Everyone loves emotion, and the more tearful the tearjerker the better it is.

On Wednesday, as trade unions’ forced nationwide strike became violent in a section of Noida, Uttar Pradesh, and left one union leader dead in Ambala, Haryana, sappy emotions found an outlet in another corner of north India. David Cameron, the suave, Eton- and Oxford-educated Tory dubbed an “arrogant posh boy” by one of his own party MPs, became the first serving prime minister of Britain to visit Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, where over a thousand people were killed on April 13, 1919.

According to PTI report, Cameron kneeled down while paying tribute to (the) martyrs and observed one-minute silence with folded hands to give respect to the martyrs. He also paid floral tribute to the martyrs. He stood for a few seconds before the Amar Joyti (burning flame) at Jallianwalla Bagh where he bowed his head to show respect to the martyrs, the news agency report quoted officials.

On the visitor’s book, Cameron wrote, "This was a deeply shameful act in British history. One that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as monstrous. We must never forget what happened here and we must ensure that the UK stands up for the right of peaceful protests around the world.”

If the world indeed was a stage, theatre would have demanded end of act and scene. Followed by a good round of applause. But since it is not, we ask a few questions despite the emotional overdrive:

1. Calling it a “shameful act” is fine but where is the regret or apology, as demanded by Sikhs, indeed Indians? In fact, the TOI had reported on Tuesday quoting the London telegraph that Cameron is “said to be considering voicing Britain's regret for the worst excesses of its empire rule... for outrages like the 1919 Amritsar massacre, when up to a thousand peacefully protesting Indians were shot dead by British troops”.

2. According to PTI, Bushan Behal, president of the NGO Jallianwalla Bagh Shaheed Pariwar Samiti, who had demanded an apology from the visiting British premier, was not allowed to meet him at the site on Wednesday.

“We must ensure the UK stands up for the right of peaceful protests around the world,” Cameron wrote. So did Cameron and those minding his security believe Behal’s protest to the lack of an official apology would not have been “peaceful”? Or “around the world” has different meanings in different contexts and under varying circumstances?

3. What has suddenly brought forth this rush of emotion in Cameron? He had visited India in July 2010, within weeks of assuming office. Why was there no acknowledgement of the “deeply shameful act in British history”? Was it not that shameful then, or has Cameron turned more conscientious in a year and half?

4. Britain’s Prince Philip had reportedly described the massacre toll as "vastly exaggerated" during his 1997 visit along with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth-II. What has changed in that country’s mindset in these 15-odd years? If Britannia is actually that desperate to court ‘rising and roaring’ India, Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and co, being pilloried for the downswing, could actually afford to smile.

Incidentally, Nadine Dorries, an MP from Cameron’s Conservative party, had last April said, “Unfortunately, I think that not only are Cameron and Osborne (George Osborne, the chancellor of exchequer, UK) two posh boys who don't know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others — and that is their real crime."

While there simply is no reason to take Dorries’s words at face value, one wonders how long this realisation of colonial Britain’s “shameful act” will remain.