An animated documentary short by Puffball and Hashiya: On 13th April 1919, into a crowd of unarmed Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu men and women protesting colonial policies, the British Indian Army fired round after round of live ammunition, goaded on by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer.

In the global history of colonialism, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre is but one among many directed against the “lesser” subjects of European empires. The aboriginals of Australia and New Zealand, the Native Americans of the United States and Canada, the victims of the Belgian Congo, the Arabs and Berbers of French Algeria, the Javanese islanders of the Dutch Indies -- the list of peoples slaughtered into submission can go on and on. In recent decades, as these histories become more studied, and reveal the horrors “civilized” Europe let loose on the world, academics, international lawyers and the former colonized peoples have a demand: reparations. These entail financial compensation for victims of colonial genocides, returning archaeological artefacts stolen and displayed in the museums of London and Brussels, and at a very basic level, acknowledging the violence at the very heart of the European civilizing mission.

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