During his two-day visit to India, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been faceing calls to apologise for Pal-Dadhvav -- a colonial-era massacre -- 100 years after about 1,200 people were killed for protesting against imperial rule.
The incident had happened in Gujarat and also happens to be where Johnson landed on Thursday.
According to Indian historians, the Pal-Dadhvav massacre took place on March 7, 1922, in the Pal-Chitariya and Dadhvaav villages of Sabarkantha district in Gujarat. Around 2,000 tribal people had gathered -- led by social reformer Motilal Tejawat -- to protest against the land revenue tax imposed on the peasants by the British.
The Gujarat government stated that British Major HG Sutton ordered his troops to open fire at the protestors. "Like a battlefield, the entire area was filled with corpses," it said. Two wells, it added, were "overflowing with bodies," the government stated in a release as it observed 100 years of the incident on March 7, 2022.
The government had also called it a massacre “bigger than the Jallianwala Bagh”. In fact, the state's official float at this year's annual Republic Day parade depicted the killings as the "untold story of bravery and sacrifice of the tribals," it said in a statement that put the death toll at 1,200.
The tableau of #Gujarat highlights the story of the tribal freedom fighters of Pal Dadhvav in Sabarkantha.Related stories
#RepublicDay pic.twitter.com/a6nJ0ESEQ9
— Dr. Rutvij Patel (@DrRutvij) January 22, 2022
The tableau featured a seven-foot statue of Tejawat, and another of British officers, including Sutton shooting at the tribals.
British PM Boris Johnson -- who has been assailed by controversy over Downing Street parties during the coronavirus pandemic -- is yet to comment on the incident.
"It was the British rule at the time when these killings happened so, if the British PM is coming here, he must apologise," Tejawat's grandson Mahendra told AFP.
"My grandfather was only running a campaign for the poor, harmless and illiterate tribals. He must express regret if he feels what happened to the defenceless tribals was wrong," said the 77-year-old.
But Arun Vaghela, head of Gujarat University's history department, has little expectation the British prime minister would address the issue.
He has carried out field research at the site and said even 20 years ago residents were still finding old bullets lodged in trees and skeletons in deep wells, into which people had jumped to try and escape.
"The British records only show 40 to 50 deaths -- but when does any killer government, British or otherwise, ever truly reveal and acknowledge the number of people it has killed?"
Media reports say some of the protesters were armed and may have fired first, and that British authorities put the number of dead at 22.
According to Vaghela's figures, the toll is greater than the far better known Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919, when between 379 and 1,000 people were killed, which overshadowed a state visit by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to India in 1997.
(With inputs from AFP)
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