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The glory that is Jallianwalabagh

          Amritsar: Remember the date 13 April? That was the day when 379 innocent civilians were gunned down and over 1500 wounded in what is known as the Jallianwalabagh massacre. Bapu Shingara Singh, 108 years old, is the sole survivor of that dark day. He has vivid memories of that Baisakhi afternoon. British soldiers lined up here, shouting commands at the huge crowd that had gathered on the occasion of Baisakhi. 'Sit down', they screamed, encircled one side of the ground and opened fire.

          There was so much chaos. Many of my friends were hit and fell. I was hit on the arm, like you see here. The bullet was pulled out later on. My friend who was hit in the chest died on the spot. People started running towards the well for shelter and jumped in. Someone pulled me to one side and I was saved," he reminisces 84 years later.

           Political scenarios have changed, the Raj is gone for good, but the dark signatures those moments left behind have been preserved for posterity. Amritsar's Jallianwalabagh, now a national memorial, seeps the visitor with that feeling. Each relic of that day is now a monument - the well into which hundreds jumped as they tried to escape the gunfire bears testimony to humanity at its worst barbaric, or the single bylane entry, through which, on that dark day, marched General Dyer and 50 riflemen to carry out the satanic deed.

           A woman tourist at the shrine said: "We have come to pay homage to one of the martyrs. Even now, memories of sacrifice and the massacre make the eye fill with tears." Another said, "When Guru Gobind Singh's four sons died, he said 'they died so that others may benefit'. Similarly hundreds died here for the sake of the country's future." But, unfortunately, the general public, younger generation in particular, are not alive to the significance of Jallianwalabagh which has been turned into something of a hangout, a picnic spot and playground.

           SK Mukherji, secretary of the Jallianwalabagh Trust, says, "Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's own words in his own hand, written in 1929 on his visit here have been preserved. In 1926 British MP Rutherford had come here and he wrote in our visitor's book. He had predicted then how this event here would be the turning point towards fall of the British Empire in India and installation of a new government for Indians and by Indians." He added: "Later, descendants of General Dyer came here. They actually knelt before the people and asked for forgiveness, shedding tears of repentance. Their photographs and letters are preserved here to this day. We put them up on display often."

           The eternal flame, the Flame of Liberty, burns there today, a befitting memorial to perpetuate the memory of the martyrs. Jallianwalabagh has been accorded the status of a national pilgrimage.

           However, the park still awaits the construction of special memorial galleries and introduction of light and sound programmes, sanctioned by the federal government in 1991. "He (former Prime Minister Narsimha Rao) had promised to sanction three crore rupees for the development and beautification of the park in memory of the martyrs. I really feel sorry for the government which has not spent a single penny from the sanctioned amount that is lying around in some bank," said Maninder Singh Bitta, President of the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front.

          One of the worst crimes of the British colonial government was committed in Punjab on April 13, 1919, when General Michael O'Dyer, then lieutenant governor of Punjab, ordered his troops to fire on a defenceless crowd who had gathered at the Jallianwalabagh, a ground enclosed on all sides. According to the report of the evidence given by the General Dyer before the Committee of Investigation presided over by Lord Hunter, over 400 Indians were killed and 1,500 wounded by the deliberate firing on a crowd of 5,000 who were listening to a speech. Dyer admitted later that the cold blooded carnage was perpetrated to "strike terror into the whole of Punjab".

-ANI

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