Images of a renovated Jallianwala Bagh that Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated on Saturday have provoked gasps of horror in India and Britain, with even pro-government commentators and corporate honchos seeing in the effort “mockery” and “defacement”.

The new features include a light-and-sound show, a glass encasing of the martyrs’ well, and a garish embellishment of the stark brick alley through which Reginald Dyer’s troops had entered the premises and shot hundreds of peaceful pro-Independence protesters dead.

Mumbai-based senior Swiggy executive Harnidh Kaur tweeted: “Jallianwala Bagh isn’t a place of celebration. It’s a place of mourning and of deep, abiding grief. The starkness of the bagh itself is a reminder of what happened there. What a mockery of everything it once represented.”

Pictures uploaded or retweeted by many Twitter users, including a historian, show the original entrance to the Jallianwala Bagh through which Reginald Dyer had made his way in before ordering the firing on peaceful protesters in 1919,

How it looks after the government renovation

Suhel Seth, a commentator known for being pro-establishment, tweeted: “I don’t know who is the brain behind defacing both the soul and the body of Jallianwala Bagh. It was and will remain sombre and grave. People were mercilessly killed. To have a son et lumiere and that wretched design shows how removed we are from any level of refinement.”

Arpita Das, founder-publisher of the Yoda Press, wrote: “The martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh are now protagonists of a sound and light show. How much lower can this government fall! #Shame.”

There was shock in Britain too after pictures of the revamped brick alley, adorned with kitschy embossed figures of people in golden paint, were circulated.

Kim A. Wagner, Professor of Global and Imperial History at Queen Mary University of London tweeted: “Devastated to hear that Jallianwala Bagh, site of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, has been revamped — which means that the last traces of the event have effectively been erased. This is what I wrote of the memorial in my book, describing a space that has now itself become history.”

Modi at the virtual dedication of the renovated Jallianwala Bagh martyrs’ memorial on Saturday PTI

Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill replied: “Our history — being erased! Why?”

Cambridge archaeologist Danika Parikh tweeted: “It is so sad to see the changes made to Jallianwala Bagh, the site of a 1919 colonial massacre of peaceful protesters in Amritsar. The original entrance to the garden has been made unrecognisable with this baffling attempt to snazz up a very sombre and moving place of memory.”

Several Twitterati drew comparisons with the A-Bomb Dome at Japan’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, where the skeletal ruins of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall remains untouched.

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi tweeted: “Call me a traditional Indian but I am not a fan of installing disco lights on institutions of importance and dignity. Such pomp reduces the gravity and horror of the Jallianwala Bagh Smarak to base entertainment. Similarly the strobe lights on Parliament are also appalling.”

Modern historian S. Irfan Habib wrote: “This is corporatisation of monuments, where they end up as modern structures, losing the heritage value. Look after them without meddling with the flavours of the period these memorials represent.”

The renovation was undertaken by the public-sector unit, NBCC, from 2019 under the supervision of a five-member committee headed by the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India.

The Rs 23.03-crore project was completed in July last year but had been closed to the public because of the pandemic.

Actor Ashwin Mushran tweeted: “Forgive me if I let out a cynical laugh when I hear complaints about the history of India not being taught correctly while allowing modern history to be desecrated right under our eyes. This is disrespectful to the memory of the horrific events of that day.”