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Jallianwala Bagh: A Groundbreaking History of the 1919 Massacre by VN Datta. Penguin Random House. Pages 248. Rs 399
Mani Shankar Aiyar
Owing to its association with the “frightfulness” of Dyer mercilessly mowing down 700 blameless Indians without cause, Baisakhi in April brings to mind the opening lines of TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’:
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of dead land, mixing
Memory with desire…
In 1969, on the 50th anniversary of the ghastly event, historian Vishwa Nath Datta, born and brought up in the vicinity of the Bagh and, therefore, personally acquainted with many of the survivors and loved ones of those brutally shot down, brought out this monograph of under 150 pages to tell the historical truth of what happened; why it happened; how participants and observers, British and Indian, reacted to the gory bloodletting of innocent hundreds; and what were its far-reaching consequences for Indo-British relations and the End of Empire. Now, a hundred years on, Datta’s daughter, Nonica, herself a professional historian at JNU, has reissued the publication with a lucid and enlightening introduction of her own.