British lady lobbies for UK apology on Amritsar

Caroline Jaine, a British artist, writer and former diplomat is trying to get her government apologise for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919. Her application to e-petition the UK Foreign Office has been accepted and if she can get 100,000 British signatures for her cause by next August, she will be successful in getting the matter debated in Parliament. "I had never heard of the Amritsar (Jallianwala Bagh) massacre before," Jaine told this newspaper over the internet. "I wrote a blog (on Pakistan newspaper Dawn's website) about the summer riots in the UK and commented that I had been surprised that some South Asian friends appeared smugly happy with the unrest. Another blogger picked up on this and wrote a rather amusing tongue-in-cheek blog post listing the many reasons that Indians in particular might enjoy an ailing Britain. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was mentioned and I began to research it and realised what a terrible thing had happened," she explained. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in a public garden in Amritsar when 50 British Indian Army soldiers commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer shot dead over 1,000 people. Jaine believes it is unfair that Britain was able to apologise for events like Bloody Sunday in Ireland, but not for what happened in Amritsar. "Google revealed how many appeals had been made to the British to issue an apology. I think the Queen even visited the site, but stopped short of saying sorry. I knew about the e-petition system and thought it was a good democratic way to demonstrate that the people of Britain would like to issue an apology." "I am hoping this campaign will be viral and that I will not be at the heart of it, as each of the signatories is as important as the other. The driving force will be the 100,000 signatures that we raise in support of the statement." Author of the book, A Better Basra based on the time she has spent in Iraq, Jaine also writes academic texts, and blogs for Dawn and World Bank. She also runs Cambridge Advanced Strategic Training (CAST) and Askance Publishing and lectures on Public and Cultural Diplomacy at London Metropolitan University. She has also taught at summer schools in both Oxford and Cambridge. She is a portrait artist and uses mediums like film, story-telling and oil paint. India has played an important role in helping Caroline select her surname "Jaine" after she was divorced. As she puts it, "Jains are known for their compassion for animals and dedication to a pacifist path in life. And I made a decision there and then on the surname. I would insert an 'I' at the very heart of Jane to make it mine." 18 September 2011 in The Sunday Guardian.