Saifuddin Kitchlew & Dr. Satyapal

On 10 April 1919 two Amritsar leaders were called to a British officer’s house. They never came home that day.

Soldiers drove them out of the city in secret. Three days later their supporters gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. The men were Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal.

1Who were Kitchlew and Satyapal?

Saifuddin Kitchlew was born in Amritsar on 15 January 1888. His family had Kashmiri roots and traded in pashmina and saffron. He went to Islamia High School in Amritsar.

He later earned a BA from Cambridge and a doctorate from a German university. Then he practised law in Amritsar. He met Gandhi and joined the Congress. In 1919 he was elected a Municipal Commissioner of Amritsar.

Dr Satyapal was born on 11 May 1885. He studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1915 he got a temporary commission as a lieutenant in the Indian Medical Service. He gave it up in 1916.

Back home he built a busy medical practice in old Amritsar. The Rowlatt Act pulled him into politics. Together the two doctors became the face of Amritsar’s protest.

• Kitchlew: born 15 January 1888, Amritsar; Cambridge BA, German doctorate.
• Satyapal: born 11 May 1885; studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
• Satyapal’s friend: Jawaharlal Nehru.
• Kitchlew: Municipal Commissioner of Amritsar, 1919.
• Both led protests against the Rowlatt Act.

2How were they arrested?

The Punjab Lieutenant Governor, Michael O’Dwyer, saw the two as a danger. From mid-March 1919 the CID kept them under close watch. They were already barred from political activity.

On 10 April 1919 they were summoned to the home of the Deputy Commissioner, Miles Irving. They went as usual, with two friends. Inside, each was handed an order under the Defence of India rules. It told them to leave Amritsar at once.

Irving wanted the move kept secret. He said he wanted them thirty miles on the way to Dharamsala before anyone knew. Soldiers dressed in hunting clothes escorted the cars. The party drove fast and did not stop until the Nurpur dak bungalow, 50 miles away.

They reached Dharamsala at 8 pm. There they were held under house arrest. In Amritsar the news spread. A crowd gathered near Irving’s house, and a peaceful attempt to enquire turned into a violent clash.

• Ordered by Michael O’Dwyer; watched from mid-March 1919.
• Summoned to Miles Irving‘s house, 10 April 1919.
• Taken in cars with soldiers dressed as a hunting party.
• Held at Dharamsala.
• Crowd clashed with the police near the Deputy Commissioner’s house.

3What happened at Jallianwala Bagh?

A public meeting was called for 13 April at Jallianwala Bagh. It was to protest the arrest of the two leaders and the Rowlatt Act. That day was also Baisakhi. So many villagers and pilgrims were in the city. Many of them came into the Bagh as well.

General Reginald Dyer brought troops to the Bagh. He ordered them to fire on the unarmed crowd. Many were killed and wounded. The exact toll is still debated.

The massacre shook India. It was the worst attack on civilians since 1857. Riots broke out across Punjab. The Congress held its own inquiry, with Gandhi among its members.

Kitchlew and Satyapal were far away at Dharamsala. Their arrest, not their own actions that day, drew the crowd. Michael O’Dwyer, who had ordered it, was shot dead in London in 1940 by Udham Singh.

• Meeting: 13 April 1919, Baisakhi.
• Cause: the arrest of Kitchlew and Satyapal and the Rowlatt Act.
• Firing ordered by General Dyer.
• Both leaders were then in Dharamsala.
• O’Dwyer shot by Udham Singh, 1940.

4What did each do next?

In June 1919 Satyapal was tried in the Amritsar Conspiracy Case at Lahore. He was convicted with 14 others and given two years in prison. The case rested on the word of an approver, Hans Raj.

Kitchlew rose in the Congress. He led its Punjab unit and became General Secretary of the AICC in 1924. In 1929 he chaired the reception committee of the Lahore session. There, on 26 January 1930, the Congress declared independence as its goal.

Kitchlew also sat on the foundation committee of Jamia Millia Islamia, which met on 29 October 1920. He was a founding leader of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha. He started an Urdu daily, Tanzim. In 1921 he helped set up Swaraj Ashram in Amritsar. During the struggles of the 1930s he spent, in all, fourteen years in jail.

Satyapal rejoined the Indian Medical Service in 1941 as a captain. After independence he won a seat in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha in 1952.

• Satyapal: two years, Amritsar Conspiracy Case, June 1919.
• Kitchlew: AICC General Secretary, 1924.
• Lahore Congress: reception committee chair, 1929-30.
• Jamia Millia Islamia and Naujawan Bharat Sabha.
• Satyapal: Punjab Vidhan Sabha, 1952.

5How are they remembered?

Both men opposed the Partition of India. Kitchlew spoke against it at public meetings and at the AICC session. He called it a surrender of nationalism for communalism. His house was burnt in the riots of 1947. He then moved to Delhi.

In later years he left the Congress and moved close to the Communist Party. He was founder-president of the All-India Peace Council. He received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952, later renamed the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1951 he was made a life trustee of the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust.

Kitchlew died in Delhi on 9 October 1963. Satyapal died at Shimla on 18 April 1954. India Post issued a stamp for Kitchlew in 1989. A colony in Ludhiana, Kitchlu Nagar, carries his name. So does Kitchlu Chowk in Amritsar.

• Both opposed Partition.
• Kitchlew: Stalin Peace Prize, 1952.
• Life trustee of the Jallianwala Bagh trust, 1951.
• Kitchlew died 9 October 1963; Satyapal died 18 April 1954.
• Stamp: 1989. Read about Udham Singh.

6What are the exam traps?

Keep the order of cause and effect straight.

• The arrest was on 10 April. The massacre was on 13 April.
• The crowd gathered to protest the arrest and the Rowlatt Act, not to cheer Baisakhi alone.
• The two leaders were held at Dharamsala, not in Amritsar jail.
• Irving and O’Dwyer were officials; Kitchlew and Satyapal were the leaders.
• Dyer fired at the Bagh; O’Dwyer ordered the arrests.
• Satyapal’s two-year term came from the Amritsar Conspiracy Case, tried at Lahore.
• Read about the Rowlatt Satyagraha.
• Read about the Lahore Congress, 1929.