Jallianwala Bagh
When humans undergo traumatic experiences it leads them to catharsis and often with this they forge a new identity. Jallianwala Bagh, a massacre, a tragic event that shook every human and particularly the people under the Raj. Its aftermath was that it led them to question their identity which fueled the national freedom struggle. This interactive installation explores this historical narrative and remediates the story through smell and portrays the trauma felt by people. It shows how people in power reduce others and strip them off the personhood. By retelling this narrative it draws a parallel and wonders about similar events in current times. It further lets the audience experience how design plays an important role today in creating strong narratives for change focusing on olfaction and sound in particular.
Design Process
Background Research
Interviews with relatives of survivors
Site studies of Jallianwala Bagh
Scent Association through qualitative research
Interaction Design & Narrative Building
Crafting and Manufacturing of artifacts
Background
On 13 April 1919, Reginald Edward Dyer ordered his troops to fire their bullets at a peaceful crowd in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab. This was done with every intention of extreme cruelty. Bullets were fired specifically at the exit gates through which people tried to escape for maximum impact. It was a singularly horrific incident that led to the deaths of 379 (official figure - others placed the death toll at 1000) people including many children. This shook the whole nation of India and brought to the fore the brutality and systemic racism inherent in imperialism Although Dyer was relieved of his command, he received sympathy from a great number of British people, including many famous personalities.
We asked ourselves the question: What was it like to witness the horrors of an event as traumatic as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre? To understand this story is to understand how inhuman humans can reduce people into others and dehumanize them. This reductionism and simplification led to these horrifying, unrelenting attacks.
When human beings experience trauma or severe life stress, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel. The horror of this event was so deeply entrenched into the Indian psyche that it united the Nation into one, leading to the Non-cooperation movement and beyond, permanently reinventing a part of our identity. The sense of injustice, suffering and common grief resulted in anger and rage which led us to take a stand.
This installation excavates this event to reveal the story and serves as a tribute of remembrance and honor to those innocent people who took part non-violently in the freedom struggle and lost their lives.
Site studies
Visits to the Jallianwala Bagh site, its adjoining museum, Partition Museum, Golden temple and in-depth interviews with relatives of survivors of the massacre and museum officials helped us clearly identify the mood and environment during the day of the massacre.
Using this, we were able to collect information and build a visceral, hard-hitting narrative that translated the sheer brutality of the event into something the user could experience.
Ideation
Jallianwala Bagh is a remediation of the traumatic historical narrative of an event where 1000s of Innocent Indians died because of indiscriminate firing of General Dyer without giving any warning over a peaceful protest. It led ordinary Indians to question this grave injustice and understand the inherent racism in society. This gave an impetus to the freedom struggle and helped forge a new identity.
Using an olfactory installation to narrate this event allowed us to build a novel, interactive and immersive way for users to engage with the story. It created an intimate connection and the olfactory medium gave direct visceral stimuli and thus created an emotional response.
After coming back, we ideated on narratives and its form of presenting this story. Jallianwala Bagh has been made in to various formats spanning from films, animation, books, comics and many other. Our concept was to build on the knowledge that people know about Jallianwala bagh and make them experience this incident viscerally. Thus, we abstracted the content and relooked at the narrative as on today and what is its impact on us, understanding our identity and past.
We took this act as digging in to the past and knowing about it, just like an archeological study. The specimen/ relics so obtained from this digging was kept in the jar with the sounds of the past giving context with smell intact showing that the memory is still fresh today. And this relics with audio and smell tells the story just like how a archaeological museum would do but in many parts the history interacts with us.
Based on the narrative above we sketched various ideas and later prototyped them. The process included from sketching through to using sensors and electronics to achieve interactivity.
Smell experiments and manufacturing:
We coded smells and experimented with scent-making with local traditional attarwalas (perfumer) in Hyderabad. Some of the perfumes lie outside of how perfumes are understood as pleasant odors. We had produced narrative-relevant scents such as the smell of gunpowder, playfulness, death, etc. for inducing the relevant emotional experiences. We also tested these scents with people understanding their reactions before we selected the right scents from the many experimental ones.
Installation
The story was broken down in to various small episodes.
The six parts of the narrative are:
Baisakhi: A depiction of the Baisakhi festival day of 1919, during which the massacre occurred. This is done using a festive, indigenous fragrance that conveys the mood of Baisakhi and festival sounds and artifacts re-created based on interviews and recollections. Baisakhi is a harvest festival and hence wheat’s smell was used along with Punjabi Dhol as a music that was played in the jar.
Childhood: Many children accompanied their parents at Jallianwala Bagh. they were playing in the park.. The experience of playing by children was captured in a smell of wood from which their toys were made and the sound of the spinning of the top is used as the sound..
Peaceful demonstrations: A few people were protesting At Jallianwala Bagh against the extension of indefinite incarceration in the British Empire. This was represented by a fragrance of soil and a sound of speech which represented the collective ambition of the people present there.
A burst of bullets: While all of this was happening, there was a burst of bullets from nowhere. Death and Destruction were represented by the pungent smell of gunpowder that must have been released in the air after firing.,
Death: By the time the bullets stopped, upto a 1000 people lay dead in Jallianwala Bagh. This was represented by an earthy, and a pungent odor.
General Dyer’s Statement: Last represents a statement of General Dyer that he made when he was questioned about the massacre.
