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On 13 April 1919, British troops shot hundreds of peaceful protesters dead in India. This film shines new light on a deeply controversial moment in Britain's history, and examines its troubling legacy.
Director: Chris Durlacher
Director: Chris Durlacher
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AprendizadoTranscrição
00:02I'm Satnam Sanghera, a escritor e jornalista.
00:05For the first time in my life, I'm about to fire a rifle.
00:15Remarkably easy.
00:18Guns just like this were fired by British Empire troops
00:23in a public park in Amritsar, India, on the 13th of April, 1919.
00:30Hundreds of people were killed.
00:42The Amritsar massacre was the moment
00:44Britain lost the largest empire in history.
00:48A hundred years later,
00:50I'll meet descendants of the colonial officials involved.
00:54The empire, I think, is very controversial to a lot of people.
00:58However, they did do a lot of good.
01:01I'll go to Amritsar,
01:02where the massacre doesn't feel like history,
01:05but a live issue.
01:06The regime at that time was completely racist.
01:10Britain is about to leap into an unknown future.
01:14So it seems appropriate, as we redefine our place in the world,
01:18to look back at a time when we ruled a quarter of it.
01:23I could have taught myself about all these things,
01:26and I haven't.
01:26And why is that?
01:27And is it partly because my very British grammar school,
01:32university education,
01:34has slightly colonised my mind
01:35and made me averse to going into these areas.
01:54The film Gandhi is about the downfall of the British Empire in India.
01:59I first saw it as a young British Sikh
02:02and was struck by this portrayal
02:05of a massacre in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
02:11This particular scene is the moral heart of the film.
02:14It's the source of all the moral outrage in the entire film, really.
02:30I remember being really affected by it,
02:33but then not really going on to research it in any way, you know?
02:39I didn't make the connection between
02:42it being in the Sikh holy city and my story.
02:45Odd.
02:46I definitely heard of the Amritsar massacre,
02:50but at no point during formal education
02:53was I taught anything about empire.
02:56And now, empire is in the air, you know?
02:59It regularly makes headlines.
03:01What people think about Churchill,
03:03what people think about colonialism, slavery.
03:06Personally, I just don't know how to answer those questions.
03:09I find myself confused
03:12and there's no more symbolic event
03:15than the Amritsar massacre within empire.
03:18We need to understand this event to understand empire
03:20and also to understand modern Britain.
03:23I think it's about history and memory
03:26and it's also about now.
03:32Before I head off for India,
03:34I want to look into how this story is viewed at home.
03:38Britain's official report from the time cites 379 killed.
03:43But our government has never formally apologised.
03:47It still follows the line set a century ago by Winston Churchill.
03:51He claimed the massacre wasn't typical of how Britain ruled its empire,
03:57that it was the fault of one officer,
03:59the man who gave the order to open fire.
04:03General Reginald Dyer, who'd spent nearly all his adult life in the Indian army,
04:08was relieved of his command.
04:11But Dyer is not an obvious imperial bad guy.
04:14He was born in India and spoke fluent Hindi and Urdu.
04:19So I'm about to meet his great-granddaughter, Caroline.
04:24You know, if you, like, say,
04:27a relative has done a really, really bad thing,
04:30do you still have pictures up in the family?
04:32And my uncle killed another one of my uncles, you know, in the Punjab.
04:36And we've still got pictures up of him.
04:39You know, he's still my uncle.
04:41So on that level, I understand that family remains family.
04:46I'm intrigued to know where Caroline stands.
04:49Nice to meet you. Caroline.
04:51Lovely to meet you.
04:52Nice to meet you.
04:52Great. Come along in.
04:54And I'm here to say,
04:56yes, I am proud to be General Dyer's great-granddaughter.
05:00There are a lot of people who are very proud to be called Dyer.
05:02And what were you told he was like as a man?
05:05He was an extremely honest, obedient soldier.
05:11Opinion was divided, wasn't it?
05:13Even Winston Churchill described...
05:14Oh, he was so slimy, for goodness sake.
05:16Who was it?
05:17General Dyer was made a scapegoat for him.
05:20Caroline is eager to show me
05:22that not everyone shared Churchill's point of view.
05:25These actually were in my loo in London.
05:27All right.
05:28Except for this, which I think is wonderful.
05:32So these were, I'm guessing,
05:35British people in India who supported his actions.
05:40Looking at the names, it's mainly British people.
05:43Yes, I think mainly British.
05:44Quite a lot of violets.
05:46Yes.
05:47Violets.
05:48Not many things.
05:49It's a very popular name.
05:51I think you'd agree that at least 370 people died.
05:55The whole thing was...
05:57Including some children.
05:58Including some babies.
06:00Well, that's what you think.
06:01Well, I'm just going...
06:03It's not what I think.
06:03It's just what I've read in various books.
06:05Right, so...
06:06Which book?
06:06OK, even discount the babies.
06:10Doesn't that fill you with remorse?
06:12It felt...
06:13And General Dyer was devastated.
06:15It had to be done.
06:16They were being charged up by 25,000 people.
06:20How do you stop people?
06:21What do you do?
06:22Say, do you stop?
06:24Of course you don't.
06:26Would you agree that he might have been a symptom of his age,
06:30but he didn't see Indians as equals?
06:32I'm afraid he's not here to...
06:34To...
06:35To answer that one.
06:37I've...
06:37No idea.
06:38But I know he had a lot of friends who were Indians.
06:41And he highly respected them.
06:43We all adore the Indians.
06:45And I'm so delighted to meet you.
06:49Um...
06:49Well, I see.
06:50I think I'm probably more British than Indian.
06:52But I am Indian.
06:53I hope that you will account in your mind both sides.
06:59It's quite important that you do.
07:01Yeah.
07:02Because the time was different to what it is now.
07:06Well, thank you for your time, Caroline.
07:07I really appreciate it.
07:08It's lovely to have met you.
07:10Thank you.
07:15Yeah.
07:15I think I just need a moment to decompress.
07:35Someone who strongly defended General Dyer's actions 100 years ago was the assistant commissioner in Amritsar, Ronald Beckett.
07:45Hi, William.
07:46Sat Nam.
07:47Nice to meet you.
07:48Nice to meet you.
07:49His grandchildren, William and Sabrina, have agreed to talk to me.
07:54Hiya.
07:54Hi, I'm Sat Nam.
07:55Hi.
07:56Hi.
07:57So that's Ronald Beckett?
07:58Yeah.
07:59I thought it might actually be you, you know?
08:02Mm-hm.
08:03William and Sabrina tarme with the story of the massacre, as it's been handed down in their family.
08:09I think you should avoid the word massacre, because it wasn't.
08:12I know people disagree with that.
08:14So how do you vote it?
08:16Uh, riot.
08:18Of course, you have great sympathy for the people who died, but then why were they there?
08:23I don't feel sympathy for the people who went to make violent demonstrations.
08:29And if you had been there, you would have been up there with Dyer, cheering.
08:34I think so.
08:35Most undoubtedly.
08:37They were all...
08:38I don't know.
08:38I think there was probably a fair chance that I would have been on my way to the Golden
08:42Temple for the Sarki, and might have got caught up and been shot dead.
08:47No, you wouldn't have been caught up.
08:51That's the myth, that it wasn't a being caught up thing.
08:56You went there deliberately.
09:01Do you feel that British Empire has given a bad rep?
09:05Yes, I do.
09:06I mean, of course, there were some awful things happened, but awful things happened without
09:11the British.
09:13I'm interested that you are in the process of making such a film, because it seems quite
09:21brave.
09:21that the force of propaganda is against you.
09:29My conversations with the descendants of Colonials have given me a lot to think about.
09:35I've been told the death toll has been exaggerated, and that children were not killed.
09:41That General Dyer acted in self-defence.
09:45In fact, we shouldn't use the term massacre at all, but call it a riot.
09:53I want to look into these claims.
09:55With that in mind, I'm off to India.
09:59The last time I went there, I got really sick.
10:01I got a brain parasite and nearly died, hence all my hand sanitizers.
10:07Sometimes people don't wash their hands after they cook the food, that's the thing.
10:10Anyway, I'm going to try not to be hypochondriac.
10:12I'm not even telling my mum I'm going, actually, because she'll just worry.
10:15I've told her I'm going to Las Vegas.
10:20Amritsar, in northern India, is now an important city in an emerging superpower.
10:27For Sikhs, it's also the site of our most important place of worship, the Golden Temple.
10:40There's so many turbans, man.
10:42Sikhs are such a tiny community in Britain.
10:45And actually, they're a tiny community in modern India.
10:48But here, they're everywhere. The pilot was a Sikh.
10:51So it totally slightly...
10:53It feels really exciting, but it slightly freaks me out as well.
10:57God, this is proper old India, isn't it?
11:06I have a personal connection to this extraordinary city.
11:11My parents came to Britain from villages just outside Amritsar, in the rural Punjab.
11:20I never used to look forward to going to the Punjab because it was chaotic and noisy
11:24and there was no Nintendos there.
11:27But now, it's different coming here as I know.
11:29You can really sense the history and I...
11:33The thing that I'm most struck by is that actually, if my parents had stayed here,
11:39this is where the kind of place I would have grown up.
11:45So these are my people, I guess.
11:50In 1919, the Punjab was a critical part of the British Empire.
11:56Producing as much as a third of India's wheat and supplying 60% of the British Army's Indian soldiers.
12:03But the Punjab census of the time described the people of Amritsar as low status, living in narrow lanes.
12:15I want to visit the actual site where the killing was done a hundred years ago.
12:20Near the Golden Temple, I walk down the same alleyway that Dyer came along with his riflemen.
12:28It opens onto an enclosed park, the Jallianwala Bagh.
12:34Gosh, this is not how I imagined it.
12:38The Bagh is green and pleasant.
12:42There's some topiary commemorating the massacre.
12:44And white squares mark where the bullets from 1919 have scarred brick walls.
12:51But all this is mostly ignored by happy families.
12:56In a way, it feels quite apt that people use this park for life.
13:02You know, it's quite a positive way of using a tragic site rather than it being a place of mourning.
13:08On the 13th of April 1919, about 20,000 were in the Bagh, where there was an illegal protest against
13:16the British regime.
13:18Just after 5pm, General Dyer entered with 50 riflemen.
13:22So they were lined up there and they opened fire and there was nowhere to hide.
13:31Historian Kim Wagner is Danish, lives in London and is often in Amritsar, digging up the past.
13:38He probably knows more about the massacre than anyone alive.
13:42Some of the British officers who were there described there were people within 8 or 10 yards when Dyer and
13:47the troops first entered.
13:48So it was basically point-blank range.
13:52And there's been so much controversy about the number of people who have been killed.
13:56You've looked at the numbers very hard and closely. What's your conclusion?
14:01We will never know for sure exactly how many people were killed.
14:05The British, they settled on the number of 379, which were firmly confirmed.
14:10That was almost certainly an underestimate.
14:14And I would estimate something like 500, 600 people were killed and perhaps three times that were wounded.
14:26Kim has also found evidence that not all those shot were protesting.
14:32He's given me testimonies made to the Indian National Congress shortly after the massacre.
14:38Some are from people who were just enjoying a day out in the park with their family.
14:45The details of it are incredible.
14:47This is one bit where he says, some people had their heads cut open, others had eyes shot out, and
14:54nose, chest, arms or legs shattered.
14:58And you can't help but be really moved by the children, caught up in the crowd.
15:02And there's one witness who says, close by to where I was lying, there was a young boy, aged about
15:0812 years old, lying dead, with a child of three years old in his arms, also dead.
15:21I'm shocked to discover that among the confirmed dead were 15 children, one of them just six months old.
15:31The death toll has not been exaggerated.
15:34If anything, it was worse than I thought.
15:38I'm determined to find out why they were killed.
15:44I'm in Amritsar, where I've been told as many as 500 Indians were killed by British Empire troops a hundred
15:52years ago.
15:53It was a turning point in the history of our empire.
15:56And in Amritsar, it feels like a wound that still hasn't healed.
16:02I think every Sikh temple in the world is exactly the same.
16:05But I haven't told my mum I'm in India, so when she finds out, I think the one mitigating factor
16:10is if I tell her I've been in a Sikh temple and she might feel a bit better about it.
16:23One explanation of the Amritsar massacre is that it was self-defense.
16:29The argument goes that the riflemen opened fire to protect themselves, because the Indians had lethal weapons called latis.
16:38I reckon a way to look into this argument is to get myself a lati.
16:48So I'm asking where I can find one.
16:55The trouble is, my Punjabi is so poor that this man thinks I'm after a lassi, a kind of Indian
17:02yoghurt drink.
17:09I get there in the end, and this, I'm told, is the place for latis.
17:15Ah, ah, lati, ah.
17:17Do you have to use a lati?
17:19For killing?
17:21Yes, there's no such thing.
17:23So sometimes they were used as weapons, but generally they're used for farm work.
17:29They're used in their hands.
17:30They're used to put them in their hands.
17:31They're used to put them in their hands.
17:34Oh, for snakes?
17:35That's all.
17:38They cost 250 rupees, and I did no haggling, which is going to shame my mother.
17:43I think I should go back and get them for less, otherwise she's going to beat me up with a
17:46lati.
17:48These are pretty much handsome ceremonial sticks, and very much not weapons, in my opinion.
17:57For me, it's obvious, latis are no match for rifles.
18:02So justifying the massacre on the basis of self-defense doesn't stand up.
18:08But I still want to look into the claim that it wasn't a massacre, it was a riot.
18:15Hi, Manish.
18:16So I'm meeting Manish Khanna.
18:19Manish Khanna.
18:21Nice to meet you.
18:23Manish's grandfather, Lala, believed British rule was unjust.
18:27So on the 13th of April, 1919, he went to the Jalimwala Bagh to protest.
18:33According to Manish, Lala was shocked six times.
18:36First, second, third, fourth, and fifth, sixth.
18:42Did your grandfather go there to have a fight?
18:46No, no, no, no.
18:47Just protest?
18:48No, no. Just protest.
18:50And he didn't give any warning, and he was ordered.
18:55One time?
18:56One time.
18:57One time.
18:57Yes.
18:57Yes.
18:58Anish Khanna, it was a man.
18:58Yes.
18:59The people started eating their minds.
19:00People go there to keep their minds.
19:09Yes.
19:09Yes.
19:09He's still there.
19:11I have seen the signs of bullets to reach on the street.
19:13There are the bullets.
19:15There are bullets and bullets who are hitting me.
19:19The bullets were hitting the mountains of that on the street,
19:19it was hitting me.
19:21The bullets, the bullets were hitting me.
19:25They were just attacking me and they were attacking me.
19:27A gente não consegue fugir, então não consegue fugir, ele não consegue fugir.
19:30O que é que você conhece, hoje?
19:35Você é o seu sentimento?
19:36Eu estou rindo, Sathnam.
19:39Minhas mãos começam, isso é uma cena criada.
19:42Agora, os últimos 15 dias antes, nós fomos com os pais, com os pais.
19:46Aqui os olhos...
19:49Aqui os olhos...
19:51Aqui os olhos...
19:54Os pais...
19:55Os pais...
20:03Minish's story is very moving and it was confirmed by General Dyer in his testimony to the Hunter
20:10Committee, which was the official British inquest made shortly after the killings. Dyer described
20:17what he saw in the Jalinwala Bagh as a meeting that he opened fire within 30 seconds, which
20:24in my mind gave him no time to distinguish between protesters and bystanders. Other witnesses
20:33confirmed he directed fire towards people trying to escape. For me, there's no room for doubt.
20:43It was a massacre.
20:53It's late and I'm in my hotel room and I can't sleep because of a combination, I think,
20:57of jet lag and anger about what I learned today. I'm also left with this kind of curious,
21:08confusing sense that maybe, you know, I'm partly to blame for my lack of education. I could have
21:13taught myself about all these things and I haven't. And why is that? And is it partly because my very
21:21British grammar school, university education has slightly colonised my mind and made me averse to
21:28going, going into these areas. Certainly, I think my Indian immigrant background has instilled in me
21:35this sense of inferiority or this tendency to look down on India. You know, India, when I was growing
21:43up, was always something my relatives wanted to leave for England. And I saw coming here as a kind of
21:49punishment. And I wonder whether I've slightly internalised that. And that's why I've, you
21:55know, gone along with a conventional British amnesia on empire. But I'm glad that I finally,
22:03at the age of 42, I'm getting educated and I just hope I have the courage to keep on looking
22:11the
22:11history in its eye, even if it means more or less sleep.
22:22What's bugging me is, if there was no riot, then why did Dyer react as he did?
22:31So I'm meeting historian Kim Wagner.
22:34Wow.
22:35Kim says he's cracked this mystery and has something he wants to show me.
22:41Right in the heart of Amritsar city is a Christian cemetery.
22:47So we have here Sergeant T.A. Rowlands of the Rifle Brigade, who died on the 10th of April,
22:541919, aged just 23.
22:56He was beaten to death on Rigo Bridge, near the train station. And the same for Robinson,
23:04who was a guard on the railway.
23:08There are five graves of Brits killed in riots on the 10th of April, 1919, three days before
23:15the massacre.
23:20India, in early 1919, was in turmoil.
23:25I wasn't taught this at school, but over 100,000 Indians had been killed or wounded fighting
23:31for Britain in the First World War.
23:33India also endured heavy taxation to help fund Britain's war effort.
23:39Instead of thanks and reward, Indians faced further restrictions on speech, writing and movement.
23:46Across the subcontinent, there were non-violent protests for reform.
23:53On the 10th of April, 1919, in Amritsar, the British misunderstood what was going on and panicked.
24:02When 20 demonstrators were shot, a peaceful protest turned into a lethally violent riot.
24:11In memory of Gilbert M. Thompson murdered during the riots on the 10th of April, 1919, aged 33 years.
24:20And that's really young, isn't it?
24:25Gosh.
24:27You know, the Europeans, some Europeans did die really horrible deaths.
24:31Yeah, absolutely.
24:32And that gets forgotten in the story of the Amritsar massacre, I guess.
24:38It was the main story from the British perspective for a very long time.
24:43That was, in a sense, the only story.
24:46The chaotic ferocity that led to these five deaths terrified Amritsar's colonial elite.
24:54Kim takes me to the bank where Thompson was killed.
25:00The bank manager, Thompson, he's on top of the roof.
25:03And so people, they break into the bank and make their way upstairs.
25:07He shoots one of the attackers but is then overpowered.
25:10And he's thrown out over the balcony down on the road.
25:13Broken furniture and papers pile on top of him and he's set on fire.
25:21General Dyer arrived in Amritsar the day after Thompson was burnt alive.
25:27The Brits were frightened.
25:29As they later testified to the Hunter Committee,
25:31they thought they were facing another mutiny,
25:34known in India as the First War of Independence.
25:38In the 1857 mutiny, Indians killed hundreds of Europeans,
25:43men, women and children.
25:46And for a while, Britain lost control of much of the subcontinent.
25:52This is what the Brits were fearing most.
25:54Absolutely. It replicates very closely the sort of nightmare scenario of 1857
25:58of isolated Europeans being surrounded by angry Indian mobs.
26:04And this is also the downside of the empire.
26:07Famously, the British Empire was run by very few Brits,
26:12ruling over millions of Indians.
26:14And you see, when the bridge control collapses, as it does in 1857,
26:20as it does momentarily in 1919, everything comes apart.
26:24And you have these extremely violent situations.
26:28Dyer and his 50 riflemen enter the Jalimwala Bagh three days after the riots.
26:35He told the government inquest he opened fire on the Indian crowd to give them a lesson.
26:41I was going to punish them.
26:44The point of which was, he said,
26:47to prevent anybody who thought they could manage to mutiny from mutinying.
26:54And, as I'm about to discover, Dyer's punishment of Indians was far from over.
27:04Amritsar's former town hall was built by the Brits in proud imperial style.
27:11But I've now discovered what lay behind the pride here.
27:16Violence and death.
27:19But was the massacre an aberration in an otherwise fair and just empire?
27:26Or was this kind of violence built into the Raj?
27:29In a way, we've all managed to forget.
27:33In search of an answer, I'm heading into the narrow lanes of the old city.
27:41To a street called Korya Deku.
27:51Next, next left.
27:53Thank you.
27:54Uncle, Uncle, Korya Deku.
27:58Thank you, thank you.
28:01Trouble is, there are no street signs in the old city.
28:04Uncle, Uncle.
28:15I find Korya Deku, which reminds me of the India my parents told me about.
28:21In late April 1919, a week after the massacre, the British blocked off this street.
28:29A sergeant in the army unit manning the checkpoint took pictures of it.
28:35He even photographed locals being forced to crawl along the street.
28:40A collective punishment because a British woman had been attacked here.
28:46I've arranged to meet an Indian writer who knows all about the crawling order.
28:52Kishwa Desai.
28:53When I heard about this punishment, I had this idea, when I was thinking about this programme,
28:57I was thinking, you know what, I should have crawled down the street
28:59to see what it was like for an Indian person to crawl down 100 years ago.
29:03But even walking down it with my white trainers is something I think twice about.
29:09But 100 years ago, it would have been muddy.
29:11Not only muddy, it was filthy.
29:13And also, people were crawling at the end of a bayonet.
29:17It was just awful.
29:18It was awful.
29:19It was awful because these men were respectable people.
29:22And they were being made to crawl in the shit and dirt for no fault of theirs.
29:29What would you say to British people listening to you now who still believe that the British Empire was good
29:39and fair and just?
29:41Well, like you said, I'd like them to come down here and try crawling down the street and I think
29:47they will get their answer.
29:48We don't have to say very much more after that.
29:52The crawling order was part of a systematic clamp down by the British authorities after the massacre.
29:58Indians had to salute every white person whose path they crossed.
30:04If not, they were in danger of arrest and torture.
30:09Even public flogging.
30:12The British gave this brutal regime the whimsical term fancy punishments.
30:19And these fancy punishments was a way for army officers to send out their own forms of messages to the
30:27people of Punjab that they were not equal to the British.
30:31Is it just like an appendix to the story or does it say something fundamental about what happened?
30:37Oh, totally. I mean, you know, it says something as fundamental as that the regime at that time was completely
30:43racist.
30:43And also extremely cruel in their attitude towards the Indians because this depended completely on the colour of your skin.
30:54This punishment did not apply to European men walking down the street.
30:58This applied only to Indians.
31:07On a doorstep in the crawling lane, I read testimony from Indians punished here.
31:15They asked me to lie on my belly.
31:18Because they threatened me, I did so.
31:21When I was going to rise, they struck me with a butt-end of their rifles.
31:27I crawled along.
31:29All the while, the British soldiers kept laughing at me.
31:40It's hard to read this and not feel physically sick.
31:44And actually, it's making me think that I've been too wary about calling Empire racist in the past, when it
31:53clearly, at this time at least, was an exercise in racial humiliation.
31:59And if I was here, if my family were living around here, they were at a serious risk of being
32:04flogged, tortured, arrested, humiliated in this way, just because of the colour of their skin.
32:09And I felt slightly embarrassed that I've been so, you know, cautious about saying that.
32:20The fancy punishments in Amritsar in 1919 were orchestrated by General Dyer, the officer who gave the order to open
32:29fire that led to the massacre.
32:32Dyer's base in Amritsar was the exclusive whites-only European club, where, on the tennis courts, he had a flogging
32:41post put up.
32:43Almost a stereotypical idea of Empire, that a Brit would play tennis in the morning and then whip a native
32:49half to death in the afternoon.
32:51Now, that's the way you kind of satirise Empire, but it actually happened here.
32:58I'm here seeking an answer to a controversy that began right after the massacre.
33:05According to Winston Churchill, what Dyer did in Amritsar wasn't typical of how Britain ruled India.
33:13I put this to historian Kim Wagner.
33:17When I began this investigation, I was aware of the famous Winston Churchill quote, which described the events as a
33:24monstrous event.
33:25But the quote goes on, and he also describes it as a singular event. Do you agree with that?
33:29No. I mean, and Churchill, of all people, knew better.
33:33What he's trying to do is rehabilitate the Empire and, in a sense, throw Dyer under the bus.
33:40So it becomes this rotten apple narrative.
33:44The entire imperial project, the Raj, was predicated on notions of racialized difference.
33:50Nothing that Dyer says in 1919, nothing that Dyer does in 1919, hasn't already been done before.
33:57This was actually part and parcel of British rule in India and the result of this sort of structural racism
34:03and pervasive violence, which is indisputable.
34:11Kim's argument that violence and racism were built into the Raj fits with what I've discovered.
34:20I now view the massacre in the context of the crawling order and public floggings, all the so-called fancy
34:27punishments.
34:29And I realised that the people who were killed at Jalinwalabarg died because of their skin colour.
34:40I think the idea of British exceptionalism runs deep in our culture.
34:44You know, we were the good guys in World War One, World War Two.
34:48And then what I've learned today is that we weren't always the good guys.
34:52What happened in the crawling lane was an act, not only of racism, but of racial humiliation and white supremacy.
35:00You know, it was morally obscene.
35:03And there's nothing wrong with saying that.
35:12In Amritsar, I've come to see the massacre as more than a key moment in the history of empire.
35:18It's become the prism through which I view the whole Raj.
35:22And it still affects the relationship between Britain and India today.
35:27Thanks to Brexit, Britain is reconsidering its place in the world.
35:31So I'm going to talk about the empire and its legacy with historian Anshol Malhotra while eating some delicious food
35:39and drinking the best lassi in town.
35:42Hey.
35:43Hey.
35:44Hello.
35:45How's your day been?
35:47Been good.
35:48Oh, wow.
35:49You know what?
35:50I don't think I've ever had a lassi before.
35:54What?
35:55We never had a lassi at home and I've never...
35:59It's never looked like appetizing.
36:01Oh, really?
36:01Because it's yoghurt, right?
36:02Yeah.
36:03This is where I've become a proper Indian.
36:05Oh, okay.
36:08You now think I'm pathetic, right?
36:10Not at all.
36:10Because I've never had a lassi.
36:11Not at all.
36:13Wow.
36:14That tastes amazing.
36:16Are you just saying that?
36:18No, generally it just tastes amazing.
36:20I thought it'd be...
36:21Anshol is an oral historian.
36:24She collects the memories of ordinary Indians.
36:27In particular, about life in the British Empire.
36:32In general, is British Empire seen as a terrible, terrible thing here?
36:37Or is it seen in a more nuanced light?
36:44There are versions to every story.
36:47And I think the perception will change depending on who you ask
36:53and what their family's experience has been.
36:56Are there people who think there are good things about Empire?
36:59We're speaking in the English language.
37:02Of course.
37:03English language.
37:04That's the one thing that brings the nation of India together.
37:08I mean, if it weren't for English, then the North wouldn't be able to talk to the South.
37:14So that's...
37:16That's a thing.
37:22Are there any other positives?
37:25Of the Raj?
37:26Yeah.
37:26Yeah.
37:29Struggling.
37:30What about democracy?
37:33Apart from...
37:34What about democracy?
37:35Apart from the, you know, three, four hundred years where the British allowed no democracy.
37:41Some people might say, we left you with some democracy.
37:44Those are your words, not mine.
37:46Yeah, I mean I guess it's quite controversial to say...
37:49Yes.
37:49The British left in India to say the British gave us this.
37:53You gave yourself most things yourself, right?
37:57I think we fought for a lot of things ourselves and I think that we took it because it's our
38:02right.
38:03You know, it's anyone's basic human right to want to be free and live on your own terms and I
38:08think that that's what we did.
38:10Yeah.
38:11Yeah.
38:11Yeah.
38:13Yeah.
38:18With my journey approaching its end, Anshol has given me lots to think about and I head back to my
38:24hotel considering the long and complicated relationship between Britain and India.
38:31So it's my last day in Amritsar and because it's my last day, when my mum just rang, I told
38:38her I was in India and I didn't get the wall of anxiety and worry that I was expecting.
38:45And I had relatives texting me within minutes telling me to bring stuff back for them.
38:51But I leave thinking that we've never really confronted what happened. Hundreds of years of pain. We don't want to
39:00believe we come from such pain. It's quite difficult to face up to what happened in history.
39:08But if we want to have, you know, a really healthy relationship in the future with this superpower, it would
39:16be useful for us to sort out what happened and come to some kind of reconciliation.
39:23Just before I pack up and go home, I begin my contribution to the reconciliation process.
39:31It doesn't feel, however, that my journey is at an end.
39:42I'm writing an email to Caroline Dyer, the great-granddaughter of General Dyer, who was in command of the troops
39:49that did their killing.
39:53The Empire, I think, is very controversial to a lot of people. However, they did do a lot of good.
40:01The email is also going to Raj Kohli. Raj, it's nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you. Welcome.
40:09I met Raj at his family home in Rugby before I flew out to Amritsar.
40:14His great-uncle survived the massacre by hiding under a pile of dead bodies.
40:20How could anyone even feel that, you know, that ordering that, that firing, that they would ever be able to
40:28justify that?
40:29So I had this idea of perhaps getting Caroline Dyer together with Raj Kohli, get them in a room together,
40:37and maybe get them to agree on some common ground.
40:41And, erm, I thought I'd invite them to a meeting.
40:45That's it.
40:49Both Caroline and Raj say yes.
40:52Two weeks later, I'm in a London office, waiting for them.
40:57I wish I hadn't had this idea.
41:00It feels like my finals.
41:03It feels like I'm trying to single-handedly create a truth and reconciliation committee for the British Empire.
41:11And, erm, maybe I'm trying to be too ambitious.
41:14But I need to give it a shot now they're coming.
41:21Ah, Karen, hi, hi.
41:23Hello, how lovely to see you.
41:25Welcome to this completely atmosphere-less room.
41:27It really is.
41:29But lovely, you will bring the atmosphere in anyway, so don't worry.
41:32No, you are.
41:33This is Raj Kohli, Dr Raj Kohli.
41:36Hello, Raj.
41:37Good morning.
41:37How lovely to meet you.
41:39Really lovely to meet you.
41:39Thank you, I hope so.
41:41General Darb's a very honourable man and greatly liked by the Indian, who spoke three or four Indian languages, which
41:49very few people did.
41:50I think we may be brushing over, erm, erm, his contempt for Indians, when we talk about the fact that
41:58he knew four languages.
42:00And, certainly, your recollection or understanding of how he was received by Indians would certainly be at odds with what
42:10we understand and what is written about him.
42:15So, your great uncle, Balwant?
42:18Yes.
42:18What was his experience?
42:20Erm, he's a young man.
42:21He described himself as a bit of a hell-raiser.
42:23Ah, so he was a looter. Was he a looter?
42:25No, I wouldn't say he was a looter.
42:26He was an educated man, and certainly far from it, and I don't think the family would have, would have
42:31certainly allowed that kind of behaviour.
42:32I, I, I would object quite strongly to the view that they were rioters.
42:38I do respect hugely the people and the families who got killed and everything, but so does General Darb.
42:45Do you, and I am also very aware what's happening here.
42:47You've got two Asian men, Sikh men, in glasses and, and blue suits.
42:52I don't want to bully you.
42:53No.
42:54I shall get up and walk out.
42:55Do you feel slightly bullied by us?
42:57No.
42:58I feel, I feel, erm, quite nervous, er, because I'm, I'm not well read, but I don't feel I have
43:06to be well read on this subject.
43:08I feel the responsibility as a Briton, as a British person, that we, we must view things honestly in the
43:16very recent past.
43:17So you feel like being dishonest?
43:19I believe that you, okay, I'm going to put my niceties aside, and I'm going to say I think you
43:27have conveniently not sought objectivity.
43:35I think you've been dishonest with what the colonial past was like.
43:39If we can't be honest about Britain in India a hundred years ago, then how can we be honest about
43:46how we view Britain in the future?
43:48No.
43:49I think, erm, history is history and you've got to accept that and not wallow in it.
43:56Good.
43:57Er, erm...
43:58No.
44:00None of this is easy for anyone connected with this painful past.
44:07But en route to Wolverhampton, going home to see my mum, it strikes me there will be a simple way
44:13to break the deadlock.
44:17Britain should formally apologise for the Amritsar massacre of 1919.
44:36So I think we've got a willful amnesia about empire.
44:41And an apology would just force us to confront some of the issues.
44:46The empire explains so much about our psychology and language and food.
44:51And I've discovered that empire was basically an exercise in institutionalised racism.
45:00And to realise that that was a case is quite a startling thing, isn't it?
45:04It's quite... it fundamentally changes the way I see my country and my place in it.
45:11I don't think British people should walk around with a sense of shame every minute of their lives about what
45:18happened in their name.
45:18They weren't even there.
45:19But a bit of acknowledgement is a good thing, you know?
45:25I think an apology is a good beginning because it will get people talking.
45:30You know, this is about now.
45:31It's about working out where we stand in relation to racism,
45:36where we stand in relation to India and our place in the world.
45:39And it would be a very healthy thing to do.
45:46Just here, yeah.
45:51Cheers, thank you.
45:57Cheers.
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