On Baisakhi day, thousands gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to protest colonial rule and the arrest of independence leaders. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer marched 90 riflemen to the garden's only exit and ordered them to fire directly into the crowd for ten minutes without warning, killing an estimated 379 to over 1,000 people. The massacre became a turning point that radicalized the Indian independence movement and shattered any illusion of benevolent British rule.
The crowd at Jallianwala Bagh had gathered peacefully to protest the arrest of two nationalist leaders and to mark Baisakhi, a Punjabi harvest festival. Many attendees were unaware that a curfew and ban on public gatherings had just been declared. The garden was enclosed by walls on all sides, with only a narrow exit—which Dyer's troops blocked before opening fire.
Dyer ordered his men to fire not warning shots but directly into the thickest parts of the crowd, and to continue until their ammunition—1,650 rounds—was nearly exhausted. People trampled each other trying to flee or jumped into a well within the compound to escape the bullets; more than 120 bodies were later pulled from that well. Dyer later testified to a British inquiry that he intended to produce a 'moral effect' that would be felt 'throughout the Punjab.'
The massacre outraged Indians across the political spectrum. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. A young lawyer named Udham Singh, present that day, spent 21 years plotting revenge and in 1940 assassinated Michael O'Dwyer, the Punjab lieutenant governor who had endorsed Dyer's actions. The massacre is widely regarded as the moment that made Indian independence inevitable rather than negotiable.
Key people: Reginald Dyer, Udham Singh, Rabindranath Tagore