Shaheed Uddham Singh

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=95 BGCOLOR="#999999" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="101005f0ermwup.gif"> <div> <B>   </B><B><IMG SRC="211742e0.gif" border=0 width="628" height="46" ALT="Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 Image" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><B>   |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" "><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sikhism"><U>Sikhism</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chamkila II"><U>Chamkila II</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Pictures"><U>Pictures</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Music"><U>Music</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="New Releases"><U>New Releases</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" Products and Services"><U> Products and Services</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Linkz"><U>Linkz</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jatt"><U>Jatt</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Artist"><U>Artist</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Me"><U>About Me</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Legends "><U>Legends    </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Punjab"><U>Punjab</U></A>   |   <B>Shaheed Uddham Singh</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=385 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> Shaheed Uddham Singh</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="21d803d0.gif" border=0 width="896" height="61" ALT="Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 Image" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> Udham Singh was born in 1899 in a village called Sunam in Punjab. His father, Sardar Tehl Singh was a small farmer. Udham Singh lost his mother at the early age of three, and his father died when he was only five years old. He was brought up by the Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar.</div> <div> Udham Singh was an apprentice carpenter in Amritsar in 1919, at the time of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. He was present at the meeting and, according to some accounts, was engaged as a helper, carrying drinking water to the participants. The brutality of the massacre left an indelible impression on his mind. He turned to revolutionary politics and dedicated his whole life to the cause of the people. Around that time he left India and traveled to the U.S. where he linked up with the Ghadarites and began working for them. His duties included driving new arrivals from India to secure destinations and making arrangements for their stays abroad. He then received a message e from his comrade-in-arms, Bhagat Singh, who instructed him to return to India with a consignment of weapons.</div> <div> Udham Singh returned to India in 1927 with some firearms, but he was betrayed and arrested soon after his arrival. He was sentenced to four years in prison. This was the period of the violent campaign in the Punjab against the colonial government, led by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association of Bhagat Singh and Chandarshehkar Azad. The campaign ended following the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru in 1931.</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="189" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="185"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="20" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="185" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> Udham Singh was still in prison at that time. When he was released, he vowed to follow in the footsteps of his comrade and hero Bhagat Singh and avenge the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He was fond of singing the famous ghazal by Bismal</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Udham Singh managed to give the police a slip and fled abroad for a second time. He traveled widely, visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany and Russia, making contact with Indian revolutionaries abroad wherever he went. Finally, in 1933, he arrived in Britain using the name Ram Mohammed Singh Azad. He established links with the then tiny Indian community in London, as well as other freedom-fighters, including Irish patriots.</div> <div> Udham Singh had planned to execute Michael O'Dwyer in order to restore the dignity of the Indian people which had been sullied by their slavery to British imperialism. Jallianwalla Bagh was a most sordid chapter in the colonial history of our land, and Udham Singh believed that the Indian people must have the final word before closing this chapter once and for all.</div> <div> He worked as a handyman and driver in O'Dwyer's hometown in Devon. In the course of this, he had many opportunities to execute O'Dwyer and escape unnoticed. He was not, however, interested in taking any action that could have been interpreted as the work of a lone assassin, devoid of its political implications. Instead, he waited patiently for seven years until an opportunity presented itself when he could make a public statement by his action. </div> <div> On 13 March 1940, a meeting was held in Caxton Hall in London by an association of retired and serving British colonial officials in India. The chief guest was Michael O'Dwyer, and other speakers included men from the highest echelons of British colonial power in India. At the end of the meeting Udham Singh shot O'Dwyer and five other colonial "dignitaries", killing O'Dwyer and wounding the others. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> A patriot from the Punjab, Udham Singh came to London in the 1930s as a fighter against foreign colonial rule in India. British rule was one of the darkest eras in the history of our people. Many crimes and atrocities were committed, but one that stood out in particular was the massacre of innocent, unarmed civilians at Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar in 1919. The British ruling circles, then as now the self proclaimed upholders of civilisation, refused to punish those guilty of this heinous crime, and in fact heaped public honours upon them. Accounted for by nobody, Jallianwalla Bagh remained a blot upon the dignity of the oppressed people of India.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" "><U><IMG SRC="2d685ac0.gif" border=0 width="133" height="172" ALT="Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 Image" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> Copyright © 1997 - 2001, <U>JaTT Incorporated</U></div> <div> All Rights Reserved.</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>