By Jagmohan Singh Barhok
Baisakhi, the Harvest Festival Coinciding With The Holocaust ‘Jallianwala Massacre’, 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, in fact, wanted to create terror in the hearts & minds of the people, it is believed. 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. Udham Singh, A Sikh youth in his twenties, was an eye witness to the macabre happenings.
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.
Bestowed with the honour Shaheed-e-Azam, Udham Singh, unfortunately , is a forgotten hero like many in his genre. A district (Udham Singh Nagar) was named after him as a mark of respect by the then Mayawati government in 1995 , now in Uttarakhand. Surprisingly the central and state agencies failed to bestow upon the kind of recognition & honor he richly deserved.
