The agitation unleashed by the acts led to British attacks on demonstrators , culminating on 13 April 1919 , in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre ( also known as the Amritsar Massacre ) in Amritsar , Punjab . The British military commander , Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer , blocked the main , and only entrance , and ordered his soldiers to fire into an unarmed and unsuspecting crowd of some 15,000 men , women , and children . They had assembled peacefully at Jallianwala Bagh , a walled courtyard , but Dyer had wanted to execute the imposed ban on all meetings and proposed to teach all Indians a lesson the harsher way . A total of 1,651 rounds were fired , killing 379 people ( as according to an official British commission ; Indian officials ' estimates ranged as high as 1,499 and wounding 1,137 in the massacre . ) Dyer was forced to retire but was hailed as a hero in Britain , demonstrating to Indian nationalists that the Empire was beholden to public opinion in Britain , but not in India . The episode dissolved wartime hopes of home rule and goodwill and opened a rift that could not be bridged short of complete self-rule
Jallianwala Bagh massacre
Jallianwala Bagh massacre
Indian independence movement