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The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power.[1] By 1913 the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time,[2] and by 1920 it covered 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi),[3] 24 percent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as it was always daytime in at least one of its territories.[4]

During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated,[5] England, France, and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England (Britain, following the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland) the dominant colonial power in North America. Britain became the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. British attention then turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon was later described as "Pax Britannica" ("British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia and Latin America.[6][7] Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies, some of which were reclassified as dominions.

By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although the empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the world's pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan. Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire.[8][9] Fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states. Sixteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain a common monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab to protest against the arrest of pro-Indian independence leaders Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal. In response to the public gathering, the British Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the Bagh with his soldiers. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted.[4] Estimates of those killed vary between 379 and 1500+ people [1] and over 1,200 other people were injured of whom 192 were seriously injured.[5][6]

Responses polarized both the British and Indian peoples. Eminent author Rudyard Kipling declared at the time that Dyer "did his duty as he saw it".[7] This incident shocked Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian polymath and the first Asian Nobel laureate, to such an extent that he renounced his knighthood.
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The level of casual brutality, and lack of any accountability, stunned the entire nation,[10] resulting in a wrenching loss of faith of the general Indian public in the intentions of the United Kingdom.[11] The ineffective inquiry, together with the initial accolades for Dyer, fuelled great widespread anger against the British among the Indian populace, leading to the non-cooperation movement of 1920–22.[12] Some historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.[13]

Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre
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Massacre
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By mid-afternoon, thousands of Indians had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh (garden) near the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar. Many who were present had earlier worshipped at the Golden Temple, and were passing through the Bagh on their way home. The Bagh was (and remains today) an open area of six to seven acres, roughly 200 yards by 200 yards in size, and surrounded on all sides by walls roughly 10 feet in height. Balconies of houses three to four stories tall overlooked the Bagh, and five narrow entrances opened onto it, several with lockable gates. During the rainy season, it was planted with crops, but served as a local meeting and recreation area for much of the year.[40] In the center of the Bagh was a samadhi (cremation site) and a large well partly filled with water which measured about 20 feet in diameter.[40]
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Dyer arranged for an aeroplane to overfly the Bagh and estimate the size of the crowd, that he reported was about 6,000, while the Hunter Commission estimates a crowd of 10,000 to 20,000 had assembled by the time of Dyer's arrival.[40][5] Colonel Dyer and Deputy Commissioner Irving, the senior civil authority for Amritsar, took no actions to prevent the crowd assembling, or to peacefully disperse the crowds. This would later be a serious criticism levelled at both Dyer and Irving.

An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 17:30, 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), 25 Pathans and Baluch and 59th Sindh Rifles.[41] Fifty of them were armed with .303 Lee–Enfield bolt-action rifles. Dyer may have specifically chosen troops from those ethnic groups due to their proven loyalty to the British. He had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns; however, the vehicles could not enter the compound through the narrow entrances. The Jallianwala Bagh was surrounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wide, but was guarded heavily by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles so as to prevent anyone from getting out.

Dyer, without warning the crowd to disperse, blocked the main exits. Dyer ordered his troops to begin shooting toward the densest sections of the crowd in front of the available narrow exits, where panicked crowds were trying to leave the Bagh. Firing continued for approximately ten minutes. Unarmed civilians including men, women, elderly people and children were killed. This incident came to be known as the Amritsar massacre. Cease-fire was ordered only when ammunition supplies were almost exhausted.[42] He stated later that this act "was not to disperse the meeting but to punish the Indians for disobedience."[43]

The following day Dyer stated in a report that "I have heard that between 200 and 300 of the crowd were killed. My party fired 1,650 rounds".[44][42]

Apart from the many deaths directly from the shooting, a number of people died of crushing in the stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into the solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. A plaque, placed at the site after independence, states that 120 bodies were removed from the well. Dyer pushed the curfew time earlier than the usual time, therefore, the wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen and more who had been injured then died during the night.[45]
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The British Government tried to suppress information of the massacre,[51] but news spread in India and widespread outrage ensued; details of the massacre did not become known in Britain until December 1919.[52][53][54]
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Colonel Dyer reported to his superiors that he had been "confronted by a revolutionary army", to which Major General William Beynon replied: "Your action was correct and Lieutenant Governor approves."[56] O'Dwyer requested that martial law should be imposed upon Amritsar and other areas, and this was granted by Viceroy Lord Chelmsford.[57][58]
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"I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing, but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself."[70] Dyer further reiterated his belief that the crowd in the Bagh was one of "rebels who were trying to isolate my forces and cut me off from other supplies. Therefore, I considered it my duty to fire on them and to fire well".[68]

After Mr. Justice Rankin had questioned Dyer, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad enquired:

    Sir Chimanlal: Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow the armoured cars to go in, would you have opened fire with the machine guns?

    Dyer: I think probably, yes.

    Sir Chimanlal: In that case, the casualties would have been much higher?

    Dyer: Yes.[68]

Dyer further stated that his intentions had been to strike terror throughout Punjab and in doing so, reduce the moral stature of the "rebels".
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The Hunter Commission did not impose any penal or disciplinary action because Dyer's actions were condoned by various superiors (later upheld by the Army Council).[74]

On 13 March 1940, at Caxton Hall in London, Udham Singh, an Indian independence activist from Sunam who had witnessed the events in Amritsar and had himself been wounded, shot and killed Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab at the time of the massacre, who had approved Dyer's action and was believed to have been the main planner.

Some, such as the nationalist newspaper Amrita Bazar Patrika, made statements supporting the killing. The common people and revolutionaries glorified the action of Udham Singh.
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Singh was hanged for the murder on 31 July 1940.

In fascist countries, the incident was used for anti-British propaganda: Bergeret, published in large scale from Rome at that time, while commenting upon the Caxton Hall assassination, ascribed the greatest significance to the circumstance and praised the action of Udham Singh as courageous.[79] The Berliner Börsen Zeitung termed the event "The torch of Indian freedom". German radio reportedly broadcast: "The cry of tormented people spoke with shots."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces calls to apologise for a colonial-era massacre when he visits Gujarat today, 100 years after as many as 1,200 people were killed protesting against imperial rule.
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According to the Gujarat government, British Major HG Sutton ordered his troops to open fire. "Like a battlefield, the entire area was filled with corpses," it said. Two wells, it added, were "overflowing with bodies".
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Arun Vaghela, head of Gujarat University's history department, has little expectation the British Prime Minister would address the issue.

He has carried out field research at the site and said even 20 years ago residents were still finding old bullets lodged in trees and skeletons in deep wells, into which people had jumped to try and escape.

The Pal-Dadhvav massacre took place on March 7, 1922, in the Pal-Chitariya and Dadhvaav villages of Sabarkantha district, then part of Idar state.

The day was Amalki Ekadashi, which falls just before Holi, a major festival for tribals. Villagers from Pal, Dadhvav, and Chitariya had gathered on the banks of river Heir as part of the ‘Eki movement’, led by one Motilal Tejawat. The movement was to protest against the land revenue tax (lagaan) imposed on the peasants by the British and feudal lords.

Tejawat, who belonged to Koliyari village in the Mewad region of Rajasthan, had also mobilised Bhils from Kotda Chhavni, Sirohi, and Danta to participate. The impact of the protest was felt in Vijaynagar, Dadhvaav, Poshina and Khedbrahma, which are now talukas of Sabarkantha; the Aravalli districts, Banaskantha and Danta of Banaskantha district; and Kotda Chhavni, Dungarpur, Chittor, Sirohi, Banswada and Udaipur of Rajasthan, all of which were then princely states.

Tejawat had been outlawed by the Udaipur state, which had announced a Rs-500 reward on his head.

The Mewad Bhil Corps (MBC), a paramilitary force raised by the British that was on the lookout for Tejawat, heard of this gathering and reached the spot.

An account in the Gujarati book ‘Gujarat na Krantiteertho’ (Gujarat’s revolution pilgrimages) (2009), written by Gujarat Sahitya Akademi chairperson Vishnu Pandya and his late wife Arti, says, “On a command from Tejawat, nearly 2000 Bhils raised their bows and arrows and shouted in unison- ‘We will not pay the tax’. The MBC commanding officer, HG Sutton, ordered his men to fire upon them. Bullets rained on them but where could they go? There was a stampede.”

Nearly 1,000 tribals (Bhils) fell to bullets, writes Pandya. Pandya’s account, collected from government gazettes and local historians, says others jumped into two wells. Tejawat was shot at twice, but was taken to safety by the villagers on a camel. He later “returned to the spot to christen it ‘Veerbhumi’.”

While the British claimed some 22 people were killed, the Bhils believe 1,200-1,500 of them died. In the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919, 500-1,000 people are said to have been killed after General Reginald Edward Dyer’s forces opened fire on peaceful protesters.