The words of a young girl “It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart” (The Diary of a Young girl, Anne Frank), casually written in a diary, unaware of the change it is meant to bring as a mirror to humanity.
Humanity is like the two faces of a coin. We are the creators of destruction yet also the torch bearers of empathy. Like the above quote, humanity has risen to its peak at times of dire need when its kin are killed and massacred. Every time the world is handicapped by its inhabitants, there remains only the stories to be told, scars to be seen, memories to be held and lessons to be learnt. Over a period, time heals things, histories are corrected and mistakes forgiven, but the scars should be left to be seen as a reminder of the power we hold, power to destroy or the power to enrich each other. The tangible and intangible elements that are connected to the traumatic events should be preserved, with care and with sensibility so that the voice of the victim and the perpetuator both are heard, a complete story to be told. This is a very blurry line often ignored or sometimes vehemently crossed which tramples with the principal of conservation.
This has happened recently at our own Jallianwala Bagh memorial. At a time like this, it is very important to ask questions as the torch bearers of our past, questions such as: How much is the right idea of preservation? Whose story, the victims or the perpetrators needs to be told? Is glorifying the site with monumentation be decremental? We need to look back and ask ourselves every time we tell these stories. To tell the story of Jallianwala Bagh let me help you look at a very similar site, “Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Poland ”.
But first let’s veer back and look at what has happened at Jallianwala Bagh.
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre: India’s own Holocaust –
The tragedy also known as Massacre of Amritsar took place on 13th April 1919. It is important to understand that this is not an individual catastrophe, but a series of events have led to this tragedy. During World War I (1914–18) the British government of India enacted a series of repressive emergency powers that were intended to combat subversive activities. The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 popularly known as Rowlatt Act (Black Act) which was passed on 10th March, 1919, authorized the government to imprison or confine, without trial, any person associated with seditious activities which led to nationwide unrest. The acts were met by widespread anger and discontent among Indians, notably in the Punjab region. In Amritsar the news that prominent Indian leaders had been arrested and banished from that city sparked violent protests on April 10, in which soldiers fired upon civilians, buildings were looted and burned, and angry mob killed several foreign nationals. To regain order the British had implemented the Martial Law prohibiting public gatherings. However, not many were aware of the said law being implemented.
On the afternoon of April 13th, a crowd of at least 10,000 men, women, and children gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, which was nearly completely enclosed by high walls and had only one exit along with a well in the complex. Some have been said to have gathered to hold protests against the British policies, while others had gathered to celebrate the Baisakhi (spring) festival. Learning about this, Brig. Gen. Reginald Edward Harry Dyer marched to the gathering with his troops and sealed the only exit to the Bagh. Without prior warning, the troops opened fire on the crowd, reportedly shooting hundreds of rounds until they ran out of ammunition. Many people were killed by bullets or wounded while trying to climb the high walls or have jumped into the well. It is not certain how many died in the bloodbath, but, according to one official report, an estimated 379 people were killed, and about 1,200 more were wounded. After they ceased firing, the troops immediately withdrew from the place, leaving behind the dead and wounded.
This incident added fuel to the national movement and inspired many freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh to join the freedom movement. It also set flames for the first large scale non-violent protest (satyagraha) campaign, ‘The Non Cooperation Movement’ (1920–22) which led to the end of British rule in India 25 years later.
“After the soldiers had left, I looked round. There must have been more than a thousand corpses there. The whole place was strewn with them. At some places, 7 or 8 corpses were piled, one over another. In addition to the dead, there must have been about a thousand wounded persons lying there.” (Lala Karam Chand, survivor of the massacre)
Laying of the cornerstone to the memorial –
In 1920, a trust is formed to create a memorial at the massacre site. It came into existence on 1951 as the Government of India declared the site as a memorial.
One enters the site through a narrow brick passage faded into the pages of history. The route is the same that is walked by General Dyer. It creates a sense of uneasiness gripping our hearts to see what we know is a brutality against humanity.
The 'Martyrs Well' is surrounded by a large structure the Martyr's memorial, with a sign giving a figure of "120" as the number of bodies that were recovered from the well. It was designed by American architect Benjamin Polk and inaugurated in 1961. A number of the bullet holes in the walls are preserved.
“This site is saturated with the blood of thousands of Indian patriots who were martyred in a nonviolent struggle to free India from British domination. General Dyer of the British army opened fire here on unarmed people. Jallianwala Bagh is thus an everlasting symbol of non-violent & peaceful struggle for the freedom of India” (Wagner, Kim. Amritsar 1919 p.264).
The Flame of Liberty is represented by a central pylon. It is white and shaped like a flame. Engraved are faces of 'martyrs' and below are given their names. In the complex is the museum showcasing details about the massacre and the freedom struggle.
Then in 2019 GOI has decided to renovate the memorial to pull in visitors and boy it did become “talk of the town”.
Restoration or Disneyfication: What is too much too less?
Many a times, presenting a memorial site is challenging, for every story to be told there exists pain and power. Where there is accomplishment, bravery and pride there also exist oppression, trauma, pain, shame and violence. Most often, these are events of the past, to which visitors have little or no prior knowledge and can only imagine but truly never know its context in the present time. It has been time and again proven that the most effective way to tell these stories are to present them in their naked true form without any glimmer or glitter. Looking at a wall or a room presented in the original setting have a louder undertone and speak volumes than masking it with information boards or automatic voice recordings. A human eye and heart perceive complex emotions in the simplest forms: by perceiving a space through a human sense without uninterrupted alterations and in its true form.
Many memorials across the globe are presented in their original form to show a true series of the events that happened.
In the case of Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Poland (as I have been studying about this project and debating about the right preservation method, I feel the necessity to include the site which is similar to Jallianwala Bagh massacre in more than one way).
Auschwitz – A heart wrenching story
Auschwitz is the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps dating from World War 2. The walls of the site have witnessed the evilness that was incurred on the Jews bearing the marks of the past. These walls and the site same in its true horror as it was during its occupancy in 1939 during the rule of Hitler telling an unaltered truth. The walls still show the traces of the acid deposits, the heaps of shoes and hair are still left as once collected, the walls still bore the names of the loved ones, the graveyards still lull the perished and the wagons still rest on the rail tracks after dropping off the last of the inmates. The barracks and the camps do not have panels with information about the event or the victims, no events are re-creating the past or technology to show how it was during the day. Every brick was left, to tell their own stories, every eye to perceive their own shades of grey, every heart to bleed at their own despair and every mind to learn its own lesson. It is not the technology that tells us what to feel or how to feel but the setting we stand in, the stories the place holds and the emotions it carries.
Often, the silence we hear is the most deafening sound one can feel.
Jallianwala Bagh: Renovation or Makeover?
In the recent renovation of the memorial, in an attempt to “instil a spirit of gratitude and reverence towards the martyrs”, an attempt was made to mystify and glamorise history.
The most outrageous of all is the installation of terracotta figures, so out of scale, of common people walking joyfully into the site to celebrate the festival. The makeover says nothing of death and destruction, nothing of the day’s cold-blooded murder, but skilfully diffuses the gravity of the historic situation and gives it the silliness and frivolity of a festive event. It is important to note that, the wall was built using the Nanakshahi bricks that served as reminder to generations since 1919 of the sacrifices that the people of India made as they sought freedom from the British colonial rulers.
The monumental figurines have ‘successfully and unapologetically erased a piece of India’s history’.
Before the revamp, one could enter the place and look at an unaltered wall sitting by the shade of the trees and imagine the events of the day. Today after walking on the shiny floors of the entrance along with the giant murals, one is greeted with a wall marked in white paint indicating the gun shots. Goodbye to your perception. What is left for your imagination is robbed by the light and sound show re-creating the events of the day.
In an attempt to re-create a sense of “nationalism”, the place robs off the essence of the place. You enter the Bagh where your senses and emotions are directed to be seen and felt in a particular way.
Who's at fault?
The real issue lies in the failure of India perceiving history as a distant fact that needs to be altered or re-imagined to be perceived for the present. This results in the larger public to ponder on the historic situation for its own merits, masking the whole truth. Sometimes, this truth is so disturbing that we choose to look away or we add certain elements to beautify the space as a way to add value to the place. Unable to live in history’s looming shadow Indian memory is too often erroneously erected into monumental misjudgements. We tend to create huge monuments (statue of Sardar Valla Bhai Patel) or interpret our memorials as a symbol of patriotism which eventually becomes a setting for a family picnic. Adding to the toast, is the governing body who believes that the patriotism of its citizens can only be manifested with glorifying monuments or grand gestures. In an attempt to ‘invoke the feelings of patriotism’ monuments as these are given a fictitious dimension. A significant site’s history is never accorded the reverence it deserves; but it does allow us a convenient mask to escape a hurtful reality.
Jallianwala Bagh is not just a memorial, but a piece of identity to a nation, the victims and to the society. Re-modelling it without consent or consultation of its citizens, the true custodians, means effectively erasing a piece of history. It is very important to understand that histories or sites with difficult histories need to be presented without alterations or in a single person vision. It needs to be presented in truth and truth alone. The truth, the stories, the voices need to be presented in its true self.
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