Reginald Dyer: Difference between revisions

[[Colonel (United Kingdom)|Colonel]] '''Reginald Edward Harry Dyer''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|CB}} (9 October 1864{{snd}}23 July 1927) was an officer of the [[Bengal Army]] and later the newly constituted [[British Indian Army]]. His military career began in the regular British Army but he soon transferred to the presidency armies of India.

In protest at this action, demonstrators headed for the residence of Miles Irving, the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar. The deputy commissioner had given orders that protestors were not to be allowed to pass into the [[Civil Lines|civil lines]] (the civilian administrative area, effectively the "British area" of town). [[Picquet (military)|Army picket]]s fired on the crowd, killing at least eight protesters and wounding others. As a result, angry mobs formed, returning to Amritsar's city centre, setting fire to government buildings and attacking Europeans in the city. Three British bank employees were beaten to death, and Miss Marcella Sherwood, who supervised the Mission Day School for Girls, was cycling around the city to close her schools when she was assaulted by a mob in a narrow street called the Kucha Kurrichhan. Sherwood was rescued from the mob by (Indian) locals.<ref name=Chadha-1997/>{{RP|237–239}} They hid the teacher, who was injured in the beating, before moving her to the fort. Dyer, who was the commandant of the infantry brigade in [[Jalandhar]], was incensed that a European woman had been attacked and decided to take action. He arrived on 11 April to assume command.{{sfn|Colvin|1929|p=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208303/page/n181/mode/2up 162]}}

The day after the massacre Dyer continued along confrontational lines, even though the city was quiet. He met with a delegation of Amritsar citizens to whom he directed the following speech, without having received their petitions or heard from them. Made to the delegation in [[Urdu]], the English translation of a segment of Dyer's statement is shown below, as given in Collett's ''The Butcher of Amritsar'':{{snfsfn|Collett|2006|p=270}}

Dyer devised what even one of his generally supportive superiors, O'Dwyer, described as an "irregular and improper" retaliation for the attack on Marcella Sherwood, designed, it seemed, to fall indiscriminately and humiliatingly on the local population. On the street where the assault occurred, Kucha Kurrichhan, Dyer ordered daytime pickets placed at either end. Anyone wishing to proceed into the street between 6&nbsp;am and 8&nbsp;pm was made to crawl the {{convert|200|yd}} on all fours, lying flat on their bellies.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kent|first=Susan Kingsley|title=Aftershocks: politics and trauma in Britain, 1918–1931|year=2009|publisher=University of California|isbn=978-1-4039-9333-5|pages=37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t7eypXVnabIC&pg=PT49}}</ref> When questioned at the Hunter inquiry about this, Dyer explained his motivation:<ref>{{multiref2|1={{cite book|last=Talbott|first=Strobe |title=Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb |publisher=Brookings Institution Press|isbn=978-0-8157-8300-8| page=[https://archive.org/details/engagingindiadip00talb/page/245 245]|url=https://archive.org/details/engagingindiadip00talb |url-access=registration |date=2004}}|2={{cite news |last1=Kumar |first1=Mayank |title=The Crawling Order: A sign of imperial British atrocities |url=https://sundayguardianlive.com/news/crawling-order-sign-imperial-british-atrocities |work=The Sunday Guardian |date=16 April 2022}} }}</ref>{{bqblockquote|Some Indians crawl face downwards in front of their gods. I wanted them to know that a British woman is as sacred as a Hindu god and therefore, they have to crawl in front of her too.}} There was a curfew in effect from 8&nbsp;pm, so the order effectively closed the street for the full 24 hours. The houses and shops had no back doors, so the inhabitants could not go out without climbing down from their roofs. No deliveries or services were available to those effectively locked in, so no food or other supplies could be replenished, any sick or injured had no medical attendance, and normal rubbish and latrine sanitary services were absent. The trapped inhabitants included some of the individuals responsible for rescuing and attending to Sherwood, the assault victim. This order was in effect from 19 April until 25, or possibly, 26 April 1919. In addition, Dyer had flogging triangles erected in the street; on these, youths arrested for the assault, some of whom were not subsequently convicted, were publicly flogged in view of the residents.{{sfn|Colvin|1929|p=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208303/page/n217/mode/2up 197]}}{{snfsfn|Collett|2006|pp=282–284}}