Zareer Masani (Letters, 16 April) has neither read my article properly nor got his own facts right. In the article (A century on, Amritsar is an atrocity Britain must confront, 13 April), I clearly mentioned that Indians killed five British civilians. What Masani does not mention was that this came after British troops, panicking as the mob threw stones, opened fire without warning, injuring between 20 and 30, of whom 15 died. It was this that led to further violence. I also mentioned that a female British missionary was assaulted. But again, Masani does not mention that General Dyer ordered that Indians crossing the street where she was attacked must crawl on all fours.
Masani also claims that the British intended to grant India dominion status. Perhaps he has not read the war cabinet minutes of 14 August 1917 which promised India “gradual development of self-governing institutions”. Lord Curzon, who piloted this measure, had told the cabinet it was “the wildest of dreams” that India would ever become a self-governing dominion like the white dominions of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. He was certain that in the “march towards the self-governing ideal, the political unity of India … would disappear altogether if the protecting power were withdrawn; and no language should be used that might … encourage such a belief”.
Balfour, in his memo, warned the cabinet that because Indians were not the same race as the British they could never manage the sort of self-government institutions “along the same lines to that which has been set up in Canada, Australasia and the Cape”. Nor, said Balfour, could he see Indians ever be educated to manage it as “education cannot fundamentally alter the material on which it works”.
As Sir Penderel Moon puts it in his classic The British Conquest and Dominion of India: “The goal for India as defined in August 1917 did not, therefore, imply India would become a wholly independent state. As part of the Empire there would be still be some limitations on her sovereignty.”
As for the House of Commons condemning the massacre, Masani does not mention that the debate took place on the motion to reduce the salary of Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, by £100 – reflecting those members who disagreed with the view that Dyer’s action was a “monstrosity” and “un-British”. Montagu won, but 129 members voted against the government. In the Lords the government lost, and nobody reading Hansard can have any doubt that Dyer was viewed as a hero by many in the Commons and the Lords.
Masani is perfectly entitled to defend the British empire, but he cannot gloss over the fact that it was based on European racial supremacy. The support for Dyer was based on the idea that in a contest between a European and a non-European they must always support the European even if he was in the wrong.
Mihir Bose
London
