Udham Singh: Retribution for Jallianwala Bagh

On 13 April 1919, a teenage orphan served water to a crowd in Jallianwala Bagh. Then soldiers opened fire on them.

He lived. Twenty-one years later, Udham Singh shot Michael O’Dwyer in a London hall. Today he is honoured as Shaheed-i-Azam, the Great Martyr.

1Who was Udham Singh?

He was born poor, and he lost his family early.

• He was born Sher Singh on 26 December 1899 in Sunam, Punjab.
• His mother died when he was a small child.
• He was the younger of two brothers.
• His father worked as a railway crossing watchman.
• Sunam lies about 130 miles south of Lahore.
• His father died in October 1907.
• The two brothers were then sent to the Central Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar.
• There he was renamed Udham Singh.
• Friends called him “Ude”.
• His elder brother died in 1917.
• He then served in the British Indian Army during the First World War.
• He worked in Basra and Baghdad on railways, carpentry and machinery.
• He returned to the orphanage in early 1919.

2What did he see at Jallianwala Bagh?

The massacre shaped the rest of his life.

• On 10 April 1919, leaders Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew were arrested.
• They were held under the Rowlatt Act.
• On 13 April, over twenty thousand unarmed people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh.
• It was the Sikh festival of Baisakhi.
• People also came to protest the arrests peacefully.
• Udham Singh and his orphanage friends were serving water to the crowd.
• Troops under Colonel Reginald Dyer opened fire.
• Several hundred people were killed.
• Udham Singh survived.

3How did he become a revolutionary?

He joined groups that fought British rule abroad and at home.

• He was deeply influenced by Bhagat Singh and his group.
• In 1924 he joined the Ghadar Party.
• In 1927 he returned to India on Bhagat Singh’s orders.
• He brought revolvers, ammunition and associates.
• He was soon arrested for unlicensed arms.
• Police also found copies of the banned paper Ghadr-di-Gunj.
• He was sentenced to five years in prison.
• He was released in 1931.
• The Punjab Police kept watching him.
• He escaped to Germany through Kashmir.
• He reached London in 1934 and found work there.
• He used several names while travelling, including Frank Brazil.

4What happened at Caxton Hall?

He waited many years, then struck in a public hall.

• On 13 March 1940, O’Dwyer was due to speak at Caxton Hall.
• The meeting was held by the East India Association and the Central Asian Society.
• O’Dwyer had been Lieutenant Governor of Punjab in 1919.
• Udham Singh hid a revolver inside a book with cut-out pages.
• He had bought the revolver from a soldier in a pub.
• He fired twice as O’Dwyer moved towards the platform.
• O’Dwyer died almost at once.
• Three others were wounded, including Lord Zetland.
• Udham Singh was arrested on the spot.
• The pistol was later kept at the Crime Museum in London.
• He had entered the hall with a ticket in his wife’s name.
• General Dyer had died in 1927, long before this day.

5How did his trial end?

He owned the act and was sentenced to death.

• He was charged with murder on 1 April 1940.
• In custody he called himself Ram Mohammad Singh Azad.
• The name joins the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities, plus the word azad, meaning “free”.
• He went on a hunger strike for 42 days and was force-fed.
• His trial began on 4 June 1940 at the Old Bailey.
• V. K. Krishna Menon and St John Hutchinson were his lawyers.
• He was convicted and sentenced to death.
• He was hanged at Pentonville Prison on 31 July 1940.
• The judge ordered his court speech kept from the press.
• In court he said he had waited twenty-one years for revenge.
• He also said he was dying for his country.
• It was published only in 1996.
• His remains were brought back to India in 1974.
• Udham Singh Nagar district was named after him in 1995.
• Every 31 July, marches are held in his hometown, Sunam.
• In 1999 he received the Nishan-e-Khalsa award after death.

6What are the exam traps?

Exams often mix him up with Dyer and Bhagat Singh.

• O’Dwyer was shot, not Dyer.
• Dyer led the troops that fired at the Bagh.
• O’Dwyer was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab then.
• The gap was 21 years, from 1919 to 1940.
• The killing was in London, not in Punjab.
• Udham Singh was born Sher Singh, and “Ude” was a nickname.
• His custody name was Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, not Frank Brazil.
• Do not confuse him with Bhagat Singh, who was hanged in 1931.
• Read about the Rowlatt Satyagraha that led up to the massacre.
• Read about Kitchlew and Satyapal, whose arrest set off the protest.
• Read about Sohan Singh Bhakna, a founder of the Ghadar Party.