---
title: "Jallianwala Bagh Massacre: 1919 Amritsar | Model Diplomat"
description: "The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre refers to the 1919 killing of unarmed Indians by British troops in Amritsar, a pivotal event in India's struggle for independence."
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/glossary/jallianwala-bagh-massacre"
---

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Model Diplomat Research Team · Last reviewed June 22, 2026

TL;DR

- The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was the killing of unarmed Indians by British troops in Amritsar on 13 April 1919 under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer.
- What legal authority enabled the events leading to the massacre?
- What did the Hunter Commission conclude about General Dyer?
- How many people were killed?
- Has the British government formally apologised?

[Civil Service & Diplomatic Exams](https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/civil-services/glossary)Updated June 22, 2026

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was the killing of unarmed Indians by British troops in Amritsar on 13 April 1919 under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer.

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## Timeline

1. 13 April 1919

   The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was the killing of unarmed Indians by British troops in Amritsar on under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer.

2. 10 April 1919

   The proximate sequence began with the arrest and deportation on of two local Congress leaders, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal.

## Positions at a glance

### Indian National Congress

The troops fired for approximately ten minutes, discharging some 1,650 rounds directed deliberately at the densest portions of the crowd and at exits where people attempted to flee. Many died crushed at the walls or by jumping into a well within the garden, into which scores of bodies were later recovered. Dyer ceased fire only when ammunition ran low, withdrew without arranging medical aid, and the subsequent curfew prevented relatives from reaching the wounded. Official British figures placed the dead at 379 with about 1,200 wounded; the Indian National Congress's own inquiry estimated upwards of 1,000 killed. Dyer's actions formed part of a broader campaign of humiliation, including the notorious "crawling order" on the lane where Sherwood was attacked and public floggings, conducted under the martial law subsequently imposed across Punjab.

### All-India Muslim League

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April 1919 was a defining rupture in the relationship between Britain and colonial India, arising directly from the wartime repression apparatus the Raj refused to dismantle in peacetime. Its legal scaffolding was the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, popularly the Rowlatt Act, which extended the emergency detention powers of the Defence of India Act, 1915, into peacetime—authorising imprisonment without trial, in-camera proceedings, and suspension of habeas corpus. The Act, passed by the Imperial Legislative Council over the unanimous opposition of its Indian members (three of whom resigned, including Mohammad Ali Jinnah), provoked Mohandas Gandhi's first all-India satyagraha. In Punjab, then under Lieutenant-Governor Sir Michael O'Dwyer, agitation was met with escalating force, and on 11 April the city of Amritsar was effectively handed to military control under Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer.

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In 2019, on the massacre's centenary, UK Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons the Jallianwala Bagh killings were a "shameful scar" on British Indian history, expressing regret but stopping short of a formal apology.

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