Udham Singh

Udham Singh (born December 26, 1899, Sunam, Punjab, India—died July 31, 1940, London, U.K.) was an Indian political activist who fought against the British raj in India and sought revenge for the 1919 massacre of civilians by the British army at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in the Punjab province (now Punjab state). Singh assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, who was the lieutenant-governor of Punjab at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh incident, in 1940. Singh is often addressed with the honorific Shaheed (from Arabic shahīd, “martyr”).

Early life

Udham Singh, originally named Sher Singh, was born into a family of farmers in a small village in Punjab to father Tehal Singh and mother Narain Kaur. Sher Singh’s mother died when he was about three years old, and his father passed away a few years later. Orphaned at a young age, he and his elder brother were admitted to the Central Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar in 1907. They were initiated into the Sikh religion at the orphanage, and Sher Singh was renamed Udham Singh. His friends began calling him Ude, a nickname that stuck. Singh and his brother followed a routine at the orphanage that included prayers, classroom lessons, and learning crafts such as carpentry. In 1917 Singh’s brother, who had been his anchor at the orphanage, died of disease, although the exact cause is unknown. Singh stayed on at the orphanage for a while longer, eventually enlisting in the colonial Indian army to fight for the British Empire in World War I (1914–18). For a poor orphan the army could assure a steady subsistence. He was posted in Basra (in what is now Iraq) for six months but was sent back, as he had differences with his commanding officers. It is said that he was impudent and had difficulty complying with authority. He later rejoined the army and went back to Basra during the war. After the war was over he returned to India embittered by the ravages of war, having been denied the emoluments he had been promised when he enlisted.

Sparks of revolution

From the beginning of the 20th century, Punjab was simmering with growing discontent and unrest against the British rule. On April 13, 1919, at least 10,000 people assembled at Jallianwala Bagh for a peaceful protest against legislation known as the Rowlatt Acts that the British had passed that year, which allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted internment of the accused without trial. British officer Reginald Dyer arrived at the protest site and ordered his troops to seal off the exit and open fire on the unarmed crowd, killing indiscriminately. Singh was serving water to the attendees at the time of the attack and watched it unfold. This sparked in him a hatred for colonial rule.

The lieutenant governor of Punjab at the time, Michael O’Dwyer, not only condoned Dyer’s actions but even justified them. Singh vowed to take revenge on the perpetrators of the massacre. He began meeting Indian revolutionaries and reading revolutionary literature. He was inspired by Bhagat Singh, a hero of the Indian Independence Movement. While he got involved with the freedom struggle in India, he also searched for employment. Work took him to various parts of the world, including Africa, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. Traveling most often without official documentation, he took on aliases such as Ude Singh and Frank Brazil, which also served as a cover from the British authorities.

In 1924, while he was living in the U.S., Singh became a member of the Ghadar Party, an international group of Indian revolutionaries who had declared war against the British raj. Singh offered his services to the group and supported its revolutionary activities. Gradually, Singh settled into a stable life in the U.S., marrying a Mexican woman named Lupe Hernandez and holding a steady job; however, he had not forgotten his mission, which was further fueled by the publication of O’Dwyer’s book India as I Knew It (1925), in which the British officer vehemently justified the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In 1927, while Singh continued to spread Ghadar propaganda, he returned to India on a mission at Bhagat Singh’s request in order to smuggle arms and ammunition. This led to Udham Singh’s arrest. He was charged with the possession of unlicensed weapons and writings that the British considered seditious, and later convicted of these crimes.

Avenging Jallianwala and execution

Singh was released from prison in 1931. In the meantime, Dyer had died of ill health, and Bhagat Singh had been hanged to death for killing British police officer John Saunders. Deeply saddened by Bhagat Singh’s execution, Udham Singh took to carrying his portrait in a wallet, calling Bhagat Singh his guru. Determined more than ever to fulfill his oath to avenge Jallianwala Bagh, Udham Singh tried to make his way abroad again, traveling to Lahore (now in Pakistan) in 1933 to get a fresh passport, this time with his real name, as his aliases had gained notoriety. With this new passport, Singh made his way to London. Once there he drew unwanted attention to himself as he desperately applied for permits to travel to other European countries, which raised suspicions. Although he managed to visit some other countries including the Soviet Union, British surveillance on him increased. During this period, he worked mostly under the name Singh Azad, staying at multiple addresses to make it difficult for authorities to trace him and continuing his revolutionary activities in secrecy.

Within a few years he had tracked down O’Dwyer, who had returned to England in 1925. Although he was often under the spotlight of the authorities, Singh managed to evade them and planned to murder O’Dwyer in the latter’s holiday home in Devon, England. He changed his mind later and resolved to carry out the task in London, perhaps thinking that this would create a bigger impact. He heard that O’Dwyer would be attending an event at Caxton Hall in Westminster on March 13, 1940, and chose this opportunity to strike. Singh reached the hall with a loaded gun, and after O’Dwyer had given a speech, Singh shot him twice. O’Dwyer fell to the floor and succumbed to the gunshot wounds. It had taken him 21 years, but Singh finally got his revenge. Before he was captured by London authorities, Singh fired at and wounded three other men: the secretary of state for India, Lord Zetland, the former governor of Bombay presidency Lord Lamington, and O’Dwyer’s predecessor in Punjab, Louis Dane. In her book The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj (2019), Anita Anand writes that Udham Singh said the following after the assassination:

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I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it.

In fact, Singh regretted that he had been able to murder only O’Dwyer, as he had hoped to kill the others as well. In his statement to police, Singh said that his name was Ram Mohammed Singh Azad. The first three words of this adopted name represented three major religions of India (Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism, respectively) and azad, meaning “free,” stood for his anticolonial beliefs. Singh was held in Brixton Prison in London. During his trial, which began on June 4, 1940, he went on a fast for 42 days. After the trial, the Central Criminal Court sentenced Singh to death, and he was hanged at the Pentonville Prison, London, on July 31, 1940. Before the judge had passed the sentence, Singh said:

I am not afraid to die. I am proud to die.…I have great sympathy with the workers of England, but I am against the dirty British government.

Singh’s actions evoked different reactions in India. Overall public sentiment was positive, with a number of Indian nationalists regarding him as a hero and a martyr. Revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose approved of Singh’s actions. Other leaders, however, were critical of Singh. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the act, writing in his newspaper Harijan:

The news of the death of Sir Michael O’Dwyer and the injuries to Lord Zetland, Lord Lamington and Sir Louis Dane, has caused me deep pain. I regard this act as one of insanity.

Jawaharlal Nehru also denounced the assassination, hoping that it would not have negative repercussions on India’s future. This was thought to be because Gandhi and Nehru were in political negotiations with the British government at the time, and they were wary of the fallout of this militant assassination. But a number of younger members of their party, the Indian National Congress, came out openly in support of Singh.

Honoring Singh’s memory

Singh was buried at the Pentonville Prison grounds, where his remains were kept until 1974. That year, largely because of the efforts of the chief minister of Punjab state, Giani Zail Singh, his remains were brought to India. Udham Singh was hailed as a martyr, his remains were cremated, and urns with his ashes were distributed to different significant locations: one was immersed in the Ganges River, another has been kept at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial site, and three others have been distributed elsewhere. In 1995 the Uttarakhand state government, under Chief Minister Kumari Mayawati, named a district in Singh’s memory. The Hindi-language movies Shaheed Uddham Singh: Alias Ram Mohammad Singh Azad (2000) and Sardar Udham (2021) are biographical narratives that pay tribute to the martyr.