The historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre

‘an essential but unacknowledged strategy of empire’

Abstract

This essay challenges the historiography of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, India. Drawing on colonial and postcolonial source materials, in addition to contemporary discussions and scholarship that places the 1919 events in the context of the longue durée of British colonial violence and historiography, this essay assesses the appropriateness of a potential centenary apology by the British.