Unsung heroes of Indian independence: Know more about Udham Singh

New Delhi: The credit for India's independence goes to millions of people who came out to fight British rule and did not bother to give the supreme sacrifice to break the chains of bondage.Some are well known like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Bose and Sardar Patel, but there are others too, who made a major contribution but are today relegated to the dust of history. One such hero was Shaheed Sardar Udham Singh .Born on 26 December,1899 in Shahpur Kalan village in Sunam Tehsil in Sangrur district of Punjab. Udham Singh's father was a watchman on a railway crossing in the village of Upalli. After 1907, he lived his childhood in Central Khalsa orphanage Putlighar in Amritsar because of the untimely death of as his mother and father. Singh was trained in various arts and crafts there. He passed his matriculation examination in 1918 and left the orphanage in 1919.He reached Africa in 1920, moving to Nairobi in 1921. Singh tried for a passage to the United States but was unsuccessful. He returned to India in 1924, reaching the U.S. that same year. There, Singh became actively involved with members of the Gadar Party, an Indian group known for its revolutionary politics and its founder, Sohan Singh Bhakna. Singh spent three years in revolutionary activities in the U.S. and organised Overseas Indians for the freedom struggle. He returned to India in July 1927 on orders from Bhagat Singh. He was accompanied by 25 associates from the U.S. and brought a consignment of revolvers and ammunition.He came into the limelight for the assassination of General Michael O'Dwyer -the man responsible for Jallianwala Bagh massacre . Shaheed Udham Singh witnessed the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre and it was then, he took an oath to avenge the killings.He fought many odds before he could reach his final goal of killing Michael O'Dwyer 21years after the massacre happened.Mass killing in Jallianwala Bagh proved a turning point in his life. After a bath in the sacred sarovar at Golden Temple,Udham Singh took a silent vow and solemn pledge in front of the Golden Temple to wreak vengeance on the perpetrators of the crime and to restore honour to what he saw as a humiliated nation.He killed Michael O'Dwyer on 13th March 1940, at a meeting held at Caxton Hall, Udham Singh fired at O'Dwyer who died immediately. He also fired shots at Zetland, the Secretary of State for India, injuring him but not seriously.Gandhi and Nehru both condemned his act at the time. Gandhi remarked that, "the outrage has caused me deep pain. I regard it as an act of insanity...I hope this will not be allowed to affect political judgement".Nehru wrote in his newspaper National Herald: "Assassination is regretted but it is earnestly hoped that it will not have far-reaching repercussions on the political future of India"Subhash Chandra Bose was perhaps the only leader of the independence movement who approved of Udham Singh's action.Mass killing in Jallianwala Bagh proved a turning point in his life" After a bath in the sacred sarovar at Golden Temple,"Udham Singh took a silent vow and solemn pledge in front of the Golden Temple to wreak a vengeance on the perpetrators of the crime and to restore honour to what he saw as a humiliated nation."But later in 1962, two years before his death, Nehru wrote in the daily "Partap" "I salute Shaheed-i-Azam Udham Singh with reverence who had kissed the noose so that we may be free." The British government labelled him as one of "India's earliest Marxists". On 31 July 1940 he was hanged at at Pentonville Prison for the assassination of Michael O'Dwyer.