An Essay About The Sikh Heritage

I was born and raised in Punjab, a state in India, which has a huge population of Sikhs. Growing up, my school teachers and parents always taught us about the most tragic time in the Sikh community, the Amritsar Massacre. I am a Sikh and I practice my religion as much as my parents, so I have always been exposed to stories of the Sikh Massacre. It is very interesting to me because it shows how brave the Sikh community is and what they would do to protect their land and rights. Since I have moved to the U.S.A at the age of only 6 years old, I have lost touch with my heritage and seek more information about the Massacre. My parents and grandparents have always been eager to teach me more about the Sikh Massacre, but I was too distracted to pay attention or give interest. Growing up in a different world where everyone spoke a different language, I was more interested in learning about this new country rather than my own culture. Slowly, this new country had erased most of my knowledge about the Sikh culture, which was my parents’ biggest fear. After visiting India after 12 years I realized how much history I did not know about my own culture. I wanted to learn as much as I could but the time I had in India was very limited.

I spent my early childhood in Punjab, attending Punjabi school, and learning about the Punjabi culture. I have some knowledge about the Sikh Massacre because of this but since I was very young it slowly faded away. What I do know about this tragic event is that it changed Punjab forever. Thousands of innocent families lost their loved ones to the brutal British military. On April 13, 1919 in Amritsar, a large group of non-violent protesters had gotten together for a protest when the British army opened fire and ki...

... middle of paper ...

...t he does not know how he managed to survive, but he sure was glad to have made it through.

Back in headquarters, when his superiors questioned about his outrageous step, Dyer reported that a revolutionary army at the Jallian Wala Bagh was challenging him and he was trying to teach a moral lesson to Punjab for doing so. I think Dyer and his troops could have dispersed the crowd without firing, but that is not what happened because Dyer thought that the Punjabi’s would come back again and laugh for not being a good General. It was also known that General Dyer brought machine guns, but he could not bring them into the field because they were big armored cars. Dyer could have also stopped firing when the crowd began to disperse but he didn’t do so because he though it was his duty to keep fighting until the crowd dispersed and that a little firing would do no good.