Book Title: Gandhi And Jainism
Author(s): Shugan C Jain
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

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Page 135
________________ They could search and arrest without a warrant, and the confined person had no right to a lawyer. After the Government introduced the two bills to implement the recommendations of the Rowlatt Committee in February 1919, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Madan Mohan Malaviya resigned from the committee. Gandhi called a conference and was chosen president of the Satyagraha Sabha to organize a campaign. My.Ex., op.cit, pp.433-5 The Jallianwala Bagh massacre also known as the Amritsar massacre—was a seminal event in the British rule of India. On April 13, 1919, a group of nonviolent Sikh and other protesters, along with Baishakhi pilgrims, had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh garden in Amritsar, Punjab. On the orders of Brigadier General E.H. Dyer, the army fired on the crowd for ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few open gates through which people were trying to run out. The dead numbered between 370 and 1000. The "brutality stunned the entire nation” resulting in a "wrenching loss of faith in Britain's good intentions. "The ineffective inquiry and the initial accolades for Dyer by the House of Lords fuelled widespread anger, leading to the Non-cooperation Movement of 1920-22 My.Ex., p.436 “As things stood, to break the order against my entry into the Punjab could, it seemed to me, hardly be classed as civil disobedience, for I did not see around me the kind of peaceful atmosphere that I wanted. ... for me, therefore, to offer civil disobedience at such a time, even if it were possible, would have been like fanning the flame. I therefore decided not to proceed to the Punjab in spite of the suggestion of the friends.” [Part V, Ch. XXXIV of the 'Autobiography ] Gandhi called for Non cooperation movement due to colonial oppression exemplified in the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre, economic hardships to the common citizenry as a significant portion of Indian wealth was exported to Britain, as well jobs of Indian artisans as British factory-made goods replaced handmade goods. Among Indians, there was also a popular resentment over Indian soldiers dying during World War I while 23 Pg.112 | Gandhi & Jainism

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