‘Calculated to Strike Terror’: The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle of Colonial Violence

Abstract

Coinciding with widespread unrest in Ireland and in Egypt, the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 is usually examined in terms of the radically transformed political landscape of the British Empire following the First World War. The Amritsar Massacre is thus commonly seen to mark the beginning of the process that came to its conclusion with Indian independence in 1947. This article suggests that the nature of colonial violence of the twentieth century, however, was not simply a function of, or coterminous with, imperial decline after 1918 as Britain sought to hold on to its empire by all means possible. Rather than being the beginning of the end, as it were, the violence of the Amritsar Massacre might better be understood as the final stage of a much longer process. With more than a passing resemblance to a firing-squad on a massive scale, the logic that informed the massacre harked back to the early days of the Raj and the spectacles of public executions that the British made such widespread use of during times of crisis. This article makes two distinct but interrelated points: how to ‘read’ colonial violence, and how to ‘read’ a historical event in the context of the longue durée. These points are connected in that it is argued that only by recognising the extent to which an event such as the Amritsar Massacre was produced by its historical precedents, rather than just historical contingencies, that we can begin to understand the meaning of its violence. Where most studies of the Amritsar Massacre focus on its aftermath � its political impact and the public debates and legal issues it raised – this article examines the structural dynamics of the event itself as a particularly illuminating instance of colonial violence.

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