Punjabi diaspora in Leicester has created a living memorial to the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by planting 1,650 trees - equivalent to the number of bullets that were fired by the British Army on Gen REH Dyer’s orders - in a Leicestershire forest.
As reported in the Times of India the memorial, ‘Jallianwala Grove’, is in Eastern Old Park.
Fifteen men and women from the Pothohar Association UK launched the memorial by planting thirty trees between November 2018, and end of March 2019 in partnership with the National Forest Company.
Explaining the idea behind the project, Chan Chowdhry, general secretary of the Pothohar Association UK told TOI: “I thought it was a good idea to have a living memorial in time for the centenary of Jallianwala Bagh carnage. There is a dispute over how many people died, but we do know that 1,650 bullets were fired so we thought it would be a good idea to plant one tree for every bullet fired.”
He added: “The idea was to have the memorial in the UK as it is now our home, and where our children and grandchildren stay. In five years’ time we hope to take schoolchildren there and show them our history as we can’t take them to Jallianwala Bagh all the time. Most of the people at Jallianwala Bagh that day were those working on farms, so there can’t be a better place than this for their remembrance.”
An inscription on a brass plaque in the fenced-off grove reads: “The rights of free speech and self-discrimination will never die. 13.04.1919 Jallianwalla Bagh.” Chowdhry sees this description as what the protesters sought.
