At the end of his trade visit to Mumbai and Delhi, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a trip to Amritsar. The British media had raised expectations about Cameron’s likelihood of offering an apology at Jallianwala Bagh. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh was a turning point in the history of India’s independence movement, and is perhaps the incident even the current generation of Indians are likely to invoke to establish the brutality of British colonial rule.

But the apology never came. Cameron instead expressed profound regret at the massacre. In a hand-written note in the memorial’s book of remembrance, he said: “This was a deeply shameful event in British history, one that Winston Churchill rightly described at the time as “monstrous”. We must never forget what happened here.”