Jallianwalabagh Khilafat Movement Amritsar Session 1919

Important Events in Modern Indian History Jallianwalabagh, Khilafat Movement, Amritsar Session 1919

Jallianwalabagh Massacre, 13 April 1919

Two prominent leaders Satyapal and Saifuddin Kichlew were arrested in the Punjab in connection with the hartal against Rowlatt Act.
The people of Amritsar assembled in a park in Jallianwala to protest against the unlawful arrest.
This park was surrounded by high walls on all the sides with a small entrance in one side and a well in the center.
General Dyer, the military commander of Amritsar, ordered his troops to block the entrance.
Viceroy Lord Chelmsford
British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer
Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer
Then he ordered them to shoot on the peaceful and unarmed crowd without any warning.
There were many women and children. There was a virtual massacre. About 379 persons were killed and 1137 people wounded.
This incident is called as the Jallianwalabagh massacre or Punjab Tragedy.
Gandhi condemned this incident. He became a non-cooperator with the British Government. He emerged prominent.
He launched the Non-Co-operation movement in 1920.

PROTESTS

Rabindranath Tagore renounced his Knighthood as a measure of protest.

Gandhiji returned the Kaiser-i-Hind medal given to him by the South African Government.

The Hunter Commission

The chief cause of the Khilafat Movement was the defeat of Germany and Turkey in the First World War.
Turkey was an ally of Germany in the First World War. After the defeat of Germany in the war, the Turkish empire was broken up (Treaty of Sevres)
The territories were shared by Britain and France. The Sultan of Turkey was humiliated.
The Sultan was also the Caliph or the religious leader of the Muslims.
So the Muslims all over the world started the Khilafat movement against the British Government.
The Ali brothers - Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali started the Khilafat Movement in India.
The Congress supported this movement.
Gandhi thought that it was an opportunity for uniting the Hindus and the Muslims.
The Khilafat movement brought the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress closer.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, M.A. Ansari, Saifuddin Kitchlew and the Ali brothers were the prominent leaders of this movement.
A Khilafat Committee had been formed and on 19th October 1919, the whole country had observed the Khilafat day.
On 23 November, a joint conference of the Hindus and the Muslims had also been held under the chairmanship of Mahatma Gandhi.
Khilafat Movement merged with the Non-Cooperation Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920.
Gandhiji transformed the Congress into a mass movement.

By holding its 34th Session at Amritsar in 1919, the Congress expressed its deep solidarity with the people killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Under the presidentship of Motilal Nehru, the Congress condemned the massacre in the strongest of terms.