Some knights are forever

The most dramatic and immediate denunciation of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre came from Rabindranath Tagore.

- NAVTEJ SARNA

He wrote to the viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, on May 31, 1919, barely six weeks after the horrific massacre-renouncing the knighthood conferred on him in 1915. For good measure he simultaneously released the letter to the press and telegraphed it to Edwin Montagu, secretary of state for India.

Tagore's early reaction was proof, if proof were needed, that the poet's prescience is sharper than the politician's; not just the Indian nationalist leaders but even London was not fully aware of the extent of violence that had taken place in Punjab. Martial law was still in place with strict press censorship and travel restrictions. To be sure, in response to spreading demands, Montagu had just decided to set up an inquiry committee; the announcement of the Congress inquiry would come later. Tagore, however, quickly made his judgement based on the accounts that had "trickled through the gagged silence" and decided to give "voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror".