Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, CB was an officer of the Bengal Army and later the newly constituted British Indian Army. His military career began serving briefly in the regular British Army before transferring to serve with the Presidency armies of India. As a temporary brigadier-general, he was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that took place on 13 April 1919 in Amritsar. He has been called "the Butcher of Amritsar", because of his order to fire on a peaceful crowd. The official report stated that this resulted in the killing of at least 379 people and the injuring of over a thousand more. Some submissions to the official inquiry suggested a higher number of deaths.
Amritsar, historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as Ambarsar, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha region of Punjab. The city is the administrative headquarters of the Amritsar district.
The Non-cooperation movement was a political campaign launched on 1 September 1920, by Mahatma Gandhi to have Indians revoke their cooperation from the British government, with the aim of persuading them to grant self-governance.
The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, popularly known as the Rowlatt Act, was a law that applied in British India. It was a legislative council act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 18 March 1919, indefinitely extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, imprisonment without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War. It was enacted in the light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as had occurred during the war which the Government felt the lapse of the Defence of India Act would enable.
Jallianwala Bagh is a historic garden and memorial of national importance close to the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, India, preserved in the memory of those wounded and killed in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre that took place on the site on the festival of Baisakhi, 13 April 1919. The 7-acre (28,000 m2) site houses a museum, gallery and several memorial structures. It is managed by the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust, and was renovated between 2019 and 2021.
Udham Singh was an Indian revolutionary belonging to Ghadar Party and HSRA, best known for assassinating Michael O'Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of the Punjab in India, on 13 March 1940. The assassination was done in revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919, for which O'Dwyer was responsible. Singh was subsequently tried and convicted of murder and hanged in July 1940. While in custody, he used the name Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, which represents the three major religions in India and his anti-colonial sentiment.
Saifuddin Kitchlew was an Indian independence activist, barrister, politician and later a leader of the peace movement. A member of Indian National Congress, he first became Punjab Provincial Congress Committee head and later the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee in 1924. He is most remembered for the protests in Punjab after the implementation of Rowlatt Act in March 1919, after which on 10 April, he and another leader Satyapal, were secretly sent to Dharamsala. A public protest rally against their arrest and that of Gandhi, on 13 April 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, led to the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He was also a founding member of Jamia Millia Islamia. He was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952.
Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer was an Irish Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer and later the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India, between 1913 and 1919.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and arrest of pro-independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. In response to the public gathering, the temporary Brigadier general, R. E. H. Dyer, surrounded the protesters with his Gurkha, Baloch, Rajput and Sikh troops from 2-9th Gurkhas, the 54th Sikhs and the 59th Scinde Rifles of the British Indian Army. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted. Estimates of those killed vary between 379 and 1,500 or more people and over 1,200 other people were injured of whom 192 were seriously injured.
Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir was an Indian politician and Punjabi language writer. He was the Chief Minister of Punjab from 1 November 1966 to 8 March 1967.
The Defence of India Act 1915, also referred to as the Defence of India Regulations Act, was an emergency criminal law enacted by the Governor-General of India in 1915 with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of the First World War. It was similar to the British Defence of the Realm Acts, and granted the Executive very wide powers of preventive detention, internment without trial, restriction of writing, speech, and of movement. However, unlike the English law which was limited to persons of hostile associations or origin, the Defence of India act could be applied to any subject of the King, and was used to an overwhelming extent against Indians. The passage of the act was supported unanimously by the non-official Indian members in the Viceroy's legislative council, and was seen as necessary to protect against British India from subversive nationalist violence. The act was first applied during the First Lahore Conspiracy trial in the aftermath of the failed Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915, and was instrumental in crushing the Ghadr movement in Punjab and the Anushilan Samiti in Bengal. However its widespread and indiscriminate use in stifling genuine political discourse made it deeply unpopular, and became increasingly reviled within India. The extension of the law in the form of the Rowlatt Act after the end of World War I was opposed unanimously by the non-official Indian members of the Viceroy's council. It became a flashpoint of political discontent and nationalist agitation, culminating in the Rowlatt Satyagraha. The act was re-enacted during World War II as Defence of India act 1939. Independent India retained the law in a number of amended forms, which have seen use in proclaimed states of national emergency including Sino-Indian War, Bangladesh crisis, The Emergency of 1975 and subsequently the Punjab insurgency.
The Rowlatt Committee was a Sedition Committee appointed in 1917 by the British Indian Government with Sidney Rowlatt, an Anglo-Egyptian judge, as its president.
Sir Chandulal Madhavlal Trivedi KCSI, CIE, OBE, ICS was an Indian administrator and civil servant who served as the first Indian governor of the state of Punjab after Independence in 1947. He subsequently served as the first Governor of Andhra Pradesh from its creation in 1953 until 1957.
Sir Herbert William Emerson,, commonly known as H. W. Emerson, was a civil servant in British India and served as Governor of the Punjab in the 1930s. Emerson University Multan was earlier known as Emerson College Multan, named after Sir Emerson's services as Governor Punjab in 1930.
Satyapal Dang (1920–2013) was an Indian independence activist, writer and later-day politician from Punjab. He was a legislator of Punjab State Legislative Assembly, representing the Communist Party of India for four terms and a Minister of Food and Civil Supplies in the United Front ministry led by Justice Gurnam Singh. He was also involved in trade union movement in India, aligning with the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1998, for his contributions to society.
Master Nand Lal, also referred to as Nanadlal of Jaranwala, was an Indian freedom fighter, politician and a member of the Constituent Assembly of India from East Punjab.
The New Year Honours 1921 were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. They were published on 31 December 1920.
Satyapal was a physician and political leader in Punjab, British India, who was arrested along with Saifuddin Kitchlew on 10 April 1919, three days before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Hans Raj was an Indian youth, in Amritsar, British India, who in June 1919 became an approver for the British government when he gave evidence for the Crown at the Amritsar Conspiracy Case Trial in which he identified his fellow Indian revolutionaries, buying his own freedom in return.
The Patient Assassin, A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj is a 2019 book based on the life of Indian revolutionary Udham Singh. Authored by Anita Anand, it was published by Simon and Schuster UK in April 2019 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, India.
British Empire 
British Indian Army 