The Hidden Tears of Punjab
by ANDRE VLTCHEK
Sent by Muhammad Al-Mlmassari
Sunday 3rd May 205 at 8:05 PM
Pre-Election Special!!!
From: Luis Vásquez [mailto:lrvasquezv@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2015 19:54
To: Dr. Muhammad Al-Massari
Subject: Mad British Colonialist Legacy. The Hidden Tears of Punjab, by ANDRE VLTCHEK
Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2015 19:54
To: Dr. Muhammad Al-Massari
Subject: Mad British Colonialist Legacy. The Hidden Tears of Punjab, by ANDRE VLTCHEK
WEEKEND EDITION MAY 1-3, 2015
A
lane, a narrow passage to Jallianwala Bagh Garden inside the old city
of Amritsar, in the state of Punjab. It is a monument now, one of the
testaments to madness and crimes committed by the British Empire during
its colonial reign over Sub-Continent.
This
is where, on April 13 1919, thousands of people gathered, demanding
release of two of their detained leaders, Dr. Satyapal and Dr.
Saifuddin. It was right before the day of Baisakhi, the main Sikh
festival, and the pilgrims came to the city, in multitudes, from all
corners of Punjab.
The
British Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer brought fifty Gurkha riflemen
to a raised bank, and then ordered them to shoot at the crowd.
Bipan Chandra, an Indian historian, wrote in his iconic work, “India’s Struggle for Independence”:
“On
the orders of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, the army fired on the
crowd for ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few
open gates through which people were trying to run out. The figures
released by the British government were 370 dead and 1200 wounded. Other
sources place the number dead at well over 1000.”
While
reading through the draft of this essay, my friend and comrade,
renowned Canadian international lawyer Christopher Black, added:
“…
At the investigation into the Amritsar massacre, General Dyer said his
only regret was that he had not killed more people. He also used
armoured cars to block the entrances and machine guns were also used on
the crowd. After that the British made people in the streets crawl on
the stomachs when they passed a British officer. Terrible, terrible
things-and what the British did in Kenya in the 50’s is worse than what
the Nazis did in Europe.”
Jallianwala
Bagh is now a monument, a testament, a warning. There are bullet holes
clearly marked in white, penetrating the walls of surrounding buildings.
There is a well, where bodies of countless victims had fallen. Some
people had chosen to jump, to escape the bullets.
There
is a museum, containing historic documents: statements of defiance and
spite from the officials of British Raj, as well as declarations of
several maverick Indian figures, including Rabindranath Tagore, one of
the greatest writers of India, who threw his knighthood back in the face
of the British oppressors, after he learned about the massacre.
There
are old black and white photos of Punjabi people tied to the polls,
their buttocks exposed, being flagged by shorts-wearing British
soldiers, who were apparently enjoying their heinous acts.
There is also a statement of General Dyer himself. It is chilling, arrogant and unapologetic statement:
“I
fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed, and I consider
this is the least amount of firing which would produce the necessary
moral and widespread effect it was my duty to produce if I was to
justify my action. If more troops had been at hand the casualties would
have been greater in proportion. 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.”
Not
everyone in India is outraged by former crimes of the British Empire.
Some want to forget and to “move on”, especially those closely linked to
the establishment; to the new corporate and pro-Western India, where
education is being privatized, mass media controlled by big business
interests, and progressive ideologies buried under unsavory layers of
greed.
At the grounds of Jallianwala Bagh, Anand P. Mishra, Professor at O. P. Jindal Global University, Haryana, spreads his arms:
“This happened almost 100 years ago and I don’t hold any grudges towards British, anymore.”
But
when I approach Ms. Garima Sahata, a Punjabi student, she does not hide
her feelings towards the British Empire and the West:
“I
feel ager, thinking what they had done to our people. I think it is
important for us to come here and to see the remnants of the massacre. I
still feel angry towards the British people, even now… but in a
different way… They are not killing us the same way, as they used to in
the past, but they are killing us nevertheless.”
***
The
British Empire was actually based on enforcing full submission and
obedience on its local subjects, in all corners of the world; it was
based on fear and terror, on disinformation, propaganda, supremacist
concepts, and on shameless collaboration of the local “elites”. “Law and
order” was maintained by using torture and extra-judiciary executions,
“divide and rule” strategies, and by building countless prisons and
concentration camps.
To
kill 1.000 or more “niggers,” to borrow from the colorful, racist
dictionary of Lloyd George, who was serving as British Prime Minister
between 1916 and 1922, was never something that Western empires would
feel ashamed of. For centuries, the British Kingdom was murdering
merrily, all over Africa and the Middle East, as well as in the Punjab,
Kerala, Gujarat, in fact all over the Sub-Continent. In London the acts
of smashing unruly nations were considered as something “normal”, even
praiseworthy. Commanders in charge of slaughtering thousands of people
in the colonies were promoted, not demoted, and their statues have been
decorating countless squares and government buildings.
The
British Empire has been above the law. All rights to punish “locals”
were reserved. But British citizens were almost never punished for their
horrendous crimes committed in foreign lands.
When
the Nazis grabbed power in Germany, they immediately began enjoying a
dedicating following from the elites in the United Kingdom. It is
because British colonialism and German Nazism were in essence not too
different from each other.
Today’s Western Empire is clearly following its predecessor. Not much has changed. Technology improved, that is about all.
***
Standing
at the monument of colonial carnage in Punjab, I recalled dozens of
horrific crimes of the British Empire, committed all over the world:
I
thought about those concentration camps in Africa, and about the
stations where slaves who were first hunted down like animals were
shackled and beaten, then put on boats and forced to undergo voyages to
the “new world” – voyages that most of them never managed to survive. I
thought about murder, torture, flogging, raping women and men,
destruction of entire countries, tribes and families. It is all
connected: colonialism, present-day riots in Baltimore, horrid ruins of
Africa.
In
Kenya, near Voi, I was shown a British prison for resistance cadres,
which was surrounded by wilderness and dangerous animals. This is where
the leaders of local rebellions were jailed, tortured and exterminated.
In
Uganda, I was told stories about how British colonizers used to
humiliate local people and break their pride: in the villages, they
would hunt down the tallest and the strongest man; they would shackled
him, beat him up, and then the British officer would rape him, sodomize
him in public, so there would be no doubts left of who was in charge.
In
the Middle East, people still remember those savage chemical bombings
of the “locals”, the extermination of entire tribes. Winston Churchill
made it clear, on several occasions: “I do not understand the
squeamishness about the use of gas,” he told the House of Commons during
an address in the autumn of 1937. “I am strongly in favour of using
poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.”
In
Malaya, I was told, as the Japanese were approaching, British soldiers
were chaining locals to the cannons, forcing them to fight and die.
The
Brits triggered countless famines all over India, killing dozens of
millions. To them, Indian people were not humans. When Churchill was
begged to send food to Bengal that was ravished by famine in 1943, he
replied that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits” and that
the plague was “merrily” culling the population. At least 3 million
died.
Wherever
the British Empire, or any other European empire, grabbed control over
the territory – in Africa, Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, in
Sub-Continent, Oceania – horror and brutality reigned.
***
V.
Arun Kumar, MPhil in International Organization and researcher at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, expressed his feelings regarding Partition,
doubtlessly one more terrible result of the British “divide and rule”
policy:
“India
and Pakistan, two children born out of the same mother’s womb have
today reached at a juncture where no mother would bear. From their birth
and to more than sixty years down the history, India and Pakistan has
gained the label of archenemies. These two countries have fought
numerous wars over a narrow thread that divides them – which they call
as border. State machinery on the both sides has constructed massive
hatred-mongering propaganda programs, which ensure constant creation of
fear psychosis in the minds of people against the other. Even when two
countries are not in actual war, they are always in a state of war. A
visit to Wagah border between India and Pakistan, one can see the
mockery of peace, when soldiers on the both side perform a war like
aggressive drill manoeuvre while opening the gates at the border. And
the sea of people on both sides enthusiastically claps shouting abusive
slogans on the other country- forgetting that they are abusing their own
siblings.”
Beautifully said, and so true!
Only
30 kilometers from Amritsar, one of the most grotesque events on earth
takes place: “Lowering of the Flag” on the Indian/Pakistani border.
Here, what is often described as the perfectly choreographed expression
of hate, takes place in front of thousands of visitors from both
countries.
Wagah Border has even tribunes built to accommodate aggressive spectators. It goes everyday like this:
“Death to Pakistan!
Long Live India!”
“Death to India! Long live Pakistan!”
“Death to India! Long live Pakistan!”
“Hindustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan
Zindabad!!!!!!” They shout here, “Long Live India!!!!” and those
endless spasms are immediately followed by barks glorifying India and
insulting Pakistan. And vice versa.
Border
guards, male and female, are then performing short marches, at a
tremendously aggressive and fast pace, towards the border gate. The
public, sick from the murderous heat and the fascist, nationalist
idiocy, speeches and shouts, is roaring.
As
I am made to sit on the pavement, right next to the border gate of
Wagah, squeezed between two corpulent women wearing sweat-soaked saris,
flies are buzzing all over my cameras. Here I feel hate being
omnipresent: there is hate expressed by the Indian crowd towards
Pakistan, hate of the border guards towards its own unruly crowd, even
hate of the crowd towards me, a daring foreigner who came, most likely,
to poke fun at this insane martial ceremony.
The
issue is so explosive, that my friends from nearby Lahore conveniently
“forgot” to supply me with their quote. Few people in New Delhi “forgot”
as well.
***
Now,
Punjab is split, because that old “divide and rule” scheme was applied
here meticulously, as it was almost everywhere at the Sub-Continent.
The British never really left: they live in the minds of the Indian elites.
Punjab
suffered terribly during the Partition, and later, too, from brutality
of the Indian state. In fact, almost entire India is now suffering,
unable to shake off those racist, religious and social prejudices.
Delhi
behaves like a colonialist master in Kashmir (where it is committing
one of the most brutal genocides on earth), the Northeast and in several
other areas. Indian elites are almost as ruthless and barbaric as were
the British colonizers; the faces changed, but the power system remained
almost intact.
It
goes without saying that the Indian elites, disciples and admirers of
the British Raj, are treating its own people with similar spite and
cruelty.
***
The
seeds sown by the British Raj have been inherited by several successive
states of the Sub-Continent. They are now growing, blooming into a
tremendous toxic and murderous insanity. Instead of turning against the
homicidal elites, the poor majority is yelling nationalist slogans.
Everything
here is deeply connected: the colonial torture, the post-colonial
genocides, the prostitution of the local elites, who are offering
themselves to the Western rulers of the world, the over-militarization,
the institutionalized spite for the poor and for the lower castes and
classes.
Confusion is omnipresent. Words and terminology have lost their meanings. Dust, injustice, pain and insecurity are everywhere.
Anyone who claims that colonialism is dead is either a liar or a madman.
And
if this – the direct result of colonialism – is “democracy”, then we
should all, immediately, take a bus in the opposite direction!
Andre Vltchek is
a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He
covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are:
“Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”.
Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many
years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works
in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.
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