It is said that by the evening of 9 April, orders banishing Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew from the district had already reached the Deputy Commissioner. However, he wasn’t ready to carry out the orders because he was convinced there was no danger of riots or disturbances in Amritsar. People had been staging peaceful demonstrations to express their discontent, but there was no question of any sort of violence. I am telling you what I saw with my own eyes. It was the festival of Ramnavmi on 9 April. As always, a procession was carried out but nowhere did anyone take one objectionable step against the wishes of the administration. But, brother, Sir Michael was a mad man. He refused to listen to the deputy commissioner. He was convinced that the political leaders of the day were hell bent upon overturning the imperial rule at the Mahatma’s behest. And these same leaders were part of a grand conspiracy behind all the strikes and processions.
The news of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew’s banishment spread like wildfire. People were sore and heartsick. They were gripped by the fear that something terrible could happen anytime. But, brother, there was no stopping their commitment to the cause. Shops were shut down and the city looked like a graveyard. But in the stillness of this graveyard lay a clamour. When news of Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew’s arrest reached them, thousands of people gathered so that together they could go to meet the deputy commissioner and petition him to revoke the orders banishing their beloved leaders. But the time, brother, was not right for receiving petitions. A tyrant like Sir Michael was the ruler. Forget accepting the petition, he decreed that the crowd that had assembled was unconstitutional and illegal!
Amritsar — the Amritsar that had once been the greatest hub of the Independence struggle, the city that had proudly borne the wound of Jallianwala Bagh on its chest like a medal — look at the state of that city today! Anyhow, let that pass. It pains my heart. People say that the English are responsible for what happened here in this sacred city five years ago. Maybe so, brother, but if you ask me the truth, I will say that it is our own hands that are sullied in the blood that was spilt here. Anyhow, let that pass.
The deputy commissioner’s bungalow was in the Civil Lines. All the big officers and their self-important toadies lived in this exclusive part of the city. If you have been to Amritsar, then you would know that a bridge joins the city and the Civil Lines, and you need to cross this bridge to come to that secluded haven where the city’s elite have built their piece of heaven on earth.
As the crowd surged towards the gate of the City Hall, they found white soldiers mounted on horses patrolling the bridge. Still, the crowd did not stop. Brother, I was part of that procession. I can’t describe the passion that raged in every breast. Yet every single man was unarmed; they did not even have a stick among them. They had left their homes and spilled out on to the streets with the simple desire to take their single request to the commissioner to free Dr Satyapal and Dr Kitchlew without imposing conditions of any sort. The crowd moved towards the bridge without stopping. The white soldiers opened fire. It caused a stampede. The soldiers were no more than twenty or so; the crowd ran into thousands. Brother, you cannot imagine the panic that even a stray bullet can cause. The chaos that followed had to be seen to be believed! Some fell to the bullets; some were wounded in the stampede.
A dirty water drain ran on the left. A push from the crowd and I fell into it. When the hail of bullets dried up, I climbed out of the drain and saw that the crowd had dispersed. The wounded lay strewn on the road and the white soldiers stood about laughing and cracking jokes. Brother, I cannot describe the state of my mind at that moment. I suspect I was not entirely in control of my senses. I certainly was not fully conscious of anything around me when I had fallen into the drain. By the time I came out, gradually, very gradually, the events that had occurred began to take shape, form and coherence.
In the distance, I could hear shouts — as though a lot of people were speaking very loudly and angrily together. I crossed the drain, skirted the grave of the Blessed Zahira, and reached the gate of the Town Hall. There, I found a group of 30–40 excited youth hurling stones at the gate. When the glass panes in the gate fell in slivers on the road, one youth said to another, ‘Let’s go and break the statue of the Queen.’
Another said, ‘No, no, let’s burn the kotwali instead.’
A third said, ‘And all the banks, too!’
A fourth said, ‘Wait! What good will that do? Instead, let’s go and kill the white soldiers on the bridge.’
I recognized the fourth man. It was Thaila Kanjar. His real name was Mohammad Tufail, but everyone knew him as Thaila Kanjar. He had been born from the womb of a prostitute. And a good-for-nothing he was, too! He had begun drinking and gambling while still very young. He had two sisters — Shamshad and Almas — two of the prettiest prostitutes of their time. Shamshad could sing very well. Rich aristocrats would flock from miles around to hear her. The sisters despaired of their brother and his feckless ways. Everyone in the city knew that they had given him the boot. Yet, somehow or the other, he managed to extract enough money from them to get by. And not just get by, he ate well and drank well. In fact, he was known to be quite a dandy. He was a raconteur and an aesthete. He knew how to spin a tale and crack a joke. There was none of the bawdiness of someone from his ‘trade’. A tall man with a strong well-built body, he had a finely-etched face.
The excited youth paid no heed to his words and headed towards the Queen’s statue. Once again, Thaila Kanjar said, ‘Don’t fritter away your enthusiasm. Come with me. Come, let us go and kill those whites. They have taken the lives of our innocent people and injured them. By God, if we want we can wring their necks. Come! Come with me!’
Some of the young men had already begun to walk away; others stopped. When Thaila began to move towards the bridge, they followed him. I said to myself, why are these poor hapless young men walking towards certain death? I called out to Thaila from my hiding place beside a fountain, ‘Don’t go. Why are you bent upon killing yourself and these poor innocents?’
Thaila heard me and laughed a strange laugh. He said, ‘Thaila only wants to prove that he is not afraid of bullets.’ Then he turned towards the crowd and said, ‘You may turn back if you are scared.’
How could advancing steps retreat at a time like this? That, too, when the man leading them was walking bravely in the face of extreme danger? When Thaila increased his pace, his companions had to perforce do the same.
It wasn’t a great distance from the gate of the Town Hall to the bridge — it must have been no more than 60 or 70 yards. Thaila was leading the pack. Two mounted white soldiers stood 15 or 20 steps from the railings on either side of the bridge. They opened fire by the time Thaila, shouting slogans, reached the mouth of the bridge. I had thought he would collapse in a heap there and then but I looked up and saw he was alive and still walking. His companions had fled by now. He turned around and shouted, ‘Don’t run away! Come with me!’
He had turned around, facing me, when there was another fire. He turned towards the white soldiers, his hand moved along his back. Brother, I shouldn’t have seen anything but I can tell you I saw bloodstains on his white shirt. He moved swiftly, like a wounded lion. The sound of another bullet rang out. He tottered a bit, then controlled himself and moved surefootedly towards one of the mounted soldiers. In the blink of an eye, the horse’s back was empty. The white soldier lay on the ground and Thaila was grappling on top of him. The other white soldier, who was mounted on the other horse close by, got over his initial stupefaction, reined in his panic-stricken horse and opened a volley of shots. I don’t know what happened thereafter. I fainted and fell down beside the fountain.