Describing the newly renovated Jallianwala Bagh Smarak as a tribute to the great martyrs and a symbol of inspiration for the youth, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the monument must serve as a reminder for the future generations about the right of the people to peaceful democratic protest.
In what was apparently an oblique reference to the ongoing agitation of the peacefully protesting farmers, the CM said the Smarak, along with the Jallianwala Bagh centenary memorial recently dedicated to the people by the state government, should serve to remind our leaders of the inalienable right of Indians to conduct peaceful democratic protests, which could not be stifled, as the British also learnt from the Jallianwala Bagh incident.
The Smarak (memorial) and the Centenary Memorial established by the state government “seek to pay tribute to the great martyrs so that history may always remember their sacrifice and our present and future generations can draw inspiration from their patriotism,” said the CM, in his brief remarks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually dedicated the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial (Smarak) to the nation through the remote.
Describing the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial as “an everlasting symbol of non-violent and peaceful struggle for the freedom of India”, the CM said that “at another level, it also stands testimony to one of the most barbaric acts of violence and state oppression perpetrated on a group of peacefully assembled people.”
The killing of hundreds of innocent people on the fateful day of Baisakhi on 13 April 1919, shook the moral conscience of not only the entire nation but the whole world, he said, adding that the “Khooni Vasakhi”, as the Punjabi poet Nanak Singh who was himself a survivor called it, sounded the death knell of the British Rule in India. He pointed out that incensed by the inhuman act, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore had renounced his knighthood in protest.