On 13 April 1919, General Reginald Dyer marched a squad of Indian soldiers into the Jallianwala Bagh, a large enclosed public space in the holy city of Amritsar, and opened fire without warning on a crowd gathered to hear political speeches, leaving over 200 dead.
To some Dyer was the saviour of India, responding decisively to threatened insurrection, but to many in India, including Ganhdi and Nehru, his action proved the moral bankruptcy of the British Empire. The bitter debate that followed the shootings almost brought down the Liberal Government and was a decisive turning point in India 's march to independence.
This is a definitive account of the massacre set in the context of a biography of Reginald Dyer, a man whose attitudes reflected many of the views common in the Raj.
