E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesQuestion: Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow the armored cars to goin, would you have opened fire with the machine-guns?''Answer: I think, probably, yes'.‘When examined before us' the Hunter Report asserts, 'he (Dyer) explained thathis mind was made up as he came along is motor car; if his orders againstholding a meeting were eyed he was going to fire at once.''I had made up my mind,' Dyer testified, 'I would do all men to death...'General Dyer's own dispatch to his military superior, which is quoted in theHunter Report with his italics, said. 'I fired and continued to fire until thecrowd dispersed and I consider this the least amount of firing which couldproduce the necessary effect it was my duty to produce if I was to justify myaction. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but oneproducing a sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only onthose who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab. Therecould be no question of undue severity.'The Hunter Commission decided that this was unfortunately a mistakenconception of his duty.' It also found that 'in continuing to fire for so long as hedid it appears to us that General Dyer committed a grave error.’Moreover, the Report notes that 'General Dyer's action in not making provisionfor the wounded at Jallianwalla Bagh has been made the subject of criticism.'Dyer said at the hearings, 'I was ready to help them if they applied.'Sir Michael O'Dwyer, British Acting Governor of the Punjab, approved of Dyer'saction and referred to the disturbances as 'rebellion'. The Hunter Commissioncommented: 'The action taken by General Dyer has also been described byothers as having saved the situation in the Punjab and having averted arebellion on a scale similar to the Mutiny. It does not, however, appear to uspossible to draw this conclusion, particularly in view of the fact that aconspiracy to overthrow British power had not been formed prior to theoutbreaks.'www.mkgandhi.org Page 207