James Scott, 87 years old, died on 20 January 1983 in Edinburgh. Born in 1895, Scott had joined the Indian Police Service in 1915 and retired at the Raj’s demise in 1947. In James’s obituary, his son Alastair Scott, recalled his courage, kindness, thoughtfulness, and his long happy life filled with action and love of friends. Alastair proudly claimed that becoming a paralytic or losing his faculties was not for his father. James was too fast a mover for any of that nonsense. He died because his heart had become a little tired, perhaps a bit too tired to go on. He passed away gently seconds after having a cheerful but ordinary chat with the night nurse. A simple graveside service was held for him, and he was laid to rest in a beautiful churchyard next to his wife who had died six years ago.
Alastair had gifted a book on Indian history by Alfred Draper, called Amritsar: The Massacre that Ended the Raj, to his father on Christmas two years before he passed away. Given how intimately James’s life was entwined with India, he had remained engaged with its affairs till the end.
In the British Library’s collection of India Office Records, I found this book and James’s obituary along with a letter that Alastair wrote to his father’s friend WHA Rich (1908-1989), a compatriot and member of the Indian Police in Punjab and North-West Province who served along with James during 1928 to 1947. Rich had handed over these materials to the British Library in 1985. They were catalogued and indexed as James Alexander Scott Papers and made available to generations of researchers to come.
Alfred Draper’s book on Amritsar, which James Scott had in his possession, made for an exciting archival object. Scott had thumbed through part of it and had underlined sentences, highlighted passages, and jotted down his thoughts in the margins. Scott did not really enjoy the book because he admitted to finding it “hopelessly biased” against the British rule and abandoned it after reading about nine of the 25 chapters. In one of the annotations, he confessed: “I would not have read this book” had it not been for his son’s insistence.
The parts that caught Scott’s attention were mostly where the author had cited General Reginald Dyer, the infamous British Army officer who had opened fire on the peaceful protesters in Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. Scott shared a unique historical bond with General Dyer as both had been stationed in Punjab for most of their careers and had had experience with managing large crowds of protestors. The Government of India had forcibly retired General Dyer and had sent him home “in disgrace”.
Dyer’s colleagues, however, alleged that he had been scapegoated, and “there was little doubt in the minds of the Europeans that the peaceful conditions that now existed [in Punjab] were due entirely to Dyer’s firm action in the Jallianwala Bagh”. Scott had pencilled in “True” with a firm hand next to these sentences. He was amongst Dyer’s supporters who had an unwavering faith in the latter’s actions. Another passage that met Scott’s definite approval was one where the author had quoted Dyer as saying: “If more troops had been at hand the casualties would have been greater in proportion. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect, from a military point of view, not only on those who were present but more specially throughout Punjab”. Scott was convinced that it was a spectacle of military power that kept Indian “mob” in check and that none other than “the men who governed India on the spot...really understood the subcontinent.”
Scott’s conviction came from his personal experience in India. It was the autumn of 1928, Scott had just been transferred to Lahore from the city of Lyallpur when he encountered one such incident. On October 30, 1928, Scott dispersed the protestors in Lahore in a manner that Dyer would have approved. It was a large procession primarily of students who were led by prominent local leaders. They were protesting the all-British character of the Simon Commission that had come to India to look into constitutional reforms.
The protestors’ black flags shrouded the horizon and the skies reverberated with cries of “Simon, go back!” The procession gathered at the railway station to await the arrival of the train carrying the members of the Simon Commission. The sun grew too warm, and someone held an umbrella over Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), the famous Indian nationalist leader from Punjab, who stood at the helm flanked by other prominent regional leaders. The congregation gradually became restive and shortly after a scuffle ensued. Superintendent Scott was worried that the demonstration might turn violent. He moved in quickly and ordered his men to disperse the throng. The police armed with lathis and batons charged through the phalanxes and started to bludgeon, kick, and punch the protestors who tried to hold their ground.
The next day, The Tribune, the Indian-owned English newspaper, carried the headline “Cowardly Assault on Peaceful Procession”. The newspaper condemned the official ban on processions because the anti-Simon protest in Punjab was led by Lala Lajpat Rai and Madan Mohan Malaviya, who were committed to nonviolence. Lala Lajpat Rai was amongst those who were seriously wounded during the lathi charge. The Tribune publicised the letter Motilal Nehru wrote to Lala Lajpat Rai condemning the attack: “I have just heard of the cowardly assault made on you by officials hooligans. I regard it as our first great victory. The blows aimed at you have hit the bureaucracy hard and I see it tottering before us.”
Lala Lajpat Rai soon took ill and died a few days later on November 17, 1928. His death aroused “unprecedented anger and sorrow among people”. The People and The Tribune published the obituaries, tributes, and condolence messages that came in from the nationalist leaders. Lajpat Rai was hailed as the “greatest son” of Punjab “noblest, unselfish, most single-minded patriot”, and a man who stood “unrivalled”. Several thousand people marched in his funeral procession as it wound its way through the bazaars of Lahore. Some nationalists alleged that he had succumbed to the injuries received in the anti-Simon Commission demonstration.
The government, however, chose to remain silent about Scott’s decision to lathi charge the protestors despite widespread condemnation of police action in the nationalist press. According to customary practice, it was Scott’s bailiwick to decide when the public gathering had supposedly crossed the line and when the state forces had to be invoked in the name of public safety. All such acts of policing meant the use of discretionary authority because the police action occurred before a crime was committed. In this, the colonial police officers embodied special extraordinary and emergency powers in a way that belied the rule of law. Their use of violence to control crowds – in the name of law enforcement – was a striking expression of the exercise of government authority that could not be checked judicially. Scott’s career and his position therefore were fortuitously safe for now
Excerpted with permission from Revolutionaries on Trial: Sedition, Betrayal, and Martyrdom, Aparna Vaidik, Aleph Book Company.
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