Previous Year Question

On 13 April 1919, a large gathering had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on the day of Baisakhi. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire on the unarmed crowd without adequate warning.

The massacre and the subsequent repression in Punjab shocked the country. Rabindranath Tagore renounced the Knighthood conferred upon him by the British Government in 1919 in protest against this event.

Tagore had been awarded the Knighthood in 1915. Following the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, he wrote to the then Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, expressing his desire to relinquish the honour.

The central idea of Tagore's letter was that when his countrymen were suffering humiliation and repression, he did not wish to continue holding a special distinction bestowed by the British Government.

An important distinction is that Rabindranath Tagore renounced his Knighthood, whereas Mahatma Gandhi later returned government honours including his Kaiser-i-Hind Medal in protest against British policies and the events in Punjab.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre became an important turning point in the Indian national movement and further deepened existing opposition to British rule.

Therefore, Rabindranath Tagore gave up his Knighthood in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.