13 April 1919: The Amritsar Massacre—Against the background of a hartal (more than a general strike, a total shutdown of all commercial activity) called by Gandhi on 6 April that had turned violent in some places, the Raj authorities feared an uprising in the Punjab, a repeat of the Mutiny of 1857; Indian Army troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd, killed at least 379 & wounding 1,100-plus.
Commentary: The massacre was dramatically presented in the motion picture Gandhi.
Lest we forget.
Bonus! Song o' The Explorers' Club
The Ska Vengers, "Frank Brazil" from XX (The Last Angry Man)
Commentary: "Frank Brazil" tells the story of Udham Singh (1899-1940, A.K.A. "Ram Mohammad Singh Azad"), an Indian terrorist who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer, aged seventy-five, in 1940. In 1919, a younger O'Dwyer had been lieutenant governor of Punjab under the Raj & had endorsed the Amritsar Massacre as a "correct action." Singh's assassination of O'Dwyer, coming twenty-one years after Amritsar, was not a crime of passion, but had been plotted for many years. In Singh's journals from 1939 & 1940, O'Dwyer is often referenced as O'Dyer, meaning Singh might well have conflated him with Reginald Dyer, the commander on the ground at Amritsar. Of course, as a terrorist, Singh had little regard for human life; we know his attitude from the facts that several others, who had nothing at all to do with the Amritsar Massacre, were wounded in the assassination of O'Dwyer & that after his arrest, Singh expressed disappointment that he'd murdered only one person. Mohandas Gandhi called Singh's assassination of O'Dwyer "an act of insanity" & it was also denounced at the time by Jawaharlal Nehru, though later in life, as prime minister of an independent India, Nehru praised Singh's actions. The date of Singh's execution is today observed as holiday in Punjab.
The Ska Vengers' admiration of a murderer like Udham Singh, even under the fig leaf of Indian independence, is at odds with ska's universal call of peace & reconciliation. It also renders laughable & hypocritical the band's critiques of India's current prime minister, Narendra Modi, himself a murderous thug. Because of their hypocritical endorsement of violence The Ska Vengers are not now nor will they ever be a part of SKApril.
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