Lesson Plan 5: Part 3

GIVE OUT the three veterans' quotes from Resource S for different individual pupils to read out when asked.

EXPLAIN that the historian who had interviewed Sikh veterans of the First World War in 1972 found out more than was referred to earlier in the lesson.

ASK a pupil to stand up and read out Resource S: Quote 1, then refer to the bullet points (a summary of the historian's conclusions) on Resource Q: Slide 9.

NOW ask a second pupil to read out Resource S: Quote 2, then refer to the bullet points on Resource Q: Slide 10 and ask a
third pupil to read out Resource S: Quote 3.

LEAD a discussion about whether the information and sources that have just been read out prove that:

  • the way Sikh soldiers saw themselves changed between 1914 and 1918;
  • their relationship with the British had changed or was at least starting to change.

EXPLAIN the following details while displaying the slides indicated from Resource Q at the same time:

  • Slide 11 shows a map of Punjab 1909. After the war in 1919 the British feared a revolt and army mutiny in the north Indian
    province of Punjab. Military law was imposed banning demonstrations although news of the ban did not reach many Indians.
  • Slide 12 shows General Dyer and the Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. On 13 April 1919 near the Golden Temple in Amritsar, General Dyer chose to teach Indians a lesson by deciding to fire on an unarmed crowd gathered in an enclosed area called the Jallianwala Bagh.
  • Slide 13 shows the narrow entrance to the Jallianwala Bagh today. Dyer tried to take machine guns mounted on armoured
    vehicles into the area but could not fit them through the narrow entrances.
  • Slide 14 shows bullets in a wall at the Jallianwala Bagh. Dyer ordered his Indian troops to fire on the crowd (which
    included Sikhs) with rifles, killing hundreds of people (the exact figure may have been a thousand).
  • Slide 15 shows a well in the Jallianwala Bagh. Dyer also ordered his troops to aim their fire at the heaviest part of
    the crowd where people were trying to escape down the narrow exits or by jumping down a well.

This clip from the feature film Gandhi could be shown to illustrate this...

(Note: The filmmaker Richard Attenborough chose to portray the Indian nationalist speaker at the demonstration as a Sikh)

 

LEAD a discussion about the possible effect news of this massacre might have had on Sikh soldiers in the British Indian Army (it shocked the growing home rule movement in India into demanding complete independence and may have encouraged further distrust , suspicion and disaffection towards the British among otherwise loyal Sikh soldiers who had fought bravely during the First World War).

SEE the following links for more academic detail on the Amritsar Massacre:

http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/amritsar-massacre

https://undereveryleaf.wordpress.com/

http://www.historyextra.com/book-review/amritsar-massacre-untold-story-one-fateful-day


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