Odin Cuypers

20th Century World History

Professor Derek Lan

5 December 2024

Bureaucracy and Bloodshed: Revisiting the Amritsar Massacre

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which fell upon the date of April 13, 1919, in

Amritsar, India, is one of the most shocking examples of British colonial

violence. On that day, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his soldiers

to fire on a crowd of unarmed men, women, and children. These people were

gathered peacefully in a public garden, unaware that Dyer had declared

their meeting illegal. Without warning, he opened fire, killing hundreds and

injuring many more in just ten minutes. Survivors described the horror:

people scrambling to escape, others being trampled, and still more jumping

into a well to avoid the bullets. This was not a chaotic battlefield

moment—it was calculated slaughter, an act carried out with precision but

without humanity.

This essay looks at two sources that deal with the massacre. The first source

shall be the Cabinet Papers, an official British document that was written to

justify colonial policies. The second source will be Massacre by the Book by

historian Mark Doyle, which analyzes how British systems made events like

this inevitable. Both sources offer considerable insights, but they have
flaws. The Cabinet Papers treat the massacre as a matter of policy, with little

regard for its human impact. Doyle critiques colonialism effectively but

focuses so much on systems that he does not fully capture the personal

suffering caused by this tragedy.

The Cabinet Papers are a series of government documents written by British

officials to explain and defend their actions in India. Essentially, these

papers talk about how the British used military force to maintain control.

They frequently mention the idea of “minimum force,” which sounds

reasonable on paper. This policy was supposed to mean that soldiers and

police only used as much violence as absolutely necessary to restore order.

But when you look at what happened in Amritsar, it becomes clear that

“minimum force” was not really a limit—it was a loophole that enabled

far-reaching and unchecked brutality.

In the papers, the massacre is framed as something necessary to keep India

under British rule. The crowd in Amritsar was not seen as a group of

ordinary people protesting unfair laws—it was portrayed as a dangerous

mob that posed a threat to colonial stability. Dyer’s actions were described

as decisive and needed to prevent larger unrest, almost as if they were part

of a calculated strategy. The official death count in these documents is 379,

but Indian accounts say the real number was much higher, likely over 1,500.

That is a significant and massive difference, and it is not just a mistake—it is

it was. This whitewashing of the event serves as a reminder of how power

structures can distort truth to justify cruelty.

The way these papers are written makes it clear they were not meant for the

people of India. They were written for British politicians and officials. The

language is cold, technical, and detached as if they were writing about

fixing a pothole rather than ending hundreds of lives. There is no mention

of the families who lost loved ones or the long-term trauma and pain

inflicted on survivors. Instead, the focus is on legal justifications and

administrative details. This sort of disconnect and bureaucratic perspective

comes across as if they literally were saying, “Thine shalt worry not; this

was all perfectly within the rules.”

Nevertheless, it is indeed worth noting that Indian perspectives tell a

considerably different story than these documents serve to illustrate. The

reality is, for many Indians, this massacre was not at all simply an “isolated

event”; nay, on the contrary, it came to stand as a distinct representation

and reminder of the constant degradation and suffering they had been

forced to endure under this colonial rule. Eyewitness accounts describe

scenes of genuinely unimaginable horror: children screaming, people

crushed in the stampede, and loved ones disappearing in the chaos.

Survivors even have talked about the overwhelming stench of death that
lingered in Jallianwala Bagh for days after the massacre occurred. Yet, none

of this appears within the Cabinet Papers. The absence of such details

indeed reinforces the absolute disconnect these documents maintain within

their narrative, in stark contrast to the reality of what happened on the

ground.

As historical documents, the Cabinet Papers are interesting because they

show how the British government thought about its colonies. These papers

give us a glimpse into the mindset of colonial officials who believed that

violence was just another tool for maintaining order. But they are also

deeply biased. They only tell one side of the story—the British side. There is

no attempt to understand or even acknowledge the perspective of the

Indian people who were affected.

This makes the papers unreliable if you are trying to understand the full

impact of the massacre. They gloss over key details, like how survivors

described the sound of bullets echoing off the walls of the garden or how

many people were left bleeding without medical help. Instead, the papers

focus on numbers and policies, treating human lives like statistics rather

than stories of real people with families, dreams, and pain.

Mark Doyle’s Massacre by the Book takes a very different approach. Doyle

argues that the massacre was not just about one man, Dyer, making a bad
decision. Instead, he says it was part of a bigger system. The British Empire

had rules and ideas in place that made violence like this not only possible

but likely. Doyle looks closely at the concept of “minimum force” and shows

how it was often used as a cover for extreme brutality.

Doyle’s main argument centers on the “man on the spot” principle. This idea

gave British officials like Dyer a great deal of freedom to act however they

thought was necessary during a crisis. Dyer believed he was following

orders and enforcing the law, not breaking it. In his mind, massacring

unarmed civilians was a legitimate way to prevent rebellion. This reveals

just how deeply the British system was flawed—it normalized extreme

violence as part of governance and made it seem like an unfortunate but

acceptable cost of maintaining control.

Doyle explains that British imperialism relied on violence to maintain

control, even while pretending to uphold civil and legal standards. Policies

like “minimum force” were not about avoiding harm; they were about

keeping power. The empire was built on fear—fear of consequences for

anyone who dared to resist. Fear became the currency of colonial rule,

ensuring that no one questioned the legitimacy of the empire's grip.

Doyle’s work is excellent for understanding the bigger picture of British

imperialism. He shows how systems like “minimum force” and the “man on
the spot” principle allowed for violence while still appearing civilized and

lawful. His analysis is backed by strong evidence, including Dyer’s own

testimony and official records.

However, Doyle’s focus on systems and policies means that he does not

spend much time talking about the people who were affected. He talks a lot

about how Dyer justified his actions but does not go into detail about what

it was like for the families of the people who were killed. This makes his

perspective still feel distant at times, as though it is more interested in

theory than in the real suffering of the victims.

The trauma of the massacre did not end when the gunfire stopped. Families

mourned loved ones, survivors lived with physical and emotional scars, and

the collective memory of the massacre fueled the anger that would shape

the independence movement. For many in India, Jallianwala Bagh became a

symbol of British cruelty, a reminder of the costs of empire. Even today, it is

a place of mourning and reflection, visited by people who seek to honor

those who died.

The Cabinet Papers and Massacre by the Book are very different but also

complementary. The Cabinet Papers give us a firsthand look at how the

British government justified the massacre, but they are biased and do not

acknowledge the suffering they caused. Doyle, on the other hand, critiques
these justifications and shows how they fit into a much larger pattern of

colonial violence. However, both sources fall dishearteningly short when it

comes to humanizing the victims.

The Amritsar massacre was not just a tragic accident—it was a moral failure

and a symbol of everything wrong with colonialism. It showed how an

empire built on control and exploitation could justify even the most horrific

actions in the name of order. The Cabinet Papers reveal the cold, calculated

thinking behind this system, while Massacre by the Book exposes the

systemic flaws that made events like this possible. But neither source fully

captures the human cost of the massacre—the lives lost, the families

shattered, and the trauma that lingers to this day.

In seeking to truly understand what happened at Amritsar, one must indeed

go beyond mere numbers and policies. We must remember the people who

lived through it—the mothers who lost children, the workers who never

came home, and the survivors who carried the scars for the rest of their

lives. Only by centering their experiences can we begin to shed light unto

the overwhelming shadow left behind by colonial violence and ensure that

history does not repeat itself.