The Rowlatt Act, Satyagraha and Jallianwala Bagh (1919)

The Rowlatt Act of March 1919 allowed detention without trial, and the protests against it ended in the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, on 13 April 1919.

The Rowlatt Act (18 March 1919)

• Based on the report of the Sedition Committee (1917) under Justice Sidney Rowlatt. Officially the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act.
• Provisions: detention of suspects without trial for two years; trial by special courts without a jury; no right of appeal. It was summed up as "no dalil, no vakil, no appeal".
• It was passed despite the opposition of all the Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Council. Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Mazharul Haque resigned.

The satyagraha

• Gandhi started the Satyagraha Sabha (February 1919) and called a nationwide hartal on 6 April 1919, the first all-India protest. In Delhi, firing took place near Chandni Chowk, on 30 March, where Swami Shraddhanand was present.
• In Punjab, the arrest of Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal (10 April) led to riots in Amritsar. Gandhi was stopped near Palwal (9 April). When violence spread he suspended the movement on 18 April, calling it his "Himalayan blunder".

Jallianwala Bagh (13 April 1919)

• On Baisakhi day, a large peaceful crowd gathered in the enclosed Jallianwala Bagh to protest the arrests, defying a ban on public meetings.
• Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer blocked the only exit, and ordered his troops to fire without warning for about 10 minutes (about 1,650 rounds). The official figure of dead was 379, though Indian estimates were over 1,000.
• Lieutenant-Governor Michael O'Dwyer supported him. Martial law followed in Punjab, with humiliations such as the "crawling order" in an Amritsar lane.

Reactions

• Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood. Gandhi returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal. Sankaran Nair resigned from the Viceroy's Council.
• The government set up the Hunter Committee (October 1919), which criticised Dyer mildly, and he was made to retire. A Congress inquiry committee (Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Abbas Tyabji, M.R. Jayakar) found him guilty.
• Udham Singh shot O'Dwyer in London on 13 March 1940 and was hanged on 31 July 1940.
• The Rowlatt Act was repealed in 1922.