'Reads like something from a thriller...colourful, detailed and
meticulously researched' Sunday Times 'Gripping from start to
finish' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 'Remarkable and
brilliantly researched non-fiction thriller...focussing on one
extraordinary story that had never been properly told before'
William Dalrymple, Spectator Anita Anand tells the remarkable story
of one Indian's twenty-year quest for revenge, taking him around
the world in search of those he held responsible for the Amritsar
massacre of 1919, which cost the lives of hundreds. When Sir
Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered
Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted him to bring
the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly
alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as
recent demonstrations, strikes and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All
these things, in Sir Michael's mind at least, were a precursor to a
second Indian Mutiny. What happened next shocked the world. An
unauthorised political gathering in the Jallianwala Bagh in
Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael's law
enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled garden, filled
with thousands of unarmed men, women and children, blocking the
only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he
instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the thickest
parts of the crowd. For ten minutes, they continued firing,
stopping only when 1650 bullets had been fired. Not a single shot
was fired in retaliation. According to legend, a young, low-caste
orphan, Udham Singh, was injured in the attack, and remained in the
Bagh, surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move
the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of
blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead and vowed to
kill the men responsible, no matter how long it took. The truth, as
the author has discovered, is more complex but no less dramatic.
She traced Singh's journey through Africa, the United States and
across Europe before, in March 1940, he finally arrived in front of
O'Dwyer in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient
Assassin shines a devastating light on one of the Raj's most
horrific events, but reads like a taut thriller, and reveals some
astonishing new insights into what really happened.
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