NEW DELHI: David Cameron's statement on the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, marking it as a "deeply shameful event" in British history but stopping short of a full apology, has not impressed historians.
Mushirul Hasan, directorgeneral of the National Archives, says, "The present generation is not necessarily responsible for mistakes of the past. By apologizing for what General Dyer did, Cameron has set a bad precedent. Now others will demand apologies for past acts of belligerence. There'll be no end to this. The past should be interpreted in that context, not outside it. Such an apology, which obviously has other motives, is not necessarily a good thing."
Writer William Dalrymple agrees for different reasons. "It's meaningless to apologize for what you have no control over. It makes sense if the Congress apologized for 1984, Modi for Gujarat, Blair for Iraq. It was actually a good move for Cameron not to apologize fully — that would've seemed very cynical when you've arrived with a trade delegation. But what Cameron can do is teach the British more about the empire. My children at school have learnt about Tudor England, the Nazis, wars in Europe, but nothing in comparison about the empire. The British are simply unaware of the empire's good — like the Indian civil service's integrity — or its bad, like the terrifying killings of 1858 in north India, compared to which Jallianwala Bagh was a sideshow. The British don't know enough about a period which was much longer and more radically important in its global effects than Nazi Germany."
Current efforts to revamp history-teaching aren't good enough, Dalrymple feels. "I believe Cameron's interested in getting Niall Ferguson on this. Niall's a thorough historian and a very clever and amusing gadfly — but he's also the most pro-empire voice in academia. We need more neutral efforts to educate the British, so they can squarely face the bad parts of this period."
Historian Dilip Simeon feels the British are not the only ones who should confront an unjust past. "The fact that it took nearly 100 years for a British PM to apologize is a commentary in itself," Simeon says. "But we're in no position to look down on the Brits. Countless Indians have been killed in communal riots but no one's ever passed a resolution of regret in Parliament. I take a dim view of British sentiments now but I also ask — how long will it take us?"
Jallianwala Bagh massacre: A timeline
Jallianwala Bagh massacre: David Cameron's apology that wasn't?
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Jallianwala Bagh massacre: David Cameron's apology that wasn't?
