PHOTO : RABINDRANATH TAGORE (ADDED BY ME)
A public letter was written by Rabindranath Thakur(Tagore) to Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India on this day in 1919. In this letter, Rabindranath protested the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, Punjab (April 1919), and renounced the knighthood that had been conferred on him in 1915. The letter was published in The Statesman (June 3, 1919), and in the Modern Review (July 1919). The Letter:
Calcutta
31 May 1919
Your Excellency,
The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification. The accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers-possibly congratulating themselves for what they imagine as salutary lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority-relentlessly careful in smothering every cry of pain and expression of judgement from the organs representing the sufferers. Knowing that our appeals have been in vain and that the passion of vengeance is blinding the nobler vision of statesmanship in our Government, which could so easily afford to be magnanimous as befitting its physical strength and moral tradition, the very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen, who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.
These are the reasons which have painfully compelled me to ask Your Excellency, with due reference and regret, to relieve me of my title of Knighthood, which I had the honour to accept from His Majesty the King at the hands of your predecessor, for whose nobleness of heart I still entertain great admiration.
Yours faithfully,
Rabindranath Tagore
Aftermath: Dyer was initially lauded for his actions by conservatives in Britain and became a hero among many of the people who were directly benefiting from the British Raj, for example, members of the House of Lords. However he was widely criticised by liberals in the House of Commons and in July 1920 a committee of investigation set up by the British Parliament censured him. No penal or strict disciplinary action could be given because his actions had been approved of by his military superiors, but he was disciplined by being removed from his current appointment, being turned down for a proposed promotion, and was prohibited from further employment in India. As such, he was forced to retire from the army and returned to England, where he died in 1927.
Written by Prof. Amitava Datta
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