Mr. PALMER (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the forthcoming de- 1024 bate on the shooting at Amritsar, ha would be willing to include on a White Paper the letter of Sir Michael O'Dwyer dated Delhi, December 30th, 1919, and his letter marked "Private and confidential" which was sent in reply.
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu)I do not think I propose, however, to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the letter of the 30th December, 1919, and the reply which I caused to be sent by telegram through the Viceroy on the 2nd February, 1920. As the name of Sir T. Helderness has also been mentioned in this controversy, I propose to add with his permission a letter which he addressed to me on the 30th June last.
§ Mr. MONTAGUI think that the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. There was no letter. It was a telegram addressed to the Viceroy marked "private and personal."
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSWill the right hon. Gentleman add to these papers the report of the brigade-major, which has been referred to all through the Hunter Commission, but has not been published in the papers so far as I can gather?
§ Mr. MONTAGUI do not think that I can promise to publish any special papers in answer to a question asked without notice, but if a question be put down to-morrow, I will answer it.
§ The following are the documents referred to:
§ [COPY.]
§ Army in India Committee, Delhi,
§ 30–31 December, 1919.
DEAR MR. MONTAGU,Since I wrote last week, Reuter has been cabling summaries of the discussion in Parliament of the Punjab disturbances. I enclose one of these dated London, 16th December, which reports the Secretary of State as saying, inter alia, "he did not know the details (of the Amritsar occurrences) until he saw (the) reports in the newspapers." That telegram has led many people here to ask me if, when I reached England at the end of June, I took any action to inform the India Office of the position at Amritsar and elsewhere. The Press here, too, has been asking whether Meston 1025 and I, when we got home, did anything to explain the situation in India.At the time I got home I probably knew as much about the Punjab situation as anyone in India or England, and I would not like you or anyone else to think that I kept anything back. You will remember that you were good enough to give me two long interviews on 30th June (two days after I arrived), and on 24th July (those dates I get from my diary), a few days before I left town. On one or both of those occasions we went over all the main facts of Dyer's action at Amritsar, and the impression I then formed was that the India Office knew as much about all the material facts as I did.I have a distinct recollection (though my diary is silent on this point) that at our conversation of 30th June I brought out the fact that Dyer, on 13th April, having already formally warned people that he would disperse any gathering by force, did not think it necessary to give any further warning to the gathering which assembled an hour or two later in defiance of his proclamation. I certainly explained then that two British police officers were with him when he fired, and that the District Magistrate, thinking a gathering in defiance of the proclamation impossible, had gone off to look after the 80 panic-stricken women and children who had been collected in the Fort for safety after the murder of Europeans on the 10th. I also said that Dyer's rough estimate of the death casualties was 200; but my memory was not clear as to whether he had fired 1,400 or 1,600 rounds.The question of Dyer's so-called 'crawling' order was not discussed. I said it was quite indefensible, that I had asked for its cancellation directly I saw it, and so had the Commander-in-Chief, and my recollection is that you told me you had gathered this from copies of my letters to the Viceroy which he had sent on to you. After leaving you on the 30th June I went on to see Sir T. Holderness, and a few days later I saw Lord Sinha. I endeavoured to explain to them, as clearly as I could, the whole situation in the Punjab, and especially in Amritsar. I gathered from them also that the India Office was already in possession of all the main facts, though in some respects I was able to offer further explanations, e.g., as to the necessity of sending aeroplanes to Gujranwala, the exclusion of legal practitioners, and the treatment in jail of the Editor of the Tribune, regarding which Lord Sinha had received many letters and telegrams. Possibly Reuter's summary, as quoted above, may be giving to us here an incorrect impression. But, in any case, you will, I am sure, forgive me for trying—perhaps needlessly—to make it clear, that I endeavoured to put the Secretary of State and the India Office in possession of such knowledge as I had. You may remember too, that I stated to you on the 30th June, a fact which was not perhaps mentioned in the telegrams from India and may not have been reported at the time, that the aviator at Gujranwala, on the 14th April, seeing the English Church in 1026 flames had, very wrongly, dropped a bomb close to a mosque in the town, but, fortunately, it did not explode. In writing all this I am less concerned with my own responsibility in the matter than with how others may be affected by any misunderstanding or obscurity.Dyer, at the first interview I had with him (on the 16th April), told me everything about Amritsar events on 13th April as frankly and as fully as the limited time I could spare him—when there was rebellion all round—allowed. I did my best to repeat his version, with my own comments to you and others of the India Office on the very first opportunity. If I did not do so fully or clearly enough then the fault is certainly not his, but rests either with me or with those who were questioning me. But, as I have said above, there was even as far back as 30th June, little room for doubt as to the substantial facts, namely, the circumstances in which he opened and maintained fire on the prohibited assembly on the 13th April, covering death casualties which, at the time, he estimated roughly at 200, but which up to date inquiries put at 379.Yours sincerely,(Sd.) M. F. O'DWYER.
Telegram from the Secretary of State for India to the Viceroy, dated 2nd February, 1920.Private and personal. Following for O'Dwyer. I have received your letter of the 31st December. Of course, I need hardly say that in the House of Commons I was not referring to conversations of which no record is kept and which cannot be a substitute for official information, nor did I make any complaint; indeed, I explained, and have explained frequently since, that I thought it was quite natural that I should have received no detailed information. Let me say that I certainly do not hold you in any way responsible. I have no recollection of, and such notes as I took do not contain, any statement about the two British police officers. But in any case the details I was referring to were these: That Dyer is reported to have stated in his evidence that the crowd might have dispersed without his firing on them, that he fired without warning, and that he stopped firing because his ammunition was exhausted. I do not remember that you ever dealt with these things.30th June, 1920.
DEAR MR. MONTAGU,As I am mentioned in Sir M. O'Dwyer's letter of 8th June, which appeared in the "Morning Post" of 9th June, as one of the officials of the India Office who were fully informed by him during the summer of 1919 of the disorders which had occurred in the Punjab in April of that year, and in particular of the circumstances of the action taken by General Dyer to disperse the crowd assembled in the Jallianwala Bagh, I think it right, in justice to myself, to submit to you a few remarks on so much of his letter as concerns myself.1027Sir M. O'Dwyer writes, "I put all my information at the disposal of the Secretary of State, and also of Lord Sinha, Sir T. Holderness and others at the India Office. The impression I then formed (in June and July last) was that as regards all the main facts the India Office was quite as fully informed as I was; though I was naturally able to explain certain points, e.g., the reasons for using aeroplanes at Gujranwala, for the exclusion of legal practitioners from other provinces by the Martial Law authorities, etc." … "Indeed, all that time, my endeavour was to impress upon the authorities at the India Office the gravity of the situation in the Punjab, which to my mind they had not sufficiently realised.Lower down he quotes from a letter dated 30th December, 1919, which he wrote from India to the Secretary of State, in which the following passage occurs: "Dyer, at the first interview I had with him on the 16th April, told me everything as frankly and fully as the limited time I could spare him (when there was a rebellion all around) would allow. I did my best to repeat his version, with my own views and comments, to you and to others at the India Office on the very first opportunity. If I did not do so fully enough, then the fault is certainly not his, but rests either with me or with those who were questioning me. But, as I have already said, there was, even as far back as 30th June, little room for doubt as to the substantial facts, viz., the circumstances in which he opened and maintained fire on the prohibited assembly on 13th April, causing death casualties which, at the time, he roughly put at about 200, but which the complete up-to-date enquiries put at 379.I gather that the interview which Sir M. O'Dwyer had with General Dyer was limited to a quarter of an hour, and that when Sir M. O'Dwyer left India in May the Punjab Government was still awaiting General Dyer's Report. (See Hunter Committee's Report, page 117). General Dyer's Report was not made till August, 1919. It is this Report that contains the passage which gives the key to General Dyer's action and which is the centre of the controversy to which his action has given rise. "It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect, from a military point of view, not only on those who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab. There could be no question of undue severity." (Hunter Committee's Report, page 30.) Up to the time I remained in the India Office, General Dyer's Report had not reached it.I had the privilege of frequent conversations with Sir M. O'Dwyer during the summer of 1919, and learnt from him many particulars regarding the disorders in the Punjab that bore out his view that the situation had been one of extreme gravity. As regards General Dyer's handling of the Amritsar riots, I have a clear recollection that Sir M. 1028 O'Dwyer justified the casualties (then thought to be about 200 killed) by the necessity for dispersing a hostile and dangerous mob, inflamed by the license and savagery which for several days had prevailed in the city, and for regaining control over the populace. But I have no recollection that he considered the force employed to have been in excess of the immediate necessities of the case, and deliberately exercised in excess with the distinct object of producing a moral effect throughout the province. My recollection is fortified by the astonishment which I felt on reading the Report of General Dyer's evidence which appeared in the "Times" of 15th December. I was by that time aware that a bitter controversy had arisen in India over the circumstances of the Jallianwala Bagh affair, and that the exact incidents were in dispute between the National Congress party and the Government. But the details given by General Dyer to the Commission came to me as a great surprise and were entirely unexpected.In conclusion, I would like to say, that if I had been called upon during the summer or autumn of 1919 to prepare a statement for publication regarding the Jallianwala Bagh incident, and had framed it on the information verbally received from Sir M. O'Dwyer and on the scanty information transmitted by the Government of India, the narrative would have been of a different complexion from the account of the facts given by General Dyer. It would not and could not have included the critical features OD which discussion has since centred. On the publication of General Dyer's evidence, the India Office would assuredly have been taken to task if it had forestalled the Committee's inquiries by publishing an imperfectly, and as some persons would have considered, misleading account of what actually had happened. The Government of India in their despatch forwarding the Committee's Report say that in view of the fact that a Committee was about to make a formal investigation, they had deliberately refrained from instituting preliminary inquiries. The India Office took the same view, and I venture to think that its reticence has been justified by the event.It is perhaps superfluous to say that I kept you fully informed of my conversations with Sir M. O'Dwyer. My recollection is that while recognising the great value of the information placed by him at your disposal, you were as impressed as I was with the inadequacy of our knowledge of what really happened at Amritsar and elsewhere, with the conflicting character of the rumours and assertions appearing in the Indian and Anglo-Indian press, and with the necessity for awaiting a full inquiry on the spot by a strong Committee.Yours sincerely,(Sd.) T. W. HOLDERNESS.