Chimanlal Setalvad didn’t give clear chit to Gen Dyer for Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath: Historians
9 min readBy PTI
NEW DELHI: Activist Teesta Setalvad’s great-grandfather Chimanlal Setalvad, a member of the Hunter Commission probing the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath, was not celebration to the panel’s verdict and gave a dissenting judgment holding Gen Reginald Dyer accountable, say historians.
Social media posts, with 1000’s of likes and retweets, lately claimed Chimanlal Setalvad, one of many three Indians on the seven-member panel, was amongst those that gave a clear chit to Dyer for his actions that fateful April 13, 1919 day.
But that’s not true, countered historian Chaman Lal.
“The Hunter Commission had British as well as Indian members. The Indian members gave a separate dissenting report in which they blamed not only Dyer but also Michael O’Dwyer — then lieutenant governor of Punjab — for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre,” Lal instructed PTI.
“The Indian members report, called the ‘minority report’, was a very strongly worded one,” Lal added.
He careworn that Setalvad, a “learned member of the Hunter Commission”, didn’t give a “clean chit” to the perpetrators of the Amritsar bloodbath.
British historian Kim Wagner’s 2019 e book “Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre” backs Lal’s submission.
It says the minority report criticised Dyer’s motion “more strongly” than the bulk report.
Quoting from the minority report, it says the Indian members described the firing on the Jallianwala Bagh as “inhuman and un-British”, even evaluating it to the atrocities by German army officers in Belgium and France in 1914.
The subject of the Hunter Commission and Setalvad’s position got here again into the highlight with a number of verified social media accounts, together with that of RSS-affiliated journal ‘Organiser Weekly’ and senior journalist Kanchan Gupta, attacking him.
“Did you know? Fraud activist #TeestaSetalvad is great-granddaughter of Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad. C.H.Setalvad was a member of the #HunterCommission’ on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Hunter Commission gave a clean chit to General Dyer who ordered the firing on civilians,” tweeted Organiser Weekly.
READ HERE | India rejects UN rights official’s comment on Teesta Setalvad’s arrest
An identical put up, tweeted by Kanchan Gupta, at present a senior advisor within the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, generated virtually 9,200 likes and over 4,250 retweets.
The posts adopted the arrest of Teesta Setalvad in June for allegedly submitting false proof within the 2002 Gujarat riots case.
A 100 yrs in the past, a brute firing on near 2,000 peaceable protesters, by d ‘Butcher of Punjab’ Dyer uncovered d designs of a colonial regime. How mch hve police attitudes been made accountable? Jagat Narain Singh, Sultan Ahmed & Chimanlal Setalvad fild the Minority Rep (Hunter Com) pic.twitter.com/14YFnTeKmp
— Teesta Setalvad (@TeestaSetalvad) April 13, 2019
On April 13, 1919, lots of of people that had gathered at Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh to stage a peaceable protest towards the Rowlatt Act, which granted the colonial administration repressive powers, have been gunned down by British forces led by Gen Dyer.
Though the precise dying toll continues to be disputed, official figures put the variety of folks killed at 379 and wounded at over 1,200.
The 4 British members on the Hunter Commission have been George C Rankin, Walter Francis Rice, Sir George de Symons Barrow and Thomas Smith.
The Indian members have been Chimanlal Setalvad, Pandit Jagat Narayan and Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Khan.
The panel’s submissions have been break up right into a majority and a minority report, which was signed by the three Indian members.
On October 14, 1919, the federal government of India introduced the formation of the ‘Disorders Inquiry Committee’ to research the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath.
ALSO READ | ‘Bogus and baseless’: Congress on BJP cost that Sonia was behind Teesta Setalvad’s marketing campaign towards Modi
The Committee was later known as the Hunter Commission after its chairman Lord William Hunter.
“We feel that Dyer, by adopting an inhuman and un-British method of dealing with subjects of His Majesty the King Emperor, has done great disservice to the interest of British rule in India,” Wagner says within the e book, quoting from the minority report.
The e book additionally says eminent jurist Chimanlal’s “provocative questioning” resulted in Dyer making “self-damaging statements”.
Citing an instance from the Disorders Inquiry Committee report, it says Dyer’s stunning admission of opening fireplace with machine weapons if the passage was huge sufficient to permit the armoured vehicles to go contained in the Jallianwala Bagh was in reply to Setalvad’s query.
The e book additionally throws mild on an “unpleasant incident” that occurred between Setalvad and Lord Hunter, additional proving that the Indian and British members of the Commission weren’t on the identical web page.
The incident described by Setalvad in his autobiography “Recollections and Reflections” — and produced in Wagner’s e book — describes Hunter shedding his mood at Setalvad and telling him, “They (Setalvad and his Indian colleagues) want to drive the British out of the country.”
Setalvad replied, “It is perfectly legitimate for Indians to be free of foreign rule and Independence can be accomplished by mutual understanding and goodwill. The driving out process will only become necessary if the British are represented in this country by people as short-sighted and intolerant as yourself.”
After this, although below the identical roof, we, the Indian members, ceased to speak to Lord Hunter,” the e book says, quoting from Setalvad’s autobiography.
READ HERE | Jallianwala Bagh: Kim Wagner on why there was nothing uniquely ‘evil’ about General Dyer
In truth, in line with the e book, the minority report of the Hunter Commission was “precisely similar” to the non-official enquiry committee report of the Congress, which had Motilal Nehru, CR Das, Abbas Tyabji, M.R.Jayakar and Mahatma Gandhi as its members. It additionally underscored that not like the bulk report, the minority report had blamed Dyer for not attending to the wounded.”
“The Minority took a graver view of his (Dyer) responsibility and condemned his neglect as brutal and inhuman,” it added.
Chimanlal Setalvad’s great-granddaughter Teesta Setalvad is a Mumbai-based journalist-turned-rights activist.
She runs the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, fashioned after the 2002 Gujarat riots to offer help to the victims.
MC Setalvad, India’s first attorney-general, was her grandfather.
The declare that Chimanlal Setalvad, a member of the Hunter Commission arrange in 1919 to probe the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath, gave a “clean chit” to Gen Reginald Dyer is ‘deceptive’.
NEW DELHI: Activist Teesta Setalvad’s great-grandfather Chimanlal Setalvad, a member of the Hunter Commission probing the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath, was not celebration to the panel’s verdict and gave a dissenting judgment holding Gen Reginald Dyer accountable, say historians.
Social media posts, with 1000’s of likes and retweets, lately claimed Chimanlal Setalvad, one of many three Indians on the seven-member panel, was amongst those that gave a clear chit to Dyer for his actions that fateful April 13, 1919 day.
But that’s not true, countered historian Chaman Lal.
“The Hunter Commission had British as well as Indian members. The Indian members gave a separate dissenting report in which they blamed not only Dyer but also Michael O’Dwyer — then lieutenant governor of Punjab — for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre,” Lal instructed PTI.
“The Indian members report, called the ‘minority report’, was a very strongly worded one,” Lal added.
He careworn that Setalvad, a “learned member of the Hunter Commission”, didn’t give a “clean chit” to the perpetrators of the Amritsar bloodbath.
British historian Kim Wagner’s 2019 e book “Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre” backs Lal’s submission.
It says the minority report criticised Dyer’s motion “more strongly” than the bulk report.
Quoting from the minority report, it says the Indian members described the firing on the Jallianwala Bagh as “inhuman and un-British”, even evaluating it to the atrocities by German army officers in Belgium and France in 1914.
The subject of the Hunter Commission and Setalvad’s position got here again into the highlight with a number of verified social media accounts, together with that of RSS-affiliated journal ‘Organiser Weekly’ and senior journalist Kanchan Gupta, attacking him.
“Did you know? Fraud activist #TeestaSetalvad is great-granddaughter of Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad. C.H.Setalvad was a member of the #HunterCommission’ on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Hunter Commission gave a clean chit to General Dyer who ordered the firing on civilians,” tweeted Organiser Weekly.
READ HERE | India rejects UN rights official’s comment on Teesta Setalvad’s arrest
An identical put up, tweeted by Kanchan Gupta, at present a senior advisor within the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, generated virtually 9,200 likes and over 4,250 retweets.
The posts adopted the arrest of Teesta Setalvad in June for allegedly submitting false proof within the 2002 Gujarat riots case.
A 100 yrs in the past, a brute firing on near 2,000 peaceable protesters, by d ‘Butcher of Punjab’ Dyer uncovered d designs of a colonial regime. How mch hve police attitudes been made accountable? Jagat Narain Singh, Sultan Ahmed & Chimanlal Setalvad fild the Minority Rep (Hunter Com) pic.twitter.com/14YFnTeKmp
— Teesta Setalvad (@TeestaSetalvad) April 13, 2019
On April 13, 1919, lots of of people that had gathered at Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh to stage a peaceable protest towards the Rowlatt Act, which granted the colonial administration repressive powers, have been gunned down by British forces led by Gen Dyer.
Though the precise dying toll continues to be disputed, official figures put the variety of folks killed at 379 and wounded at over 1,200.
The 4 British members on the Hunter Commission have been George C Rankin, Walter Francis Rice, Sir George de Symons Barrow and Thomas Smith.
The Indian members have been Chimanlal Setalvad, Pandit Jagat Narayan and Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Khan.
The panel’s submissions have been break up right into a majority and a minority report, which was signed by the three Indian members.
On October 14, 1919, the federal government of India introduced the formation of the ‘Disorders Inquiry Committee’ to research the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath.
ALSO READ | ‘Bogus and baseless’: Congress on BJP cost that Sonia was behind Teesta Setalvad’s marketing campaign towards Modi
The Committee was later known as the Hunter Commission after its chairman Lord William Hunter.
“We feel that Dyer, by adopting an inhuman and un-British method of dealing with subjects of His Majesty the King Emperor, has done great disservice to the interest of British rule in India,” Wagner says within the e book, quoting from the minority report.
The e book additionally says eminent jurist Chimanlal’s “provocative questioning” resulted in Dyer making “self-damaging statements”.
Citing an instance from the Disorders Inquiry Committee report, it says Dyer’s stunning admission of opening fireplace with machine weapons if the passage was huge sufficient to permit the armoured vehicles to go contained in the Jallianwala Bagh was in reply to Setalvad’s query.
The e book additionally throws mild on an “unpleasant incident” that occurred between Setalvad and Lord Hunter, additional proving that the Indian and British members of the Commission weren’t on the identical web page.
The incident described by Setalvad in his autobiography “Recollections and Reflections” — and produced in Wagner’s e book — describes Hunter shedding his mood at Setalvad and telling him, “They (Setalvad and his Indian colleagues) want to drive the British out of the country.”
Setalvad replied, “It is perfectly legitimate for Indians to be free of foreign rule and Independence can be accomplished by mutual understanding and goodwill. The driving out process will only become necessary if the British are represented in this country by people as short-sighted and intolerant as yourself.”
After this, although below the identical roof, we, the Indian members, ceased to speak to Lord Hunter,” the e book says, quoting from Setalvad’s autobiography.
READ HERE | Jallianwala Bagh: Kim Wagner on why there was nothing uniquely ‘evil’ about General Dyer
In truth, in line with the e book, the minority report of the Hunter Commission was “precisely similar” to the non-official enquiry committee report of the Congress, which had Motilal Nehru, CR Das, Abbas Tyabji, M.R.Jayakar and Mahatma Gandhi as its members. It additionally underscored that not like the bulk report, the minority report had blamed Dyer for not attending to the wounded.”
“The Minority took a graver view of his (Dyer) responsibility and condemned his neglect as brutal and inhuman,” it added.
Chimanlal Setalvad’s great-granddaughter Teesta Setalvad is a Mumbai-based journalist-turned-rights activist.
She runs the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, fashioned after the 2002 Gujarat riots to offer help to the victims.
MC Setalvad, India’s first attorney-general, was her grandfather.
The declare that Chimanlal Setalvad, a member of the Hunter Commission arrange in 1919 to probe the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath, gave a “clean chit” to Gen Reginald Dyer is ‘deceptive’.
