Buckingham’s woeful timetable of apologies
Today the queen of England placed a wreath on the memorial of martyrs of Irish freedom struggle, and also observed silence at stadium where the British soldier killed many Irish people. The same stupid queen and her most inane son, wanted to skip the visit Amritsar to avoid the Jalianwala controversy and of course refused to apologize.
The British parliament believed that such an apology would serve no purpose. Just for those who don’t refer to history so much, Dyer wanted to revenge the attack on two English ladies and as a consequence ordered firing on an unarmed assembly of people that too on Baisakhi, which is a very important festival in the Indian and particularly the Sikh calendar. As a result of the firing, official British estimates claim, 250 people died but the Indian estimates place the number at more than 1000. The number bungling has continued in India since the time of the British and the brown sahibs are still following the gora sahib strategy of manipulating statistics.
The bagh was once owned by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and derives its name from Jalles clan that owned it.
Clearly Dyer was a cold blooded murderer. He was tried in Britain and … Painful to know, he went on record to say that “they deserved it”. Of course there was no remorse. The massacre was followed by martial law and a crawling order.
Sympathetic British public raised a purse of £20,000 for poor Dyer. The then Lt Gov of Punjab O Dwyer, condoned his action.
You can blame the Raj, Brig Gen Dyer, Elizabeth or Victoria or who ever. It is all about Indian character. I have always argued, it is all about Indian character. We lack national character. We have no concept of a nation. We lack pride. We don’t attribute too much to national honor. Caste and clan honor yes indeed. Dyer was a brute Britisher with false and exalted notion of duty toward the Union Jack. But the people who followed his orders and fired on the helpless crowd were all Indians. Did not one have the courage of conviction to refuse such an order.
Also, I would like a typical empathetic Indian, hate to call spade a spade and look at it from Elizabeth’s perspective. She has apologized to the Irish people. She apologized to the Maoris of New Zealand. One of our troupe apologized for the “stolen generation” of Australia. Blair apologized for potato famine of Ireland. Where does the poor woman’s woeful timetable of apologies end.
Bhaiji, I guess Indians are extremely RATIONAL PEOPLE (in the sense of economists). They look at immediate gains only. But the problem with is that what is rational at individual level, does not maximize gains of the Game (As Von Nuemann's Game Theory suggests).
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