The significance of Jallianwala Bagh lay not in the number of people killed, but in what came before and after. The Rowlatt Act, also known as the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, went into effect a month before the slaughter in Jallianwala Bagh. It surprised most Indians, who had expected to be rewarded rather than punished for fighting alongside the British in World War I. The British government of India implemented a succession of oppressive emergency powers to fight subversive activity during World War I (1914–18). By the end of the war, the Indian people had high hopes that such restrictions would be relaxed and that India would be allowed more political autonomy. The crimes sparked great outrage and dissatisfaction among Indians, particularly in the Punjab region. Gandhi called for a one-day countrywide strike across the country in early April. The news that prominent Indian leaders had been arrested and expelled from the city sparked violent protests in Amritsar on April 10, during which soldiers opened fire on civilians, buildings were looted and burned, and enraged mobs killed several foreign nationals and severely beaten a Christian missionary. This article reconsiders the arguments over the shooting at Amritsar and the role of Brigadier-General Dyer, and questions the accepted view that the massacre was such a failure of minimum force. It argues that the circumstances surrounding the massacre must be understood before judging the incident and given these factors it is possible to see it within a minimum force framework. Always behind the use of force lay the imperial logic that justified it in the name of law and order, or at least order.

Keywords: Jalliawala Bagh, Masscare of 1919, Amritsar, British Masscare.