On This Day: British forces in India massacre hundreds at Amritsar

APRIL 13, 1919: British troops in India killed at least 379 unarmed protesters in the Amritsar massacre on this day in 1919.

Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his soldiers to open fire and continue shooting at the crowd in the Sikh holy city until all their bullets had been used.

Ordinary people attending a religious festival were killed alongside demonstrators opposing forced conscription of Indian soldiers during the ten-minute slaughter.

The massacre, which triggered a wave of anger and a massive campaign of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi, followed a spate of protests.

Amritsar had been placed under martial law a few days earlier with control handed over to Dyer, who banned all meetings and gatherings in the city.

But, unaware of this ruling, tens of thousands of people poured in on the day of the Baisakhi festival, where the city hosted several traditional fairs.

Many of these men and women headed to the Jallianwala Bagh, a garden near the famed Harmandir Sahib golden temple, where a nationalist meeting was taking place.

As leaders condemned heavy taxes and conscription continuing in the wake of World War I, Dyer’s troops entered the park, which is surrounded on all sides by buildings.

His 65 Gurkha and 25 Baluchi soldiers blocked the main exits and opened fire without warning, sending the crowd into a panic and killing dozens in stampedes.

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Up to 120 victims died after jumping into a well in a bid to escape the shooting by trained killers armed with .303 Lee Enfield bolt-action rifles.

The massacre, which only ended after all 1,650 rounds available to the soldiers were spent, left 379 people dead and 1,100 wounded according to a British report.

But the Indian National Congress claimed 1,000 were killed and the colonists’ figures were inaccurate as their counting relied on victims’ fearful relatives coming forward.

And Dyer, fearing the repeat of the Rebellion of 1857, would have killed more if two armoured cars fitted with machine guns had fitted through the narrow gates.

He told a later inquiry, which criticised his actions as 'inhuman and un-British' that he 'wanted to punish the Indians for disobedience' in a 'moral' crusade.

Dyer was later removed from his post - but was never prosecuted – and was treated as a hero by some Britons, who nicknamed him the 'Saviour of the Punjab'.

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He even received a a reward of £26,000 – worth £1,000,000 today – from the right-wing newspaper The Morning Post, which later merged with the Daily Telegraph.

Yet, in spite of Dyer’s bid to save the British Raj, the massacre had the opposite effect and the injustice greatly inspired the independence movement.

Among those outraged was Gandhi, who during World War I, had actively supported the British in the hope of winning partial autonomy for India.

After Amritsar, he became convinced that India should only accept full independence and, to achieve this, end, he began organising his first campaign of civil disobedience.

Gandhi advocated non-violent noncooperation and persuaded both Muslims and Hindus in the Congress to begin a boycott of British goods.

It was highly successful, although fearing the protest was about to turn violent, he called it off in 1922 – shortly before he was arrested and jailed for two years.

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In 1930, in bid to gain 'world sympathy in this battle of right against might', he led a 240-mile march to the sea to make salt in defiance of tax.

He was eventually jailed again after 60,000 others were arrested.

Gandhi came to the fore again with his Quit India campaign during World War II when he was jailed for a third time for refusing to support Britain’s fight.

By the time of his release in1944, the debate had shifted to whether the Muslims should be allowed their own separate state after the British left.

In the end, the subcontinent was divided with tragic effect after Pakistan and India became independent on the 14th and 15th August 1947 respectively.

Violence ensued as 7.2million Muslims went to Pakistan from India while another 7.2million Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan in the aftermath.

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Between 500,000 and a million people died in the chaos, which has caused strained relations and conflicts between India and Pakistan ever since.

The Amritsar massacre is commorated every year in India.

In February 2013, David Cameron became the first British Prime Minister to visit the site, although he did not issue an official apology.