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Journalism of Courage
On July 31, 1940, Indian revolutionary leader Udham Singh was executed at the Pentonville prison in London for killing Michael O’Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of Punjab.
One of the survivors of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Singh planned revenge against O’Dwyer and assassinated him on March 13, 1940. It was under O’Dwyer’s regime that British Brigadier Reginald Dyer fired at a crowd of Indians gathered in an Amritsar park. With the troops ordered to block the exits, over 1,000 men, women and children lost their lives and more than 1,200 were wounded.
Singh has since become an iconic figure in Punjab. Over the years, political parties have promised to set up memorials and install statues to commemorate him. Here is a look at some major announcements and where they stand today.
Udham Singh was born Sher Singh on December 26, 1899, in the Sunam city of Sangrur district. His parents died while he was young and subsequently, Singh’s uncle sent him and his elder brother to live in the Central Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar, where they were both given new names. In 1917, tragedy again struck when his brother Mukt Singh died of an unknown disease.
Singh’s one-room accommodation ancestral house in Sunam has been converted into a museum, now maintained by the archaeology department. It houses literature on him and other revolutionaries, along with a few of his photos. However, it is closed on the weekends.
Additionally, a memorial for Singh was built on four acres of land in Sunam for 2.61 crores. On December 26, 2016, marking Udham Singh’s birthday, then Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal laid its foundation stone. The memorial was inaugurated on October 31, 2021, by then CM Captain Amarinder Singh.
The city has a few of Singh’s statues and a government college has also been named after him. The Sunam assembly constituency is also called Sunam Udham Singh Wala.
In 1974, Singh’s remains were exhumed in the UK and repatriated to India. Punjab CM Zail Singh is also believed to have made efforts for this. Singh’s cremation was done in Sunam and on August 2, 1974, his ashes were divided among seven urns sent to Haridwar, Kiratpur Sahib, Rayza Sharif, the museum at Jallianwala Bagh, Sunam and two for the library of Shaheed Udham Singh Government College in Sunam.
Unfulfilled promises
Four statues of Udham Singh have been erected in Sunam. Several local organisations say that they all depict different faces. Also, despite a dedicated space to keep the urns, they are placed in the college library and are brought to the memorial only when functions are held. Historians say that a few of Udham Singh’s letters at the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar should also be shifted to the memorial.
“After the inauguration of the memorial in 2021, we have been putting this demand across to the AAP government but nothing has been done in this direction,” said historian Rakesh Kumar, who has also written a book on Singh. There has also been a demand to bring back Udham Singh’s pistol and his other belongings from London.
Last year, paying his tributes at the Udham Singh memorial, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann said, “The government will make strenuous efforts to bring back Shaheed Udham Singh’s personal belongings from London. The state government will raise the matter at all relevant platforms to speed up the process.”
Objects associated with Punjabi revolutionary leader Shaheed Bhagat Singh in Pakistan will also be brought back to the country, he said. The CM further sought the Bharat Ratna award for the revolutionaries. However, organisations like the Gadri Udham Singh Vichar Manch note how even local-level actions, say the shifting of his belongings to the memorial, have not been taken so far.
