CORRUPTION IN INDIA: CAUSES, AND STRATEGIES FOR ERADICATION

Abstract

This article re-examines one of the most infamous incidents in British imperial history: the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, and analyses it within the context of the British Army’s minimum force philosophy. The massacre has long been regarded as the most catastrophic failure of minimum force in the history of the British Army. To the critics of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, Amritsar seemed the aberrant actions of a blood-thirsty fool, but to Indians, the massacre marked the decisive shift in Indian opinion against the British Raj. The commonly held principle of both a civil magistrate and military officer together dealing with a riot implies that the theory of civil-military relations was well known at the time of the incident. However, either through a reluctance to be involved, a lack of understanding of responsibilities, or just an inability to act, the civil authorities present in Amritsar clearly handed control of the city over to the military without playing any subsequent part in the events that unfolded. This article reconsiders the arguments over the shooting at Amritsar and the role of Brigadier- General Dyer, and questions the accepted view that the massacre was such a failure of minimum force. It argues that the circumstances surrounding the massacre must be understood before judging the incident and given these factors it is possible to see it within a minimum force framework. Always behind the use of force lay the imperial logic that justified it in the name of law and order, or at least order.