Boys caned for taking part in Punjab rebellion

Ah, the glories of the British Empire! A long-forgotten row about the flogging of Indian schoolboys in the Punjab  – From May 1922.

INDIAN BOYS FLOGGED

Lash Falls on the Biggest Scholars

ECHO OF PUNJAB

 The flogging of six Indian schoolboys as vicarious punishment for the part the pupils of two schools were alleged to have taken part in the Punjab rebellion was raised in the House of Lords yesterday.

Lord Sydenham asked whether two military and civil officers, in charge at Kasur at the time of the rebellion, were censured for “improper and injudicious” conduct by the late Secretary of State, by which their careers had been seriously prejudiced.

Their alleged offences, explained Lord Sydenham, was the ordering of three strokes of the cane to six boys from two schools, the pupils of which had formed part of a violent mob that killed two British warrant officers.

Lord Chelmsford, ex-Viceroy of India, said he took full responsibility in this matter, and that the late Secretary of State, until the Government of India informed him, was unaware of the decision that had been come by.

These officers chose six boys for punishment just because they were the biggest boys in the school, and it was such vicarious punishment that was objected to.

No penalty was imposed on the officers beyond that they were informed their action was improper. If an injustice had been done it should be remedied at once.

Lord Peel, Secretary of State for India, gave an emphatic denial to the suggestion that the careers of three officers had been seriously prejudiced, for the Government of India has approved much of the action which they took in difficult circumstances.

As published in the Daily Herald (UK), 25 May 1922.

The punishment was administered in a square formed by pupils of the schools, and inside the station enclosure

The newspaper report was a short account of the House of Lords debate. According to the official record published in Hansard, Lord Sydenham said the pupils had formed part of a violent mob that killed two British warrant officers, wounded several British officers and men, attacked an English lady with her children, and burned the railway station, Law Courts, and post office.

He said, “Kasur was under Martial Law at the time, and the headmasters of these two schools, the pupils of which were quite out of hand, applied to the officers in charge to give them the necessary support. These officers, therefore, had to do something, and they asked the headmasters to produce before them the chief offenders. The headmasters selected six small and weakly-looking boys, and the officers very properly rejected their choice, and themselves selected six of the older, bigger, and stronger-looking boys, and those boys received three strokes of the cane each. That punishment was not inflicted in public, as the Secretary of State most wrongly stated in another place, but was administered in a square formed by pupils of the schools, and inside the station enclosure.”

He added, “The Education Department, which controlled the municipal school but not the other school, came to the conclusion that the punishment administered by the two officers was entirely inadequate, so an inspector, a Hindu, and a Mahomedan assistant arrived and proceeded to administer justice. Some of the pupils were expelled, many others received ten strokes of the cane, and the school itself, including the staff, was quite sharply disciplined. I might mention that one of the pupils of this school was convicted of murder.”

Read more from Hansard, here.

Picture credit: Kernled

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