The Mukherjees of Jallianwala Bagh

You can take a Bengali out of Bengal, but you can't separate him from his gamchha! The sight of a red-and-white gamchha on the second floor balcony of the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust in Amritsar is a giveaway of a Bengali household. But there's little else that's overtly Bengali about Sukumar Mukherjee, secretary of the Trust.

As I sit in the spacious ground floor room, surrounded by portraits of national leaders — everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to Narendra Modi — and watch him chat with the steady stream of visitors in chaste Punjabi, full of native verve, he seems as much a local as the men who sit across him. After all, his family has lived in Amritsar for three generations; he was born in Amritsar, studied here and has lived in the city all his 61 years.

The story of how this came about has its origins in events that took place nearly a century ago, at a crucial juncture of the freedom movement, when unrest and distrust against the British rule was simmering and threatening to boil over. As India prepares to celebrate its 70th Independence Day with the emotive Zara yaad karo qurbani programme across the country, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which changed the course of the independence movement, and the Bengali family that has been tending the site of the killings for 97 years — and counting — is a centrepiece of that remembrance.

"We're originally from Dasghara in Hooghly district, Bengal, but my grandfather Sashti Charan Mukherjee, a homeopath, had moved to practice in Allahabad. There, he became a close associate of Madan Mohan Malviya. In 1919, Malviyaji asked my grandfather to go to Amritsar to look for a suitable location and make arrangements for the party's session that would be held there," says Sukumar.

Punjab was then erupting in protest against the Rowlatt Act, a draconian legislation that allowed colonial rulers to imprison without trial anyone it suspected of "anarchical and revolutionary crimes". On April 6, 1919, Mahatma Gandhi called for a non-violent strike, and the whole of Punjab responded enthusiastically. On the 10th, the British responded by arresting prominent local leaders, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlu and Dr Satyapal. When the people of Amritsar gathered to protest the arrests, the local British administrators fired at the crowd and 20-25 (the toll varies) Indians were killed. This led the crowd to become violent, resulting in the death of four Britishers, including a woman missionary. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who was then lieutenant governor of Punjab, responded by declaring martial law.

Three days later, on April 13, Baisakhi, a meeting was called in Jallianwala Bagh — not quite a bagh as much as an irregularly shaped, low-lying dumping ground ringed in by the backs of houses with narrow lanes leading out of it. It was through such a lane, so narrow that he had to leave his armoured car behind, that Brigadier General REH Dyer and his troops entered the grounds to disperse the non-violent crowd, said to number around 20,000. He ordered his men to shoot, without giving so much as a warning. Bodies fell as the incessant firing began, and continued. At the end of 10 minutes, and 1,650 rounds of ammunition, 379 people were dead — the official figure arrived at by the British government following the result of an enquiry that it conducted in October 1919, five months after the shootings, says historian Savita Narain. The Congress put the number of victims at 1,500.

"My grandfather was present at Jallianwala Bagh that day but managed to escape by diving under the dais," says Sukumar. Exactly what he did in the tumultuous days that followed is not known, but Sashti Charan returns to history books for moving the petition at the Congress session held in Amritsar later in 1919 to acquire the land for a memorial to the martyrs. The British government had wanted to turn the ground into a cloth market to erase all evidence of the massacre. The resolution was passed. Gandhi issued an appeal for donations and a trust was set up with Malviya as president and Sashti Charan as secretary.

"My grandfather went door to door collecting money," says his grandson. A little more than Rs9 lakh was collected, of which Rs5.65 lakh was spent to buy the land in an open auction. Needless to say, Sashti Charan Mukherjee stayed on in Amritsar. The homeopath died in 1962, succeeded by his eldest son Uttam Charan at the post. When the latter died in 1988, Sukumar took over and has been at the post since. "I was working in Punjab & Sind Bank when my father suggested I help out because of his failing health," he says. Didn't he say no at any point? "My grandfather had helped set this up. There was no question."

Jallianwala Bagh is unique among all national monuments for being created by an act of Parliament in 1951, befitting its importance in the freedom struggle. It's also possibly among India's most visited monuments, with 40,000-50,000 visitors every day, says Sukumar. By the lax standards of Indian monuments, it's a well-maintained site: the grass is manicured, the flower-beds are well tended, the graffiti that Indian tourists are wont to scratch is limited to the Ashoka Chakra-motifs on the pillars and there are few empty bottles and litter in sight. To be sure, the pool beneath of the Flame of Liberty monument unveiled in 1961 is dry, but the red-tile floor is clean.

And yet, there's something underwhelming about the memorial. Perhaps it's the fact that you can see air-conditioners and clothes drying in the nearby houses, the topiaries in the shape of gun-toting soldiers, or white damp marks on the wall in the galleries. The sense of gravity that the violent deaths that took place here must inspire seems completely missing in the groups of tourists taking selfies, lounging about with their luggage on the grass, sleeping in the shaded corridor leading to the picture gallery or under the trees.

"Most people come here directly after visiting the Golden Temple," says Sukumar. "Since it's free to enter, they come here to rest before they go to Wagah, or catch a bus or train back home." There isn't even a list of all those who died here. "The Punjab government had put together a list of 464 martyrs who died in Jallianwala in a book it published in 2000, but they haven't even bothered to put it up at the site," says Bhushan Behl, president of the Shahid Parivar Samity, an organisation of the descendants of those who died in the massacre.

Speak to Sukumar about this, and he'll blame it on the politics and lack of funds. The Jallianwala Bagh Memorial comes directly under the jurisdiction of the Union Ministry of Culture but gets little for its upkeep. A quick perusal of the ministry's budget reveals that since 2013, the Memorial has been given barely Rs10 lakh. The funds for its maintenance and the salaries of Sukumar and the staff of 15 come from the rent of a three-storied building bordering the site. "We recently negotiated the agreement and now it's gone up to Rs72,043 per month," says Mukherjee. In addition, there's the income from a few fixed deposits that amount to less than Rs25,000 a month.

"What is Rs1 lakh in today's times?" poses Sukumar.

"There are so many issues here — the light & sound show installed in 2010 has not been working for more than a year. The projection system put up at the time to screen a film on Jallianwala Bagh is also out of order. We had prepared a report for the conservation of the old building on the northern periphery where the plan was to set up a library, but nothing has come of it. We've written to the ministry several times, a tender was called for the project, but since there was just one bidder, there has been no progress," says Sukumar. The trust, he reveals, headed by the prime minister, has not had a single meeting since the new government under Narendra Modi came to power two years ago.

Interestingly, Modi has also not replied to another missive on the affairs of the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial written to him from another quarter. That letter from Bhushan Behl had complained to him about the "dynastic" monopoly that the Mukherjees had over the affairs of the Trust. "Why should one family be allowed to be secretary for three generations?" Behl had asked, pleading for the claims of his own son to the post.

The prime minister hasn't replied to Behl, but Sukumar is determined that he'll be the last of his family to be in Amritsar. "I have two daughters and both of them have well-paying jobs. There was a proposal once for my elder daughter to apply for this post, but I don't think she will take it up."

Increasingly, the connections with the homeland his grandfather left behind beckon. Sukumar's wife has shifted to Kolkata to be with their daughter who works there, and only his 88-year-old mother lives with him.

"This is home for her. There's even a Durga Puja here now. When she first came here after marriage in 1942, they had to go to Lahore for the festival. She still can't speak Punjabi well, but I don't want to move her at this age."

After all, it's where India took a decisive step towards freedom, where her family now has its roots and a place in history.