Exposing State Terror

The subject of the fifth chapter is the first major all-India campaign led by Gandhi, the Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919. This was in reaction to oppressive legislation being introduced by the British to counter a supposed threat from violent extremist nationalists. The nonviolent protest met with a draconian reaction in Punjab, which included the notorious Amritsar massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, creating what is described in the literature on nonviolent resistance as ‘backfire’ – where terror by the state serves to alienate moderates and thus create the conditions for even more powerful resistance. This led into the major anti-British campaign of 1920-22, the Noncooperation Movement, which is the subject of the next volume.

Fear and Loathing in Amritsar: an Intimate Account of Colonial Crisis

This essay revisits the events surrounding one of the most emblematic instances of colonial violence, namely the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, through the diary of an Englishwoman, Mrs. Melicent Wathen. Where most histories of the Amritsar Massacre emphasize British brutality and Indian suffering, Melicent’s experience was instead characterized by fear and the uncertainty of what became a headlong flight from Empire. Her diary thus offers an intimate account of colonial crisis. If we are to engage comprehensively with the lived experience of empire, the forms and functions of colonial fears and anxieties must be acknowledged; not because colonial panics were caused by real threats, which often they were not, but because they played such a crucial role in shaping colonial policies and in framing the relationship between rulers and ruled.