish Catholic so unusual because the Catholics in Ireland at this time knew only two well how difficult British rule could be you know his neighbours and his father's neighbours John Adwaiar they had suffered through the potato famine they were on their knees but John Adwaiar's family were a little bit different because they had money still they had money they had a bit of land they had a bit of you know livestock so they were comfortably off you could say um he was part of a big Irish Catholic family and he absolutely worshipped his father his father was everything and everything to him but his father was really unusual among Irish Catholics because he believed in British order you know like you were saying about sort of Indian started to believe that order and civilisation in inverted commas came through British rule that's exactly what Michael Adwaiar's father thought he thought actually we should have loyalty to King and Country that is the only way he didn't like the kind of disorder that he was seeing from the nascent phoenians who were springing up and setting fire to things around him he found that disorderly thuggish he called them hotheads he hated them so it's that in that environment that little Michael is born and brought up and so he starts you know almost from the mother's teeth drinking this truth that British rule is of order nationalism is bad it's dangerous and that really is you know this is early wire and there's also a fear very much that he's brought up with that generation that 1857 could happen again that you could again get the this mass of Indians as he sees it rising up against the the women of the British women in Indian particular are regarded as these sacred objects which must not be touched yeah 100% and he and you know it's reinforced by the Indians civil service so the ICS their training is predicated on how do you avoid 1857 again and the message that is like a big bellicia peak and overall every single classroom that is going on within the ICS service is do not trust the natives do not trust the natives it is just a you turn your back on the natives and they will put a cimetre through your shoulder blades so there's a real sort of fear and loathing which is bread into this and it's a small cadre never bigger than 1200 people in the ICS who go over to India who are going to control India which to me again those numbers are astonishing you know a massive population of the 12th century in pro-British writings about the Raj that how we were clearly this much loved imperial force goes the argument because how could so few Englishmen control so many but the reality was that you know it was on the back of of a pile of skulls that had been created in 1857 so you know it was possible for as the legend went you know a single white man on a horse to walk through a night any place in India completely safely because everyone was so scared by the retribution they've seen but you begin to get the first ripples of resistance in is it 1905 when Kursan partition's Bengal so yes I mean so just you know this is a Kursan is the viceroy of India he is an incredibly pompous individual in fact his his school friends tease him relentlessly is it do you know the poem the dog law that comes from is it Bailey my name is the George Nathaniel person I am the most ridiculous person yes superior person so you know he's a man who wants with shiny epilots and guns salutes to put Indians in their place and he is the person who presides over the first Delhi Derbar which is going to be a way in which very physically and visually you can show the natives that even their princes the princes we have allowed to stay on their thrones the noabs we have allowed to stay in their havelis they all come forward we give them the number of guns salutes we think they deserve so you have all these Indian prince things ridiculous men fighting over how many pops of the gun they're going to get and they all fall before the king emperor the Maharajas the princes who are left by this stage are those who allied with the English in 1857 so all those like the Raniya Jantzi who rise up against the what's then the company in in 1857 have long been hung and and sent off into exile hung all sent off into exile yes I know there's difficult to be in exile it's not doesn't go well so you have basically the quizzlings left the guys like like the syndiers or the the hulkers or these these forces that could have risen up against the ones that the Indian nationalists will call the sellouts is who are left and they given ranking so they have yeah yeah yeah according to how useful the British might find them but sort of the person who's watching all of this is is young tipperary boy a Michael Aedwai who has come over to India in 1885 and he is when he comes over to India he is that lone white man on a horse so he comes first of all into Lahore he's been given the whisper that Punjab is going to be his place and Punjab is a problem that Punjab there are two centers of discontent in India one is Punjab one is Bengal they're churning out violent men and insurrectionists and they are the places that need to be squashed so he sees kerson when kerson decides to partition Bengal that that is a way of dealing with problems like this kerson decides that you know if I put a line through Bengal I can turn Hindus against Muslims that is the nationalist argument he says it's to control this very large area and have a better civil society in this area but Indians see it as the first example with a line in a map of divide and rule in India and to this day Bengali still rankled out it's considered one of the worst things done by the British well when Michael arrives in Punjab and I'll call him Michael just because there are names which conflate here in this massacre story there is a man who you will meet in a minute called Rex dire and so Michael Aedwai and an Indian mind these two are often conflated into one joint little devil called Michael dire or Rex Oedwai I mean you'll see Google searches on this so I'm going to just call them sort of Michael and so Michael for our man who will inevitably be in control of Punjab at the time of the the 1919 episode. Need to tell me about the first world war because that obviously is a major turning point for the British empire and what's the response in India? Well so so so Michael has risen through the ranks and he has now become Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and he's done that through having very little interaction with Indians he doesn't like them he doesn't trust them he thinks they're backstabbing snakes he very famously and proudly writes in his own memoirs about how when he's invited to picnics with Maharaj as he takes his own sandwiches and he eats them he won't eat anything that's prepared even a Maharaj prepares food with his own hands and he won't eat that he'll eat what he's brought which is sort of spam sandwiches with him so he has that kind of disdain but what in the run up to the first world war he is very keen to establish that he is in control so when the call goes out that they need soldiers to fight in World War One some Michael's right on it he's decided that actually it's going to be a competitive sport and he's going to send more men to fight in World War One than any of the other Lieutenant Governors of any of the provinces in India. And he's got a head side hasn't he because the British have at this stage begun to identify what they call martial races of which the Punjabis are one and so get they get sort of prior access to the British army on a sort of ethnic sort of hierarchy almost. And so Michael exploits every fissure that he possibly can so he refers to Punjab his province as the sword hand of India he says you know I've got all of the fighters the natural born savage fighters are all in my constituency but what he does is he goes around to different parts of Punjab and he'll say an Amrit say he'll say you see you're you're a feminine and you're useless look at all the Muslims who have been provided in this village here he'll go to a Muslim area say you think you're warriors you think you're strong look at the Hindus that have been conscripted or who've joined up it's not. Would you say this is part of a sort of ethnic ranking of India that the British have sort of developed by this time we tend to think of sort of racial hierarchies as something that the Germans invented with in the Nazi ideology the Jews at the bottom of the pile but you find books written at this period in 1870s and India there's there's a large I think three volume photographic book of the peoples and tribes of India's and they have these sort of coasty little comments like sort of a degenerate tribe full of criminals. Oh so Michael does say he does his own version I mean he writes his own little version its own little pocket guide to the savages where he does he sort of sweeping generalizations about ethnic groups you know the Beals you never meet one who's sober you know the Sikhs they're quite thick but quite useful you know he's got these really disparaging remarks in his own in his own words but he you know whatever he does it works and there are also reports in Punjab about men being press ganged into fighting you know sometimes a man a recruiter will turn up into a village and everyone will have disappeared overnight because the rumor is going around that they're forcing people out to fight that is a good place for us to just pause for a moment and take a short break. Welcome back to Empire so Indian troops are being shuttle to the battlefields of France and just remember these are people some of whom have never been out of their own villages and they are chronically under-equipped they don't have the right boots the right coats so many die from the cold it is as much an enemy as the Germans and the biggest destination for most of Indian troops is the back end of the Ottoman Empire Indian troops get sent into a place called Cut which is now in Iraq where there's initially a complete fiasco and there's a siege which and many many Indian troops are either captured as prisoners of war or killed or diavestavation in the siege and it's a real old-fashioned sort of grueling sort of medieval siege that goes on at Cut so when you wander around in my local village on the outskirts of Delhi Meroli there's a plaque that I pass on my daily walk and it says from the the zales of Baddapur and Meroli I can't remember the figures but something like 250 men went off to the Great War of whom 80 did not come back. So so then that you know that's the really important thing because this doesn't happen in a vacuum you know you you sent all these boys off and they are boys a lot of them to fight who've never been anywhere and their families need these boys to work the farms and look after their aged parents and when the news of death bodies don't come back it's just the missing news of the missing comes back so you know with very religious people who believe in cremating or burial before sunset this is a double wound you know they're never their children are dead on a field in Bazar somewhere they're never going to see them again in Punjab because so many of those casualties come from the north there are waves of mourning which come sweeping back and that creates a really fertile ground for insurrectionists like the thing that might some Michael has always thought exists he partially creates because if is sort of very enthusiastic rounding up of fighting men so you know you have a situation in 1915 where an organization is starting to gain a lot of momentum called the guather movement you know what is our credo revolution they have a newspaper which revels in how you have to kill the British to get them out they're never going to go they're sending our boys to die so we've got to kill them first and it is a violent movement based on force you know there's no negotiating with these people there's no power sharing they're out to kill us we've got to kill them first so when these guys come back from the first world war you've got thousands of Punjabies who survived they come back and they're expecting a kind of reward aren't they they absolutely are they're expecting a reward and sort of just during the war by the way the guathers are so I should say so successful that they try they have enough at least confidence in themselves to try and start a second mutiny so again everything that's a Michael thought would happen is kind of happening on his watch and some may argue because of his actions so there's a it's called the Hindu German conspiracy where some of the guather movement get in touch with the Germans who let's not forget a fighting world war one with the British saying we will help you we will start a revolution in the ranks just as they did in the mutiny we'll get our Indian soldiers to rise up now the thing is some Michael is very very good at one thing intelligence he understands that he needs to be on because he's so paranoid and he's sort of through his paranoia he creates the problem but also is sort of all over the problem he manages to infiltrate that plot the Hindu German conspiracy I mean to him where is that in flunders all it's going to be that the Punjab cavalry is going to rise up and kill its um kill its masters and then it'll start an insurrection which will spread all through India the British will be so diverted in India so then the Germans can make gains and the the conspiracy is taking place and orchestrated out of his reach because some Michael is very hang happy if you can put it that way he hangs more people in Punjab in his province in a year then are hanged in all of Great Britain throughout the period of the war so he's you know he's a person who is punitive and feared in India but when these troops come back the the troops who are actually in the trenches do not mutiny they are very loyal because they're expecting you know the honor and the glory when they come back and they also expect some sort of political reward don't they they expect they expect there's talk about dominion status such as New Zealand and Australia and Canada have but instead what happens an act is passed an act is passed so during the war the British passed the Defense of India Act which is which is understandable in times of war countries do this you know no sedition no criticizing of the British but they go further they suspend habeas corpus anything anyone can be arrested at any time for acting against the state and against the war effort armistice happens on the 11th of November 1918 everyone thinks that these acts are going to loosen up and as you say quite rightly you know dominion status and rewards will be ours for our loyalty do you know one of the most loyal people during this period is a man called Gandhi he is the chief recruiting officer for the British effort he likes a Michael bizarrely is traveling around India saying if you are not strong enough to fight this war you're not strong enough to have your own country I mean there are there are tracks of his speeches which could have come out of some Michael adwires mouth he is more loyal than the king because he also believes in this promise that if we show ourselves to be good friends then our friends will leave us and we will have a good relationship a bilateral relationship but you know we will end on good terms so what year is it this repressive act the rolet act is part it comes in straight after armistice so the rolet act is basically an extension of the the defense of india act it's a rolling it's a rolling legal situation but it's just named something else it's named after the judge rolet so what happens what see effect when everyone everyone is presuming they're going to be rewarded instead they're given this repressive act so what's the reaction on the ground so incandescent at the betrayal because he too is sent men to die in this war and he said all sorts of ludicrous things like you know people have pointed out you're meant to be non-violent you're asking people to go fight he said well I will ask them to stand up when the time is right and just be shot by the Germans so our bodies form a dam that will stop the violence in the Germans will see how terrible it is I mean there's there's kukku stuff coming from Gandhi at this time but his his sense of betrayal is such that he says you know what these are black acts they are so anti legal and he's a lawyer at the end of the day he said you know British trained lawyer he finds them so offensive he says right we're going to fight back we're going to have a prayer day because he doesn't believe in violence we're going to have a prayer day where everything stops it is in other words going to be a strike where because you can't strike because the rolet act doesn't permit strikes that is anti state and therefore people can be picked up but if you call it a prayer day what are they going to do so he marks the prayer day down for the 30th of March 1919 that's where everybody's going to down tools no trains will run no letters will be posted no telegrams will be sent everything will stop the shops will be shut it up that's the plan and you know what it's extraordinarily ambitious to try and unite a country as you know very beautifully said in previous podcast you know this is a jigsaw country that's been united at times under things like muggle law then bits of it have been united under different empires but for the first time you know there's a jigsaw country that is under British rule and he is trying to get every bit of that puzzle to stop on the 30th of March and he galvanises it you know he it really works so if you in the north of India and Punjab which is the place where our focus is going to be largely for this podcast there are two men who are Gandhi devotees who marshal the peace doctor Sachipal and doctor Kichulu now so one is one is a really chatty lawyer say for the in Kichulu again these are these are people say for the in Kichulu went to Cambridge went to Pita's Cambridge and suffered a lot of racism actually while he was at Cambridge so his whole world view was turned upside down by his loneliness at Cambridge and the way he was treated he sort of comes as the brightest in his year and he's treated like a piece of dirt here so he goes back with this sense of the pressure really aren't our friends and then doctor Sathya pal who is a man who's received the vice-war's commission in the Indian Medical Service so he's been a really loyal little soldier but also through one reason or another has seen the way in which you know his country military treated in India so they become fully signed up Gandhians they believe in the Gandhi peaceful way we got it they've got to leave but we'll do it peacefully not violent and in the part of the Punjab that we're focusing in the Amrit's district they are the leading Gandhi's and you know they hold that they mark that 30th of March date where the prayer day in peace not a shot is fired not a stick is hit in Delhi nearby a very different story what gives up there marauders who are going around trying to enforce the prayer you know so you you will have in some Michael's words hot heads everywhere so they notice in the Delhi market that some of the shops haven't closed down they haven't locked up for this what is ostensibly a strike and they're not praying harder so they start to come out and intimidate the shop owners the British respond with overwhelming and Gandhi argues unreasonable force and they fire volleys into these crowds of people indiscriminately so some you know some say there were better ways of doing this but people fall and people die which they're in 1919 this is this is the 30th of March 1990s and these are these are the weeks leading up to the massacre this is a backdrop you've got to understand why everybody is so on edge so Gandhi's fed up because the British have let him down so Michael is expecting an uprising um Gandhi has has reacted with a day of prayer and there are outbreaks of violence in Delhi not not in Amrit's sir not in Lahore but in Delhi miles away and so Michael sees this as a sign it's coming it's coming my way and the thing that you know you said a little while ago this this whole thing from the time of the mutiny that the the British narrative is that they can come and rape our women women he's got his wife and his daughter in India it's really really important that he's got his wife and his daughter at governor house in Lahore at this time so he is living with this anxiety bolus in his stomach and I and I told you so feeling anyway after this this firing into the crowd Gandhi is livid he is absolutely livid and he says this is reprehensible we are going to respond to this we are going to have a seven days later a day called black sunday where nobody does anything all day it is going to be the largest general strike the world has ever seen so it's going to make prayer day look like you know a tiny blip in service he's going to shut it all down and everyone's very very excited about this there are hand bills being printed in umrit's sir they're being spread throughout the city you know nothing black Sunday mark black Sunday all throughout India this is going to take place now so Michael knows about this every lieutenant governor and every governor of India knows that this is coming they also know that Gandhi has this idea that he's going to travel to Punjab for it so what he does is he bans from coming to Punjab he says right it's not going to happen you're not coming six of April forget it that's that's black Sunday you're not coming anywhere in my province so you get this sort of cascade of events where Satya Paalan Kichaloo want him to come because he can keep the peace in Punjab you know they've seen what's happening Delhi they also don't want that to happen in umrit's sir they believe in nonviolent resistance they believe in absolutely a nonviolent resistance but when Gandhi comes to Punjab he's stopped at the outskirts by the British on Sir Michael's orders and he's turned back he's come back on foot he's in a train he's on a train he's stopped outside the city limits at a tiny little nowhere no hope station the train has stopped the train has stopped the British get on and they say Mr Gandhi you're going back you're not coming into Punjab and he says I have every right to I'm an Indian traveling in my own country I am allowed to travel let me pass and they say no um there's you know this whole in Gandhi's account you know a hand on his shoulder the tap on the shoulder very gently you're you're sent back you're going you're not going anywhere you're going back to Bombay we're putting you actually on on the next train you're going back to Bombay the thing is he's safe but nobody knows that the news that goes out is that Gandhi's been stopped and he's been taken by the British they also know these are the same British who fired on unarmed crowds in Delhi and people have died so the rumours go sweeping around India particularly in Andabad you know Gandhi is a Gujarati so in Andabad one of the biggest cities in Gujarati the rumour mill goes into nutty overdrive they're going to hang Gandhi they've taken him they've beaten him up and so throughout Andabad this rumour like a wildfire Gandhi's gone Gandhi's gone they've taken Gandhi and and the barb catches fire and there is some dreadful dreadful violence that takes place you know groups of men and again you know when you have political unrest you have people who exploited it so they go for the banks they tear out bank managers from two of the banks set one on fire shoot another one stab another and we're a such a palanquitley at this point well there are markets are keeping the peace nothing happens in in Amritsa Amritsa is is completely peaceful it's quiet and that is in itself a little bit of a discomfort to the man who's in charge because what the man in charge of Amritsa a man called Miles Irving sees it's something that he's never seen before he's been in India for a while but what he sees is Hindus and Muslims united in a way that he thinks is deeply suspicious Hindus and Muslims hand in hand marking the celebration Hindus and Muslims eating and drinking together there's a there's a celebration that's going to take place three days after that called Ram Nomi it's a Hindu festival we're normally you know the Muslims were stabbed on the outskirts of the Safran Parade or passed through and everybody sort of jostles along separate but together but on Ram Nomi on the ninth which is just three days after all of this this trouble has taken place elsewhere in India you have Hindus and Muslims holding hands you have them drinking from the same water vessels which normally would put a Hindu out of caste but Irving is seeing all this and he's wiring some Michael who's in Lahore go something's coming something's coming the Hindus and Muslims are ganging up together something is definitely coming send troops send machine guns send them now because I can't guarantee what's going to happen so Michael now again in his whirlwind of paranoia with his wife and daughter in his house with all of these reports of violence and bloodshed from elsewhere in India is that it stops here it's not going to happen here so he issues an edict which is catastrophic for the city the two men Satyapal and Kichlu the the doctor and the lawyer the Gandhians who have kept the peace and number at this whole time he orders them to be arrested but they're arrested in such a really sneaky way so there are to report yeah come at 10 in the morning turn up come and have a cup of tea is what they think they think they're going to discuss the stopping of Gandhi at the city limits that you know he should be allowed to travel to Punjab we really need to instead they're bundled into a car so they get bundled into a car and they're going to be sent to Durhamshire in Himansal Pradesh it's it's far away out of the way of Punjab but the people who brought them there don't know what's happened you know they're starting around on the round again are they coming out yet they're coming out yet and when they don't come out these this little party that comes with Satyapal and Kichlu for these talks goes running back into the town as says they've taken them they've taken our leaders like they took Gandhi they've taken them and again the room is going and they've shot Satyapal and Kichlu they've hanged Satyapal and Kichlu they're going to hang Satyapal and they're both fine but no one knows that no one knows that because nobody's really communicated anything properly it's just been a little bit of a sneaky trick that come and come to this meeting and then they've been arrested and so immediately Amrit sir and the Punjab which have been completely peaceful and all the protests have been non-violent suddenly you get violence you get violence and you get knots of violence so you know if you read the Indian accounts it starts off with an Indian delegation of pleaders you know barristers and lawyers going to Miles Evans say habeas corpus could you please produce these two people or what are the charges or what's happened and there are two choke points you know bridges in in the city where again you read the British accounts they say they are charged upon by mobs of Indians you read the Indian accounts they say we were walking across the bridge to try and find out what happened and volleys are fired into the crowd and people die a lot of people die suddenly the British Lamaritzah who've been to be in perfectly normal life going out riding doing all the things that Brits in the Raj do suddenly feel that 85 seven is upon them so in Amrubah they attack the mills are pretty shown mills they they try and drag out the two people who are in control of a man who's sagan a man who's stewate from from the mill they want to kill them it's actually an Indian policeman who protects them and he gets killed instead but in Amrubah the whole place erupts but in in you're right plumes of smoke in Amrubah they do they you know they attack the banks they attack the Amrubah it's a national bank they drag out the manager they stab him and then they batter him to death they take another man's scot they you know set him on fire another man called Thompson is murdered so you know there are Brits being attacked and it feels like it could be the mass it could be the me and then the kind of the moment that in a sense some Michael has been waiting for a woman is attacked a woman is attacked so the people who are shot on the bridge they are taken to the local hospital and there is a report that a lady doctor called Miss Eason has refused to treat any of the natives saying you know go away and bleed to death you're insurrectionist she's laughed who knows the truth of this but that certainly is the rumor that goes out so there are gangs of men wandering around Amrits are trying to find Miss Eason what they find instead is a missionary called Marcelo Sherwood who's on her bicycle riding through a narrow alleyway and they take her and they beat her they think to death but she just survives and sort of you know the Indian story is that she survived she sort of left for dead but she manages to crawl into one of the native homes and they when the mob comes back to find her they direct them somewhere else you know that's that's the story from the Indian side but Marcelo Sherwood is certainly very very badly beaten and that's it that's exactly what they you know that's the BB girl that's the the massacre of the innocent every nerve every the bridge to be waiting for is now every stereotype and touch correct in the eyes of Dua so it is it is at that point that some Michael swings into action they're going to have to be troops more troops so he commandeers men and he sends them into action the resulting massacre at Jolly O'Hallabarg is one of the most infamous moments in colonial history do join us next week when we'll explain what happens next thank you for listening to Empire with me Anita Arnand and me William Darryl Paul