S1.E8 - Blood and Dust: Amritsar, 1919

With the end of the First World War, India has been promised reform and some form of self government. As the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms are drafted, hardliners within the Government of India write their own law: the Rowlatt Act. Protests erupt across India, mostly peaceful but some violent, and in the Punjab city of Amritsar the British panic. Echoes of the 1857 Mutiny loom large in Anglo-Indian minds, and Brigadier General Reginald Dyer arrives in the city to crush this "rebellion" at Jallianwala Bagh.

Thank you to my expert contributors:

• Kim Wagner, Professor of Global and Imperial History and author of Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre
• Mark Condos, Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History and author of The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, 1849-1935

Thank you to my guest Zack Twamley, host of When Diplomacy Fails.

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