No one, not even the gifted Lloyd
George, could hold the House as Winston did. indeed, on one memorable
occasion he accomplished a rare feat. Eloquence, wit, and charge have not
been uncommon in that body, but seldom in its six centuries has a speech
actually changed the opinion of the majority, transforming imminent defeat
into triumph. Churchill did it on July 8, 1920, thereby vindicating England's
honour.
The origins of that day's controversy lay in a shocking episode. A few
months after the war an Englishwoman, a missionary, had reported that she
had been molested on a street in the Punjab city of Amritsar. The Raj's local
commander, Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, had issued an order requiring
all Indians using that street to crawl its length on their hands and knees.
He had also authorized the indiscriminate, public whipping of natives who came
within lathi length of British policemen. On April 13, 1919, a multitude of
Punjabis had gathered in Amritsar's Jallianwallah Bagh to protest these
extraordinary measures. The throng, penned in a narrow space smaller than
Traflagar Square, had been peacefully listening to the testimony of victims
when Dyer appeared at the head of a contingent of British troops. Without
warning, he ordered his machine gunners to open fire. The Indians, in
Chruchill's words, were 'packed together so that one bullet would drive
through three or four bodies'; the people 'ran madly this way and the other.
When fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was
then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground,
and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for eight or
ten minutes, and it stopped only when the ammunition had reached the point
of exhaustion.' Dyer then marched away, leaving 379 dead and over 1,500
wounded. Back in his headquarters, he reported to his superiors that he had
been 'confronted by a revolutionary army,' and had been obliged 'to teach a
moral lesson to the Punjab.' In the storm of outrage which followed, the
brigadier was promoted to major general, retired, and placed on the inactive
list. This incrediably, made him a martyr to millions of Englishmen. Senior
British officers applauded his suppression of 'another Indian Mutiny.' The
Guardians of the Golden Temple enrolled him in the Brotherhood of Sikhs.
[Email comment received querying the accuracy of this statement]
The House of Lords passed a measure commending him. Readers of the Tory
Morning Post, Churchill's old scourge, subscribed L2,500 [pounds] for a
testimonial. Leading Conservative MPs took up his cause, and Lloyd George
reluctantly agreed to a full-dress debate. Venetia Montagu's husband, Edwin,
now the secretary of state for India, would open for the government,
with Churchill scheduled at the end.
Montagu's speech was a calamity. He was a Jew and there were anti-Semites
in the House. He had been warned to be quiet and judicial. Instead, he was
sarcastic; he called Dyer a terrorist; he worried about foreign opinion; he
'thoroughly roused most of the latent passions of the stogy Tories,' as one
MP noted, and 'got excited...and became more racial and more Yiddish in
screaming tone and gesture.' with the consequence that 'a strong anti-Jewish
sentiment was shown by shouts...Altogether it was a very astonishing
exhibition of anti-Jewish feeling.' The Ulster MPs had decided to vote against
Dyer. After Montagu's speech they conferred and reversed themselves. Sir
Edward Carson rose to praise the general - who was watching from the
Stranger's Gallery - as 'a gallant officer of thirty-four years service . . .
without a blemish on his record' who had 'no right to be broken on the ipse
dixit of any Commission or Committee, however great, unless he has been
fairly tried - and he has not been tried.' Carsen ended: 'I say, to break a man
under the circumstances of this case in un-English.' 'Un-English,' in the
context of the time, was anti-Semitic - roughly the equivalent of 'kike.' MPs
roared their approval. The government was in trouble. Lloyd George being
absent, Bonar Law, the leader of the House, asked Churchill to speak
immediately.
Churchill's approach was entirely unlike Montagu's. He called for 'a calm
spirit, avoiding passion and avoiding attempts to excite prejudice.' Dyer, he
said, had not been dismissed in disgrace; 'he had simply been informed that
there was no further employment for him under the Government of India.'
But the incident in Jallianwallah Bagh was 'an extraordinary event, a monstrous
event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.' He
quietly observed that the number of Indians killed was almost identical with
the number of MPs now sitting wihin range of his voice. An officer in such a
situation as Dyer's, he said, should ask himself whether the crowd is either
armed or about to mount an attack. 'Men who take up arms against the State
must expect at any moment to be fired upon...At Amritsar the crowd was
neither armed nor attacking.' Thus the general had not, as he claimed, faced a
'revolutinary army.' Another useful military guide, Churchill continued,
was the maxim that 'no more force should be used than is necessary to secure
compliance with the law.' In the Great War, he and many other members of
the House had been British soldiers 'exerting themselves to show pity and to
help, even at their own peril, the wounded.' Dyer had failed to follow their
example; after the massacre, his troops had simply sung around and
marched away. Churchill knew, and many members of Parliament knew, of
many instances in which officers, in 'infinitely more trying' situation than the
one in Bagh, had, unlike the general, displayed an ability to arrive 'at the right
decision.' Then, as if with a stiletto, Churchill knifed Dyer; 'Frightfullness is
not a remedy known to the British pharmacopoeia.'
He twisted the blade. Dyer's most vocal champions agreed with Churchill's
stand in Russia. It was compassion and its absence, he said, which marked the
difference between Englishmen and Bolsheviks. His own hatred of Lenin's
regime was 'not founded on their silly system of economics, or their absurd
doctrine of an impossible equality.' It arose from 'the bloody and devastating
terrorism which they practice...and by which alone their criminal regime
can be maintained.' It was intolerable in Russia; it was intolerable in Amritsar.
'I do not think,' he said, 'that it is in the interests of the British Empire or of
the British Army for us to take a load of that sort for all time upon our backs.
We have to make it absolutely clear, some way or another, that this is not the
British way of doing business.' He quoted Macaulay: 'The most frightful of all
spectables [is] the strength of civilisation without its mercy.' England's 'reign
in India, or anywhere else,' Churchill continued, 'has never stood on the basis
of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to
try to base ourselves only upon it. The British way of doing things...has
always meant and implied close and effectual cooperation with the people. In
every part of the British Empire that has been our aim.' As for Dyer, Churchill
himself would have preferred to see the general disciplined. Instead, he had
been allowed to resign with no plan for further punishment, 'and to those
moderate and considered conclusions we confidently invite the assent of the
House.'
He sat and they rose crying, 'Hear, hear.' After five more hours of debate
they voted for the government, 247 to 37. Carson's motion for mild approval
of Dyer was defeated 230 to 129. The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote Curzon
that Churchill's speech had been 'unanswerable.' the Times called it
'amazingly skilful' and declared that it had 'turned the House (or so it seemed)
completely round...It was not only a brilliant speech, but one that
persauded and made the result certain.' Winston, the editorial concluded, had
'never been heard to greater advantage.'
An E-mail received queries the basic accuracy of the following statement:
- "The Guardians of the Golden Temple enrolled him [Dyer] in the Brotherhood of Sikhs."
This above statement is uncited in William Manchester's book as to its
source. Some other websites stating the above seem to have
plagerised Manchester's book without acknowledgement(?) and are not
indepedent sources.
As per the above query:
Subject: Re: Amritsar Massacre Speech
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:41:42 -0600
"it does not make any sense for the Sikh leaders to honor Dyer since
most of the people killed that day were Sikh, and the person who
assassinated" . . . Sir Michael O'Dwyer (Governor of the Punjab at
the time of the massacre)] . . "eventually, Udham Singh, was also a
Sikh."
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