So when we start digging past the colonial era propaganda along these lines.......
.....we find an infinitely more murky reality emerging. One we really need to grasp, especially in this day and age.
Colonel Dyer arrived at the Bagh with a group of 50 troops, including 25 Gurkhas of 1/9 Gurkha Rifles (1st battalion, 9th Gurkha Rifles), Pathans and Baluch and 59th Sindh Rifles. Fifty of them were armed with .303 Lee–Enfield bolt-action rifles.
Lee Enfield .303 Bolt-action rifle.
Lee Enfield .303 bullets.
It would've been even worse!
After Mr. Justice Rankin had questioned Dyer, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad questioned him.
Here's how the conversation unfolded:
Chimanlal Setalvad: ‘You took two armoured cars with you?’
Dyer: ‘Yes.’
Chimanlal Setalvad: ‘Those cars had machine guns?’
Dyer: ‘Yes.’
Chimanlal Setalvad: ‘And when you took them you meant to use the machine guns against the crowd, did you?”
Dyer: ‘If necessary. If the necessity arose, and I was attacked, or anything else like that, I presume I would have used them.’
Chimanlal Setalvad: ‘When you arrived there you were not able to take the armoured cars in because the passage was too narrow?’
Dyer: ‘Yes.’
ਅਬ ਮੋਰੋ ਨਾਚਨੋ ਰਹੋ ॥
Now, my dancing is over.
ਨਚਿਐ ਟਪਿਐ ਭਗਤਿ ਨ ਹੋਇ ॥
By dancing and jumping, devotional worship is not performed.
ਮਾਇਆ ਮੋਹੁ ਇਸੁ ਮਨਹਿ ਨਚਾਏ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਕਪਟੁ ਦੁਖੁ ਪਾਵਣਿਆ ॥੪॥
The love of Maya makes this mind dance, and the deceit within makes people suffer in pain. ||4||
ਮਾਇਆ ਕਾਰਣਿ ਪਿੜ ਬੰਧਿ ਨਾਚੈ ਦੂਜੈ ਭਾਇ ਦੁਖੁ ਪਾਵਣਿਆ ॥੬॥
For the sake of Maya, they set the stage and dance, but they are in love with duality, and they obtain only sorrow. ||6||
ਰੰਗਿ ਰਤਾ ਨਚੈ ਨੰਗੁ ॥
they delight in their pleasures, and dance about shamelessly.
ਨਚਿ ਨਚਿ ਟਪਹਿ ਬਹੁਤੁ ਦੁਖੁ ਪਾਵਹਿ ॥
they dance and dance and jump all around, but they only suffer in terrible pain
Recommended Posts