IN RESPONSE TO COMMENTS MADE BY ARDENT ADMIRERS OF THE HEROES OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THIS WRITER'S ESSAY ENTITLED 'SHAHEED-I-AZAM SARDAR UDHAM SINGH'

Photo : Udham Singh, immediately after being apprehended by the British police, minutes after his assassination of Sir Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton hall, London, 13 March, 1940.

I am neither scholar nor 'professed professor', Subrata Babu, just an ordinary writer, mediocre and without merit. It is your love that prompts you to shower accolades on me for which I feel both grateful and humbled. I am only a servant to the cause of the resurrection of these heroes of the freedom struggle who we, through our lapse of recollection, have allowed to sink into oblivion. But all is not lost as historical traces reignite the flames of patriotic fervour and fresher narratives of the old episodes infuse new life into the dying embers causing a vast conflagration yet again that catches the imagination of a generation far removed from the scene of the original enactment and draws them to the Mother-heart where the past and the present and the unborn future are united in a filial feeling for the motherland.

I am no professor, though, Ashim Babu, just an ordinary writer, insignificant and inconsequential, perhaps, in the broader scheme of things. However, I am glad that you liked the essay and felt enriched reading it for it dates back to the days of our struggle to shake off the monster called British imperialism that sucked the lifeblood of our nation for close to two centuries.

Your deep sense of patriotism, spontaneous love for the nation and abiding adoration of the heroes of the freedom struggle move me. There is a sincerity in your self that is palpable and it quickens in a kindred soul the same passion for the cause of the motherland. Your fluid English makes your writing specially appealing to all for they become at once accessible and appealing to the reader. I exhort you to write more on the freedom fighters of our benighted nation at a time when its sovereignty is threatened by foes foreign and homegrown. When strong souls like you in large numbers take up the cudgels for the cause, our nation will be on the road to recovery of her lost land, ideals and spirit with a citizenry identifying with her essential message to it and to the world at large. With fondest hopes and 'great expectations', Susanta, I remain in eager expectancy, Sugata Bose.

SHAHEED-I-AZAM SARDAR UDHAM SINGH

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

RISING LIKE A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES

The only leader who had united India overriding all divisive factors that had then and subsequently fragmented India. He alone, rising above all pettiness of identity, with a vision clarified by enlightened reason and a love that transcended all barriers that thwarted India's future hopes, paved the way for his army for a united assault on the British Indian Empire leading to its eventual collapse.

The Indian National Army led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was India's Army of Liberation that dealt the death-blow to Imperial Britain's dreams of a continued occupation of India after its victory in the Second World War. The Quit India Movement of Gandhi had by then petered out and the Indian National Congress was in no position to force the British to leave. That they did, however, leave in a hurry must be ascribed to the impact the INA Trials at the Red Fort had on the nation. The Royal Indian Navy revolted. So did the British Indian Air Force. Finally, even the British Indian Army unit at Jabbalpur revolted. The situation was ominous for the British with only 40,000 British soldiers in their Armed Forces in India and 2.5 million retrenched and disgruntled Indian soldiers, who had served in the British Army during the Second World War, returning home to the Netaji fever raging over the nation.

Bose had succeeded in making Indian soldiers serving in the British Army switch loyalty from the Crown to the motherland. The British had ruled India ruthlessly by using Indian soldiers in their service to suppress any insurrection. Now they could no longer rely on the loyalty of these troops for Bose had undermined it by planting in their minds the seeds of patriotism.

The country was a cauldron seething with the fire of patriotism and the freedom-fervour. There was widespread unrest throughout the country with the shadow of Netaji, who had been reported to have died in an air-crash at Taihoku, looming large, urging the awakened masses of the nation to drive the British away. The perfidious colonists took the message as memories of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (as the British had dubbed it but what in effect was The First War of Indian Independence) were quickened and before being massacred by the masses, took to their heels after dealing the death-blow to India by partitioning it. Gandhi remained a passive protester and, thereafter, a mute spectator as Mountbatten, Nehru and Jinnah sealed India's fate.

The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, disgraced the INA soldiers by refusing to employ them in the Indian Army, refusing them pension and, by implication, effectively treating them as traitors not to be trusted, for they had, after all, disowned loyalty to their colonial masters in spite of their army vow of loyalty to the British Crown.

And what happened to our hero, Netaji? Hang on, my friends. India has patience enough to forbear a while more and we will, sure enough, unravel the mystery soon. Jai Hind!

JEEBONJUDDHO

Morar o toh upay nei, desher jonyo bnachte hobe. "Hey mor durbhaga desh! Jader korechho apamaan, apamaaney hote hobe tahader sobar soman." (Rabindranath Thakur) Maan apamaan ahongprasuto, tai abidyar adhinosto. Jodi mukti chao, toh prashanta hawo, ahangsunyo chitte birajomaan. Jeeboner lokshyo atmajnanlaabh, parthibo sukhdukkher prapti noy jodio esob jeebonmatrei eshe thake. Abhyasher dwara dhyaner gobhirey monke chalito korte hobe, tobei shanti laabh. Nachet shudhui dukkho bhog ar apamaaner jwala sajhyo korte hobe. Je mon prashanta, anukshon Ishwarchintay nimojjito, shei mon e ekmatra sukh dukkhe akaator, harshey shokey achanchal. Bhagabaan apnader shakalke shanta korun, shanti din o shitabosthay atmajnaney abhishikto korun, eimatra prarthana janai Tnar charankamaley.

DIVERSE COMMENTS IN RESPONSE TO JAY LAKHANI'S POSTS

Right you are Jay Lakhaniji. Independent India has been sold in spirit to the market and to matter, to Mumbai movies and to murkiness of thinking, a distorted ideology of secularism and a backtracking from her ancient culture of the shining Self within man and Nature and the transcendence thereof.

Jay Lakhaniji's spirit of service to the cause of humanity and the Sanatan Dharma is veritably his authority. Even Swami Vivekananda had said to his disciple, Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty, that one may preach the principles of the Sanatan Dharma in a spirit of service and it will, for sure, conduce to the well-being of the world. Even sending sympathetic currents of thought help the world, he had said.

Bravo, Jay Lakhaniji, what an exposition! Unfortunately I am not yet on whats app. However, as soon as I am, I will respond positively to your plea. Till then I will be obliged to carry forward your mission of propagation of the essence of Hinduism by posting your wonderful videos on the same in my numerous facebook groups and pages. Rest assured I will maintain my word. You are doing yeoman's service to the cause of the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) and through it to our motherland which has been and remains the source of the sublimest thoughts that man has been privy to.

SWAMIJI AND NETAJI, THE TWIN SAVIOURS OF OUR BELEAGUERED NATION ... 1

We have to Indianise our thoughts and stop imitating the West before we may legitimately feel that we are Indians, proud of her heritage, confident in our bearing as a nation and assertive in our presence as a civilisation. Let us root out all differences of caste, creed and religion that divide us a nation and unitedly proclaim that we are Indians first and anything else thereafter. We must rise together, united in intent and action, else, we will perish as a people, fragile and fragmented, disintegrating into despair, dissolving into oblivion, an uprooted, transplanted lot zeroing into nothingness. Swamiji and Netaji are our twin guides in this upward swing as a nation, in this resurgence as a mighty race, the former the pathfinder, the discoverer of our roots as a nation, our soul-force, while the latter the leader through the travails that led to our freedom, the helmsman who will yet steer the national ship through the tempestuous waters that threaten to sink it. Today, at a critical hour in our national existence when we are faced with the direst dangers of disintegration, we must hold onto these heroes of our soil if we are to regain the flower of our culture once more and upon such a self-discovery as a nation are we to survive as a people. Else, extinction looms large in our face for no nation may mimic another and long survive. Our culture, our civilisation, our religion, our humanity --- these must be recovered, revitalised, reoriented and relived if we are to flourish again as a premier people on planet earth.    

BE WORTHY OF NETAJI, O FOLLOWERS OF THE HERO!

The youth must feel inspired by Netaji to live disciplined lives of self-restraint and study, self-sacrifice and service, if they wish to be worthy of the great man who gave his everything in the nation's cause. Mere effusions in his name will not conduce to much good nor will such frothy emotionalism further his cause of nation-building. Even the resurrection of the INA and its Netaji from the falsities and fabrications of history, recorded by mercenaries masquerading as historians, is a far cry if the youth do not have a disciplined approach towards the study of Indian history before they attempt the rewriting of the true narrative of the freedom struggle.

Emotions are precious and they must be harnessed before they are offered as humble submissions at the altar of the motherland. Then, and then alone, will real work be done as substantive research by self-effacing soldiers of the soul will farm the fallow soil of the day, pregnant with possibilities though, to reap the harvest of autumn with a springtime of blossom to follow which will be the life and feast for all. Netaji and his army of liberation will then be resurrected and rightfully reinstated where they belong, at the pinnacle of the political pantheon of independent India.

This then is the work at hand and it requires discipline, diligence and dedication. Character will have to be built first and with it must combine an adamantine will which nothing can suppress but which can subdue all opposition lying in the path of fulfilment of the mission at hand. For this one needs thought-force and zeal born out of sublimity of the soul with purity, physical and psychological, as the prerequisites. The mind being controlled and the senses harnessed, the whole soul may be poured out in the service of the motherland which in essence is Netaji's cause. Let us exhort the youth to lead such lives of purity, patience and perseverance, to quote Netaji's spiritual anchor, Swami Vivekananda, as they gear themselves to resuscitate the sinking masses of eternal India lying prostrate on the seashore of perennial life.

Netaji was a son of the soil and no Occidental imposition on our land.The mission of eternal India is his mission too and in its fulfilment will awake the valour among countless countrymen of his to take up the cause of his forgotten army's as well. The valorous alone can honour the valorous. Let the youth of India awake to national self-fulfilment and obliteration of the personal self that Netajis' dream of a renascent India may come to fruition. Upon thee, O efflorescent youth, lies the mandate of thy leader to march through the jungles of Burma, to ford the rivers in spate, to cross the high Himalayas en route to the capital city. Remember, the roads to Delhi are many and the victory parade is yet to be, the march of the invincible INA along the broadway of the Red Fort. Chalo Dilli!