SHAHEED-I-AZAM SARDAR UDHAM SINGH
Shaheed-i-Azam Sardar Udham Singh, the valiant soul who manfully avenged the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April, 1919, when he assassinated its principle perpetrator, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, at Caxton Hall, London, on 13 March, 1940, 21 years after that fateful day at Amritsar, when the erstwhile Lieutenant Governor of Punjab --- who had presided over the proceedings at that time and under whose instructions, it is suspected, Colonel Reginald Dyer had ordered his troops to shoot down innocent civilians who had assembled at the Bagh that day for a peaceful rally --- was addressing a joint meeting of the East India Association and the Central Asian Society. It was the festival day of Baisakhi when over a thousand men, women and children were slaughtered to teach the Punjabis and the rest of India what it would cost them to resist the British rule in India. Udham Singh shot Sir Michael twice from point-blank range to kill him instantly while wounding several others including the then Secretary of State for India, Lord Zetland who was presiding over the meeting. The fiery revolutionary made no effort to escape and allowed himself to be apprehended by the police who then interrogated him in an adjoining chamber for the next three hours to elicit information from him while Sir Michael lay dead on the floor of the Caxton Hall all the while.
This valiant son of the Punjab, in solidarity with the whole of India at a time when perfidious politics threatened to partition the land on gaining independence along communal lines, introduced himself to the British intelligence officers as Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, and this, at the most critical hour of his life. To denounce his valorous act of avenging the Jallianwala Massacre as so many Congress leaders did including Gandhi and Nehru was the gravest act of betrayal to the honour of India and yet another instance of the emasculated stance of the non-violent movement of Gandhi which in a century also would not have succeeded in bringing India freedom had it not been for the valorous revolutionary activity of the rest of the freedom fighters whose climactic assault on the British Empire came in the form of the INA's War of Liberation led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose which virtually ignited India to the attainment of freedom.
Born Sher Singh on 26 December, 1899 and orphaned early, he was brought up by the Central Khalsa Orphanage Pultighar in Amritsar where he was christened Udham Singh. On that fateful day, he, along with his friends from the orphanage, was engaged in the service of offering water to the assembled people at the Jallianwala Bagh. The wanton killing of innocents cast a deep impression on Udham and he resolved to kill Sir Michael O'Dwyer who supported the massacre in no uncertain terms.
With the passage of time Udham Singh joined revolutionary politics. He was deeply influenced by Bhagat Singh and eventually became an active member of the Ghadar party organising expatriate Indians into revolutionary action against British colonialism. In 1927 he was summoned to India by Bhagat Singh. Udham Singh returned to his motherland with twenty-five revolutionary comrades and arms and ammunition whose illegal possession soon landed him in jail for a term of five years. On release in 1931, he evaded the British police and escaped through Kashmir to Germany and then to England in 1934 to be on the trail of Sir Michael O'Dwyer.
Udham Singh now waited for an opportunity to get close to Sir O'Dwyer and eventually, by a quirk of fate, managed to get into the employment of Sir O'Dwyer's house-staff. Six years of wait paid off when on 13 March, 1940, Udham Singh fulfilled his life's mission of assassinating the cruel Sir Michael O'Dwyer who had overseen the barbarism of Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April, 1919. While the victims of Amritsar stood avenged and India's manhood stood vindicated, Gandhi's denunciation of Udham Singh's valorous act as one of insanity and Nehru's seconding of it smeared the selfless soul of Udham Singh with the calumny of insanity and murder.
Shame Mahatma, shame! It has never been your turn to uphold the cause of India's manhood whenever the occasion arose, be it Udham Singh, Bhagat Singh or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who you went all out to destroy and oust from the political scene of India, yet, failed to do so, for these leonine souls needed no Mahatma with a spinning wheel to support them but had the support of Bharat Mata (Mother India) who is the source of all strength and valour. History will readjust its recording. While you enjoy the brief hour of historical glory which is the fruit of your karma, posterity will charge you for your indiscretions, your sacrileges and your perfidies which has cost India dear. And your protege Nehru? He will remain vilified in history as the traitor who sold India's best interests to British hands and created the inimical State of Pakistan, not to mention his calculated betrayal of Bose. Mahatma, you did not live up to the promise Tagore erroneously out of his goodness and imperfect vision saw in you, for it was you who had started perfidious proceedings against Bose at Tripuri which eventually led to the destruction of Akhanda Bharat (Integrated India). That you would cast aspersions on the noble intent of Sardar Udham Singh and dismiss his whole life's mission by a single verbal denunciation comes as no surprise, for insensitivity to anything beyond your limited ambit of understanding and appreciation is all that may be expected of a titular Mahatma of your stature.
On 1 April, 1940, Udham Singh was charged with the murder of Sir Michael O'Dwyer. He awaited his trial in Brixton Prison. Udham Singh now went on a marathon 42-day hunger strike which was broken by the police eventually successfully force-feeding him. On 4 June, 1940, his trial began at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, in the presence of Justice Atkinson. In defence of his action the accused said, "I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?"
Udham Singh was convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 31 July, 1940 at Pentonville Prison and buried within the prison grounds.
In 1974 the remains of the martyr were exhumed and brought over to India to be cremated with due honours at his birthpalce, Sunam, In Punjab. His ashes were then scattered in the river Sutlej leaving a portion of it which was preserved in a sealed urn at Jallianwala Bagh. Indira Gandhi, as if by way of atonement, oversaw the process of reinstatement of the remains of one who her father had denounced as the perpetrator of a regrettable extreme act of violence which he hoped would not jeopardise India's cause of political independence to be granted by the British in due course of time. Later in 1962, the ageing Nehru of failing health had the ripened wisdom born out of the excruciating experience of the turbulent times to rectify his earlier stance when he acknowledged the debt the nation owed to Udham Singh in the following published statement : "I salute Shaheed-i-Azam Udham Singh with reverence who had kissed the noose so that we may be free."
Now the question arises. Who was this Ram Mohammad Singh Azad? And the answer to it is but this. He was the conscience of repressed India, subjugated by foreign tyranny till it had lost all manhood to rebel the virile way as befits a man of honour who will not allow his motherland to be molested as and when it pleased her colonial master. Ram was the Hindu man in the revolutionary, Mohammad the Muslim, Singh the Sikh and Azad the freedom-loving Indian who was then living a life of perpetual misery in bondage to the British. Udham Singh had united within his self the whole of diverse India in a common bond of fraternal love. His spirit craved for an end to the deprivation of his countrymen and to give a fitting reply to the barbarous British by paying them in their own coin for what they had done to the innocents of Amritsar that fateful Baisakhi day. That he did achieve his life's mission is a tribute to his iron resolve, his industry, his patience, his persistence and, above all, his unbounded love for his countrymen.
Udham Singh's valour and sacrifice remain a source of perennial inspiration and strength for us and serve as a beacon of light to set our directions right whenever we tend to stray from the path that is righteous and valorous for our nation. Our salutations and warm embrace to this prince of patriots who lived a whole life pulsating with agony at the terrible injustice meted out to the innocents of Amritsar and who ended his life on the gallows knowing that his country's foremost leader, Gandhi, had denounced him as an insane killer of an Englishman.
I bow down to the holy spirit of Sardar Udham Singh and vow vengeance for his cause. I wield but a pen and am a stranger to arms but the fire of revolution burns even in my soul. Kindred spirits we all are, those that weep for the martyrs and laugh not in jest at their supreme acts of valour, citing bogus debilitating philosophy of non-violence that stands neither the test of reason nor of realisation, nor is attested by ancient Hindu scriptural texts as their perverse protagonist persistently claims. Udham Singh lives in our hearts and we shall pledge to love our motherland even as he did, a single soul resonating to the harmony that is India, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad.
Written by Sugata Bose
Shaheed-i-Azam Sardar Udham Singh, the valiant soul who manfully avenged the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April, 1919, when he assassinated its principle perpetrator, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, at Caxton Hall, London, on 13 March, 1940, 21 years after that fateful day at Amritsar, when the erstwhile Lieutenant Governor of Punjab --- who had presided over the proceedings at that time and under whose instructions, it is suspected, Colonel Reginald Dyer had ordered his troops to shoot down innocent civilians who had assembled at the Bagh that day for a peaceful rally --- was addressing a joint meeting of the East India Association and the Central Asian Society. It was the festival day of Baisakhi when over a thousand men, women and children were slaughtered to teach the Punjabis and the rest of India what it would cost them to resist the British rule in India. Udham Singh shot Sir Michael twice from point-blank range to kill him instantly while wounding several others including the then Secretary of State for India, Lord Zetland who was presiding over the meeting. The fiery revolutionary made no effort to escape and allowed himself to be apprehended by the police who then interrogated him in an adjoining chamber for the next three hours to elicit information from him while Sir Michael lay dead on the floor of the Caxton Hall all the while.
This valiant son of the Punjab, in solidarity with the whole of India at a time when perfidious politics threatened to partition the land on gaining independence along communal lines, introduced himself to the British intelligence officers as Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, and this, at the most critical hour of his life. To denounce his valorous act of avenging the Jallianwala Massacre as so many Congress leaders did including Gandhi and Nehru was the gravest act of betrayal to the honour of India and yet another instance of the emasculated stance of the non-violent movement of Gandhi which in a century also would not have succeeded in bringing India freedom had it not been for the valorous revolutionary activity of the rest of the freedom fighters whose climactic assault on the British Empire came in the form of the INA's War of Liberation led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose which virtually ignited India to the attainment of freedom.
Born Sher Singh on 26 December, 1899 and orphaned early, he was brought up by the Central Khalsa Orphanage Pultighar in Amritsar where he was christened Udham Singh. On that fateful day, he, along with his friends from the orphanage, was engaged in the service of offering water to the assembled people at the Jallianwala Bagh. The wanton killing of innocents cast a deep impression on Udham and he resolved to kill Sir Michael O'Dwyer who supported the massacre in no uncertain terms.
With the passage of time Udham Singh joined revolutionary politics. He was deeply influenced by Bhagat Singh and eventually became an active member of the Ghadar party organising expatriate Indians into revolutionary action against British colonialism. In 1927 he was summoned to India by Bhagat Singh. Udham Singh returned to his motherland with twenty-five revolutionary comrades and arms and ammunition whose illegal possession soon landed him in jail for a term of five years. On release in 1931, he evaded the British police and escaped through Kashmir to Germany and then to England in 1934 to be on the trail of Sir Michael O'Dwyer.
Udham Singh now waited for an opportunity to get close to Sir O'Dwyer and eventually, by a quirk of fate, managed to get into the employment of Sir O'Dwyer's house-staff. Six years of wait paid off when on 13 March, 1940, Udham Singh fulfilled his life's mission of assassinating the cruel Sir Michael O'Dwyer who had overseen the barbarism of Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April, 1919. While the victims of Amritsar stood avenged and India's manhood stood vindicated, Gandhi's denunciation of Udham Singh's valorous act as one of insanity and Nehru's seconding of it smeared the selfless soul of Udham Singh with the calumny of insanity and murder.
Shame Mahatma, shame! It has never been your turn to uphold the cause of India's manhood whenever the occasion arose, be it Udham Singh, Bhagat Singh or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who you went all out to destroy and oust from the political scene of India, yet, failed to do so, for these leonine souls needed no Mahatma with a spinning wheel to support them but had the support of Bharat Mata (Mother India) who is the source of all strength and valour. History will readjust its recording. While you enjoy the brief hour of historical glory which is the fruit of your karma, posterity will charge you for your indiscretions, your sacrileges and your perfidies which has cost India dear. And your protege Nehru? He will remain vilified in history as the traitor who sold India's best interests to British hands and created the inimical State of Pakistan, not to mention his calculated betrayal of Bose. Mahatma, you did not live up to the promise Tagore erroneously out of his goodness and imperfect vision saw in you, for it was you who had started perfidious proceedings against Bose at Tripuri which eventually led to the destruction of Akhanda Bharat (Integrated India). That you would cast aspersions on the noble intent of Sardar Udham Singh and dismiss his whole life's mission by a single verbal denunciation comes as no surprise, for insensitivity to anything beyond your limited ambit of understanding and appreciation is all that may be expected of a titular Mahatma of your stature.
On 1 April, 1940, Udham Singh was charged with the murder of Sir Michael O'Dwyer. He awaited his trial in Brixton Prison. Udham Singh now went on a marathon 42-day hunger strike which was broken by the police eventually successfully force-feeding him. On 4 June, 1940, his trial began at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, in the presence of Justice Atkinson. In defence of his action the accused said, "I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it. He was the real culprit. He wanted to crush the spirit of my people, so I have crushed him. For full 21 years, I have been trying to wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of death. I am dying for my country. I have seen my people starving in India under the British rule. I have protested against this, it was my duty. What greater honour could be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?"
Udham Singh was convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 31 July, 1940 at Pentonville Prison and buried within the prison grounds.
In 1974 the remains of the martyr were exhumed and brought over to India to be cremated with due honours at his birthpalce, Sunam, In Punjab. His ashes were then scattered in the river Sutlej leaving a portion of it which was preserved in a sealed urn at Jallianwala Bagh. Indira Gandhi, as if by way of atonement, oversaw the process of reinstatement of the remains of one who her father had denounced as the perpetrator of a regrettable extreme act of violence which he hoped would not jeopardise India's cause of political independence to be granted by the British in due course of time. Later in 1962, the ageing Nehru of failing health had the ripened wisdom born out of the excruciating experience of the turbulent times to rectify his earlier stance when he acknowledged the debt the nation owed to Udham Singh in the following published statement : "I salute Shaheed-i-Azam Udham Singh with reverence who had kissed the noose so that we may be free."
Now the question arises. Who was this Ram Mohammad Singh Azad? And the answer to it is but this. He was the conscience of repressed India, subjugated by foreign tyranny till it had lost all manhood to rebel the virile way as befits a man of honour who will not allow his motherland to be molested as and when it pleased her colonial master. Ram was the Hindu man in the revolutionary, Mohammad the Muslim, Singh the Sikh and Azad the freedom-loving Indian who was then living a life of perpetual misery in bondage to the British. Udham Singh had united within his self the whole of diverse India in a common bond of fraternal love. His spirit craved for an end to the deprivation of his countrymen and to give a fitting reply to the barbarous British by paying them in their own coin for what they had done to the innocents of Amritsar that fateful Baisakhi day. That he did achieve his life's mission is a tribute to his iron resolve, his industry, his patience, his persistence and, above all, his unbounded love for his countrymen.
Udham Singh's valour and sacrifice remain a source of perennial inspiration and strength for us and serve as a beacon of light to set our directions right whenever we tend to stray from the path that is righteous and valorous for our nation. Our salutations and warm embrace to this prince of patriots who lived a whole life pulsating with agony at the terrible injustice meted out to the innocents of Amritsar and who ended his life on the gallows knowing that his country's foremost leader, Gandhi, had denounced him as an insane killer of an Englishman.
I bow down to the holy spirit of Sardar Udham Singh and vow vengeance for his cause. I wield but a pen and am a stranger to arms but the fire of revolution burns even in my soul. Kindred spirits we all are, those that weep for the martyrs and laugh not in jest at their supreme acts of valour, citing bogus debilitating philosophy of non-violence that stands neither the test of reason nor of realisation, nor is attested by ancient Hindu scriptural texts as their perverse protagonist persistently claims. Udham Singh lives in our hearts and we shall pledge to love our motherland even as he did, a single soul resonating to the harmony that is India, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad.
Written by Sugata Bose
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