The Times of India
Jallianwala Bagh massacre stirs Britain
Rashmee Roshan Lall [ 27 Dec, 2006 1951hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
LONDON: Britain is to teach its schoolchildren about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in an optional curriculum course offered nationally for the first time ever, 87 years after trigger-happy General Dyer ordered a peaceful, unarmed, pro-independence meeting of civilians in Amritsar to be tragically fired upon.
The new curriculum, with its allegedly relativist view of the legacy of the Raj, aims to give British schoolchildren aged 11 to 14 years "valuable insight" into shared, if painful and often controversial aspects of the relationship between India and Britain.
Britain's lead curriculum watchdog said on Wednesday that the course was designed to end in students being able to evaluate different interpretations of the Amritsar massacre.
However, in a deeply cautious, some say derisory, reference to India's own interpretation of events surrounding the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the official guidance warned teachers over 13 pages to monitor web-based resources carefully, as aspects of Indian history are "produced with a heavy bias and may contain materials that could cause offence".
But this caveat has not deflected the storm of criticism swirling around the watchdog agency, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which has been attacked for even daring to include the 1919 massacre in the British history syllabus.
Traditionalists said the decision to teach British schoolchildren about Jallianwala Bagh was a sign that a biased, anti-British interpretation of Empire was acquiring currency.
The decision to teach British pre-pubescent and teenage children the bloodied lessons of history comes nearly two years after the then foreign secretary Jack Straw became the highest-ranking British politician to visit the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, formally to express "shame and sorrow" for "the slaughter" of "so many innocents".
Straw's public mea culpa stood in stark contrast to the mute homage, complete with flowers but sans oral or written apology, tendered by the British Queen at the same site when she visited the memorial in the 50th year of Indian independence.
British historians said the political expression of sorrow by Straw and the Queen's more formal failure to do so, neatly underlined Britain's confused and contradictory feelings towards the Raj, nearly 60 years after the empire crumbled.
Chris McGovern, director of the History Curriculum Association, which has advised the British government on history teaching, told The Times, London that "The general tone of the unit (on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre) is anti-British, with little about positive consequences of imperial rule".
Meanwhile, other purists said Britain was in danger of "falling into the post-imperial, politically-correct trap" of emphasising controversial aspects of the Raj without allowing British schoolchildren to feel "any pride" in their country.
The sensitive and fraught nature of the new empire module of history is emphasised by the establishment's cautionary advice to teachers. The QCA said history teachers "should be aware that this unit explores issues and events that may evoke strong feelings in some pupils. Care should be taken to present the unit in a manner that is sensitive, objective and balanced."
But many accept that there can probably never be any consensus on the rights and wrongs of history, howsoever it is taught. Observers said Britain's new legacy-of-the-Raj module was unlikely to please anyone. They recalled that even Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's unspectacular, some say unsatisfactory, tribute to the Jallianwala Bagh dead caused a storm of protest in India.
The Prince, renowned for so-called foot-in-mouth disease, questioned the roughly 2,000 toll recorded on a plaque, saying it was "a bit exaggerated, it must include the wounded...I was told about the killings by General Dyer's son".
With India believing thousands died and Britain insisting the toll was in the low-hundreds, how can Britain ever teach children the history of a controversial chapter in our shared past,historians asked.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges