It’s never too late to apologise

Sadiq Khan’s sentiments on Jallianwala Bagh are welcome

It takes more than an admission of wrongdoing to express real remorse. On Wednesday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan appealed to the UK government to apologise formally for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by British Indian Army soldiers. On April 13, 1919, more than 1,000 people were killed and over 1,100 wounded when Brigadier General REH Dyer ordered

50 riflemen to shoot on peaceful protestors assembled at Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh. In February 2013, on a visit to India, then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, described the massacre as “deeply shameful”, but stopped short of a formal apology.

It may be tough for erstwhile colonial powers to own up to their mistakes, but it isn’t uncommon for heads of state to apologise publicly for historical injustices committed in the course of governance. These have included discrimination, slavery and mass murder. In the 1990s, former American president Bill Clinton apologised for the world’s inaction during the genocide in Rwanda. In May last year, Justin Trudeau apologised for the 1914 decision by the then Canadian government to turn away the migrants on board the ship Komagata Maru after their arrival in Vancouver. Closer home, in his apology for the 1984 anti-sikh riots, former PM Manmohan Singh told Parliament in 2005: “I apologise not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because of what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution.”

Although former British prime ministers, including Cameron and Tony Blair, have apologised for a variety of wrongs (from the transatlantic slave trade to the Irish potato famine), they’ve been slow on the draw when it comes to admitting the excesses of colonial rulers during the 200-year period when they ruled India. It is time that the Queen or the British prime minister tendered an unequivocal apology for the incident and similar atrocities committed by its forces on the people it colonised. The gesture may not just provide closure to the nation, but also lend a healing touch to the descendants of the victims, many of whom have migrated to Britain.