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Jallianwala Bagh massacre: Connected by tragedy, it's time to heal

Abu Dhabi - An apology is not something you wrench out of somebody: Ambassador to the UAE Suri.

History can open old wounds or keep them raw. But its modern practitioners and can aid in the healing process through literature, and an apology. When Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri and BBC journalist Justin Rowlatt attended a book launch in Abu Dhabi on 100 years of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British in India, they represented two opposing sides of a bloody colonial era. The conversation was honest - on the pain of loss, pride and guilt. The lack of an apology still hurt, but there was progress.

Suri is the grandson of Nanak Singh, who survived the Jallianwala Bagh massacre when troops opened fire on Indians, killing 379 innocents. Nanak penned a searing poem Khooni Vaisakhi, that was banned by the British. Suri has translated the literary piece into English.

Rowlatt, on the other hand, is the great grandson of Sir Sydney Taylor Rowlatt, the British judge who drafted the infamous Rowlatt Act of 1919 that gave the British unlimited power to imprison Indians without trial on charges of sedition.

So when Suri and Rowlatt met on Thursday, the conversation was kind, refined and conciliatory. The lack of an apology still rankled (British PM Theresa May expressed her regrets last week).

"An apology is not something you wrench out of somebody. It has to be voluntary and something that comes from within you," said Suri.

Rowlatt said some of the actions of his country's past were tyrannical, like the slaughter of past that was "terribly, terribly wrong".
- anjana@khaleejtimes.com