By Jagmohan Singh Barhok
On His Death Anniversary
The Holocaust ‘Jallianwala Massacre’ t took place on 13 April in 1919 when thousands of Indians, comprising of mostly the Sikhs, gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to celebrate ‘Baisakhi’, a harvest festival in Punjab, including some who had joined them in a non violent protest against the British Regime when General Michael O ‘Dwyer ordered indiscriminate firing on the innocent Indians killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Many of them were killed while jumping outside and some into a well .Dwyer, motive was to create terror in the hearts & minds of the people. The official figures tell there were about 380 dead and over 1500 injured in the massacre. The figures, according to eye witnesses were far greater than what the estimate was. A Sikh youth in his twenties , named Udham Singh, was witness to the macabre happenings. He vowed to eliminate Dwyer.
Udham Singh kept his cool, mentally preparing himself to attain his goal. He moved from one country to another working as a labour and as an extra in films . On 19 March 1940 Udham Singh was present in the London’s Caxton Hall, where a meeting of the Royal Central Asian Society and the East India Association was under way. Dwyer was one of the invitees to deliver a speech. As the conference neared its end, Udham Singh pulled out a revolver from his coat & fired two shots at the British speaker, a former governor of Punjab who had supported the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, killing & avenging the deaths of innocents who died during the ‘Jallianwala Bagh’ massacre of 1919.
