After 106 yrs, Jallianwala Bagh martyrs’ authenticity still awaited

Even though precisely 106 years have passed since the barbarous Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the validity of the martyrs is still missing from the public domain.

The list of the dead and injured prepared by the British then for the purpose of awarding compensation to the kin of the martyrs and to the injured and other available lists had several discrepancies.

On January 25, 2021, when the Capt Amarinder-led state government had set up a “parallel” centenary memorial park at Anand Park in Ranjit Avenue, 6 km from the original site near the Golden Temple, Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) was entrusted with the task of identifying the martyrs by setting up Jallianwala Bagh Chair.

The Departments of Tourism and Cultural Affairs and Public Relations, Punjab, along with the Amritsar administration, were assigned the task of preparing the list of the martyrs in collaboration with Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) and the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust.

Prof Amandeep Bal, head of the research team of the Jallianwala Bagh Chair, and Dr Dilbag Singh completed the research project in April 2024, commissioned by the Punjab Government to identify, verify and document the number of dead and wounded in the tragedy.

In a comparative study carried out on a door-to-door basis across Punjab, Haryana and HP, researchers met the claimants and verified their supportive documents.

The first list, prepared by the British government in 1921, had mentioned that 381 persons had died, which was also documented in the National Archives. The second one, which was unverified and called a “kutcha” list, was prepared by the Amritsar DC’s office in 2008 having a figure of 501 with many marked as “unidentified”. Later, it was pruned to 492 due to duplication and “officially” posted on the Amritsar administration.

The GNDU’s research was with the reference to both lists — one prepared by the British government and the other by the government.

Observing that the government’s list (with the DC office) which speaks of 501 martyrs had several blank spaces, Prof Bal said, “Besides, rectifying the duplication of names, we accepted the ones who were already authenticated by the government. So, we took up the compensation files which were somehow overlooked. During our research, we could additionally authenticate 57 more names. The GNDU’s research now stands at 434 with names and villages of martyrs”, she said.

Punjab