O’Dwyer ‘overdrive’ swelled rangroot count in Punjab

Vikramdeep Johal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 22

In the years preceding the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which he infamously endorsed, Sir Michael O’Dwyer spearheaded large-scale mobilisation of Punjabi men for duty in World War I. The then Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab province banked on feudal chiefs and rulers of princely states to maximise the number of recruits (‘rangroot’ in local parlance) and keep the wartime coffers flush with funds. He exhorted his loyalists to go for “voluntaryism, if possible, conscription, if necessary”, as per his war speeches, which were first published exactly a century ago and are currently available in a digital avatar.

During one such address in Lahore in May 1918, O’Dwyer said: “The ruling princes and chiefs have given us a lead. Patiala, Jind, Bahawalpur, Kapurthala, Faridkot, Malerkotla – all of whom have already sent splendid contingents of Imperial Service troops to the front – and Chamba have all made noble offers, most of them to double or more than double their fighting forces.”

Singling out then Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh for lavish praise, he had said: “It is doubtless in recognition of the splendid services of Patiala and of the Punjab States that our Premier Chief has been summoned to the Imperial War Conference.”

Ireland-based Pakistani writer Mahmood Awan says conscription (compulsory enlistment) wasn’t officially implemented in undivided Punjab during WWI (1914-18), but O’Dwyer was “brutal” in his pursuit. “He was assisted much beyond his expectations by his local agents. They used all sorts of methods to get the required numbers for the Empire,” observes Awan, whose great-grandfather served in this war. Reeling under poverty, countless farmers took the plunge for the sake of their long-suffering families. If Punjabi film ‘Sajjan Singh Rangroot’ is to be believed, a section of the soldiers even assumed that a British victory would lead to India’s freedom. With a variety of factors at play, the troop contribution of the “country’s sword arm” more than trebled within four years.

“O’Dwyer was accused of browbeating people into joining the Army. I’ve read that the police would surround a village and kidnap the adult males,” says Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich, a Chandigarh-based historian. “Also, whenever there was a rumour of such a swoop, villages used to become deserted, except for the females, very old people and children.”

During his darbars, O’Dwyer repeatedly invoked the famed martial spirit of the Punjabis with the express aim of boosting enrolment. The Lieutenant Governor, who enjoyed sweeping powers, publicly lauded and rewarded the leading recruiters and admonished the laggards. Citing the 1897 Battle of Saragarhi to salute Sikh valour and loyalty, he asserted with rhetorical flair: “Wherever the British flag flies, the Sikh soldier is there to uphold it.” Last but not least, he raised the bogey of a German invasion to convince the natives that they were fighting not only for the country and the King, but also to “safeguard their own homes”.

Britain and its allies went on to win the “War to End All Wars”, in which more than 74,000 Indian soldiers were killed (about half of them were from Punjab, as per Mahmood Awan’s estimate). The toll included around 10,000 Sikhs, according to Amandeep Madra, Chair of the UK Punjab Heritage Association (the Punjabi Muslim casualties were most probably even higher).

However, just five months after the guns fell silent in Europe and elsewhere, the Jallianwala Bagh carnage happened. Brig Gen Reginald Dyer’s troops opened fire on an unlawful assembly, killing 379 unarmed civilians and leaving over 1,200 injured, as per official figures. The incident caused a furore in India and the UK, but O’Dwyer justified the drastic military action, presumably on the grounds that it had quelled the unrest -- triggered by the draconian Rowlatt Act -- and scuttled a violent conspiracy to destabilise Punjab.

“O’Dwyer’s support for General Dyer would prove deeply embarrassing for the Government of India, but given the situation at the time, his response was reasonable,” says Dr Nick Lloyd, Reader in Military and Imperial History, King’s College, London.

Ironically, the staunch imperialist’s validation of the bloodbath in the holy city came barely a year after he had paid a glowing tribute to Amritsar’s heroism and patriotic zeal. It was his insistence on defending the “indefensible” that sowed the seeds of his assassination – at the hands of a massacre survivor named Udham Singh.

‘Hall-mark’ of vengeance

Rare footage from the 1920s, showing Sir Michael O’Dwyer and then Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh greeting each other at London’s Caxton Hall, is doing the rounds on social media. Incidentally, it was inside this building that Udham Singh gunned down O’Dwyer on March 13, 1940, in retaliation for the Jallianwala Bagh killings. Udham Singh, who was serving as a water-carrier on the fateful day in 1919, was found guilty of murder and executed on July 31, 1940.