Udham Singhਊਧਮ ਸਿੰਘ

Early life

Udham Singh was born Sher Singh on 26 December 1899 in Sunam, in what is now Sangrur district of Punjab. He lost both parents while still a child and was brought up in the Central Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar, where he was given the name Udham Singh. The orphanage years left him with little formal schooling but a strong sense of Sikh identity and community.

In 1919, when he was nineteen, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar, the very city where he lived. Hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were shot dead on the orders of General Dyer, with the approval of Punjab's Lieutenant Governor, Michael O'Dwyer. The massacre scarred Udham Singh deeply, and he resolved that O'Dwyer would one day answer for it. That vow would shape the rest of his life.

Revolutionary years

In 1924 Udham Singh joined the Ghadar Party, the revolutionary organisation of Indian emigrants that aimed to overthrow British rule by armed revolt. He threw himself into its work both in India and abroad. In 1927 he was arrested on returning to India with associates, charged with illegal possession of firearms and revolutionary literature, and sentenced to five years in prison. He served his term and emerged unbroken.

After his release he made his way to England, where he lived the hard life of an immigrant worker, taking jobs as a carpenter, motor mechanic and signboard painter. He moved in socialist circles and even worked as a film extra, appearing in the Alexander Korda productions Elephant Boy in 1937 and The Four Feathers in 1939. But he never forgot the purpose that had brought him to England. He learned that Michael O'Dwyer, long retired, was living in London and speaking at imperial gatherings.

Caxton Hall and martyrdom

On 13 March 1940, O'Dwyer was scheduled to address a meeting of the East India Association at Caxton Hall in London. Udham Singh hid a revolver in his overcoat, slipped into the hall, and as the meeting ended shot O'Dwyer dead. He made no attempt to escape and was arrested on the spot. At his trial he gave his name as Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, a name tattooed on his arm, declaring it a symbol that Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs stood united against British rule.

He was convicted of murder and hanged on 31 July 1940 at Pentonville Prison in London, where he was buried within the prison grounds. For decades his grave lay in England, until 1974, when his remains were exhumed and brought home to India with full honours. He was cremated at his birthplace in Sunam, and his ashes were scattered in the Sutlej, the same river that had received the ashes of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.

Legacy

Udham Singh is honoured as Shaheed-i-Azam, the great martyr, and his martyrdom day on 31 July is observed as a public holiday in Punjab and Haryana. A district of Uttarakhand, Udham Singh Nagar, was named for him in 1995, and memorials, museums and colleges across Punjab carry his name. His act, carried out alone after twenty-one years of waiting, remains one of the most extraordinary episodes of the freedom struggle, a reminder of how long and how patiently the memory of Jallianwala Bagh burned in those who had lived through it.