The revolutionary who waited twenty-one years to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh massacre

Cultures · Published 29 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Udham Singh spent two decades seeking retribution for the 1919 Amritsar massacre. In 1940, he assassinated Michael O'Dwyer, the British official responsible for the tragedy, in a London hall. His trial became a defiant platform for anti-colonial rhetoric, cementing his legacy as a martyr for Indian independence.

Born Sher Singh in 1899, Udham Singh was orphaned at a young age and raised in the Central Khalsa Orphanage in Amritsar. His life was irrevocably altered on 13 April 1919, when he witnessed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Troops commanded by Colonel Reginald Dyer fired on a peaceful crowd of over twenty thousand people gathered for the festival of Baisakhi, killing several hundred. Singh, who had been serving water to the protesters, vowed to hold those responsible accountable, specifically targeting Michael O'Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of the Punjab.

Singh’s path to vengeance was long and circuitous. He joined the Ghadar Party, traveled internationally, and eventually settled in London, where he worked as an extra in British films like Elephant Boy and The Four Feathers. On 13 March 1940, he attended a meeting at Caxton Hall where O'Dwyer was scheduled to speak. Singh concealed a revolver inside a hollowed-out book, shooting O'Dwyer twice as the meeting concluded. The assassination was an act of calculated retribution, intended to strike at the heart of the colonial administration he blamed for the starvation and suffering of his people.

Following his arrest, Singh adopted the name Ram Mohammad Singh Azad to symbolize the unity of India’s major religions and his own anti-colonial stance. During his trial at the Old Bailey, he refused to apologize, instead using his final statement to denounce British Imperialism. Although initially condemned by leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Singh’s reputation was later rehabilitated, with Nehru eventually saluting him as a great martyr. Executed in July 1940, Singh’s remains were repatriated to India in 1974, and he remains a potent symbol of the struggle against colonial rule, honored today with museums and memorials in his hometown of Sunam and at the site of the massacre in Amritsar.

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