Amritsar massacre did not mandate either the seclusion of women in the home or veiling Both were commonly practiced among upper and middle classes of the era Poor peasant families could not afford the luxury of secluding or veiling women who commonly worked alongside men in the fields Amin emphasized that sharia granted legal rights to women and that the corruption or decline of morals by outside forces had been responsible for the decline of Islamic societies He stressed the importance of women in building modern nations and in national struggles and advocated improved education for women According to Amin, education for women should not be limited to matters of household management but should include subjects that would enable them to participate in life outside the home Although by contemporary standards Amin’s advocacy of gradual reform was not revolutionary, his book on the status of women aroused massive public debate about the role of women and Islam Amin was severely criticized by conservative religious leaders and the palace Amin repudiated his critics in a second more radical—for the age—book, The New Woman, in 1900 In this second book he dropped a discussion of Islamic law and tradition to justify reforms and instead applied Western thought to augment his arguments Amin stated that with education and reforms in status, women would ultimately have almost the same rights and status as men Amin supported the Egyptian nationalist movement, in which both men and women were full participants, in his memoirs, Kalimat He also stressed the need for scientific knowledge in order for nations to advance An early Egyptian nationalist, Amin was friendly with Sa’d Zaghlul and Tal’at Harb, both of whom became leaders of the Egyptian nationalist movement Further reading: Amin, Qasim The Liberation of Women: A Document in the History of Egyptian Feminism Cairo: The American University in Cairo, 1992, in English; Hourani, Albert Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 London: Oxford University Press, 1962 Janice J Terry Amritsar massacre The Amritsar massacre (April 13, 1919) helped many moderate Indian nationalists become fiercely antiBritish The Rowlatt Acts, enacted by the British government, had outraged politically minded Indians 13 Extending wartime emergency legislation, the Rowlatt Acts gave the British viceroy in India the authority to silence the press, make arrests without a warrant, and imprison without trial The Indian members of the viceroy’s legislative assembly opposed this legislation, and several of them resigned (including Mohammad Ali Jinnah, later the founder of Pakistan) To protest the Rowlatt Acts, Mohandas K Gandhi called for a national hartal, a day of prayer and fasting, that on April closed most shops and businesses in the northwestern province of the Punjab The British administration in the Punjab, headed by Sir Michael O’Dwyer, was notoriously stern, and the province had long seethed with unrest In Lahore there were large anti-British demonstrations and a railroad strike On April 10, on O’Dwyer’s order, British officials in Amritsar arrested Dr Saif-ud-Din Kitchlew, a Muslim lawyer, and Dr Satyapal, a Hindu who had served as a medical officer in the British army They were leaders of the Amritsar nationalist movement In the angry reaction against these arrests, violence broke out resulting in destruction of property and looting in Amritsar Five British civilians and 10 Indians were killed A school superintendent, Marcella Sherwood, was trapped by a mob, badly beaten, and left for dead This mistreatment of a British woman outraged officials The villain in the story of the Amritsar massacre was Reginald E H “Rex” Dyer Dyer was a colonel who held the temporary rank of brigadier general while commanding an infantry brigade in the Punjab Born in India, he was competent in several Indian languages, including Hindi and Punjabi Before the Amritsar massacre, he had not had a reputation of being more racist than other British officers In fact, early in 1919 he had resigned from the officers’ club that served his brigade because he objected to the exclusion of Indians who held commissions as officers He appears to have been lacking in self-confidence while at the same time being stubborn and rash He did not always obey orders Unfortunately, he was stationed near Amritsar Apparently, Dyer acted on his own initiative in moving his brigade to Amritsar on April 11 On the next day he reissued an earlier government order that banned any meetings or gatherings He did not continue the previous policy of slowly extending British military and police control over one part of the city after another He preferred to parade large forces through Amritsar as a demonstration of strength and then withdraw them