It was the festive ocassion of Baisakhi on 13 April, 1919. Four persons went around the streets of Amritsar announcing by the beat of an empty kerosene tin that there would be a public meeting at Jallianwala Bagh that afternoon. A crowd of around 20,000 from Amritsar and the neighbouring villages gathered in Jallianwalla Bagh - an 8 acre plot of land bound on three sides by high walls of adjoining buildings and a 15 feet high wall on the the fourth side.

Brigadier-General Dyer came to know of this around 4 pm. He immediately left for the place with 2 armoured cars and around 50 soldiers (Gurkhas and Baluchis). Since the gate was small, Dyer had to leave the armoured cars outside. In double-file he marched his men and ordered them to crouch on the left and right on a raised platform. Without any warning he ordered his troops to fire on the unarmed crowd. The shooting continued for 10 minutes, and when the bullets stopped raining after 1650 rounds, the General's faithful brown Indians had sent 379 of their own kinsmen to their death. Three times the number of dead were wounded, making a total of 1516 casualties with 1650 bullets.

Punjab was placed under martial law. The people of Amritsar were forced to crawl on their bellies before Europeans. General Dyer errected a whipping post for the public flogging of those who ignored his orders. The Lt-Governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O'Dwyer sent the General a telegram approving of the brutality. The House of Lords voted in favour of General Dyer's actions, and the British people helped the Morning Post collect 30,000 pounds for General Dyer. The General died in retirement at Bristol on July 23, 1927.

• The first group of Indian sportsmen to ever visit the United States was the Indian hockey team for the 1932 Olympics. India retained the Olympic Gold it had first won in the 1928 Amsterdam Games. The scores were:
• India 11 - Japan 1 (Dhyan Chand 4, Roop Singh 3, Gurmeet Singh 4)
• India 24 - USA 1 (Roop Singh 10, Dhyan Chand 8, Gurmeet Singh 4, Richard Carr 1, Eric Pinniger 1)
  
  
• The 1932 Olympic hockey matches spawned a couple of records that stand till this date. The biggest score in an international hockey match is the 24-1 victory of India over the USA, played on August 11, 1932. The record for the most number of goals scored in a single hockey match belongs to Roop Singh, who slammed in ten goals in the 24-1 rout of USA.
  
  
• So how did USA score that one goal? The backs had decided to let the Americans have a run, but when they looked behind, there was no goalkeeper. The Indian goalkeeper Richard Allen was signing autographs behind the goal post!
  
  

• Hockey Kings Arrive Today.
  They will be accompanied by their many wives.
  There are two lions in the team

  The Los Angeles sport writer, way back in 1932, was wrong about the wives (whether one or many), though he was right about the lions. There were indeed two - Roop Singh and Gurmeet Singh.
  
  

• Foreign critics praised the sorcery of the champions in lyrical and melodious terms. A report in a Los Angeles daily, filed by a woman correspondent, said: "All the colour, glamour and pageantry of Rudyard Kipling's India might well have found its incarnation in the personnel of the Indian team which is to represent the land of Mahatma Gandhi. So agile are the members of the team that they can run the full length of the hockey field, juggling a small wooden ball with the flat of a hockey stick."
  
  
• The finest tribute to the Indian hockey team was by the Los Angeles sports journalists who voted the team's showing in the Olympics as "the most outstanding exhibition of skill in any sport."
  
  
• 25 out of the 35 goals scored by India in the 1932 Olympics were by the two brothers - left-in Roop Singh (15) and centre-forward Dhyan Chand (10). The hockey brothers went on to represent India in the 1936 Olympics also, winning yet another gold medal for India.
  
  
• The captain of the Indian team, Lal Shah Bokhari, migrated to Pakistan after partition, and was his country's High Commissioner to Ceylon. He died in Ceylon in 1958.
  
  
• India's record in the 1932 Olympics at Los Angeles was as follows :
• Played : 2
• Won : 2
• Goals For : 35
• Goals Against : 2
  
  
• The following were the members of the 1932 Indian Olympic Team :
• Lal Shah Bokhari (Captain)
• Richard J. Allen (goalkeeper)
• Syed Mohammed Jafar
• Mohammed Aslam
• Frank Brewin
• Richard J. Carr
• Dhyan Chand
• Leslie C. Hammond
• Arthur C. Hind
• Masud Minhas
• Broome Eric Pinniger
• Gurmeet Singh Kullar
• Roop Singh
• Carlyle Carroll Tapsell
• William Sullivan

Photo Courtesy : Wills Book of Excellence