Sir: History of freedom movement in India tells that most Indians were sly, sycophants’ (to quote mahatma’ Gandhi). Yet, a few lodestones like Udham Singh illuminate tomes of freedom movement. The Sunam-born Ghadar Party revolutionary Udham Singh shot dead Sir Michael O’Dwyer, former lieutenant governor of British Punjab, in a meeting of the East Indian Association at Caxton Hall in London (‘Assassin shoots minister, kills knight’. UK’s Daily Mirror March 14, 1940). After a hasty trial, Singh was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, on July 31, 1940. For fear of annoying Britain, India is yet to recognise him as a freedom fighter.
Dwyer’s team of over 50 soldiers fired 1,650 rounds, before running out of ammunition. They were armed with. 303 Lee – Enfield bolt-action rifles, besides knives or khukuris (knives). In just about 10 minutes, over 1,000 protesters were killed. After the mayhem Dyer remorselessly left the scene without arranging medical aid to the wounded.
Shortly after the massacre, the mahant(chief priest) of the Golden Temple invited Dwyer to Golden Temple, and honoured him with a sar-o-pa (head and foot, honorary dress) declaring him a Sikh. The Temple thought it prudent to curry favour with the colonists. After all, undivided Punjab had contributed 355,000 combatants to royal forces during World War I. The sikh priests were oblivious of the fact that demobilized sikhs were a simmering cauldron. They returned from the front only to face crop failure, food shortages and skyrocketing prices. While India remembers Sardar O’Dwyer Singh on April 13, 2019, will it honour Udham Singh also?
ASAD MALICK
Rawalpindi