Whom did Udham Singh kill?

Key Points

• Udham Singh was an Indian revolutionary who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in March 1940.
  • The assassination was carried out as payback for O'Dwyer's involvement in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, which Singh personally survived.
• On December 26, 1899, in Lahore, British India, Udham Singh was born "Sher Singh" into a Sikh household.
  • His parents were Tehal Singh and Narain Kaur.
• Singh was hung in July 1940 after being found guilty of murder at a later trial.
  • He went by the name "Ram Mohammad Singh Azad" while he was detained, signifying his opposition to colonialism and the three main Indian religions.

Additional Information

• Michael O'Dwyer served as an Irish colonial official in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) before becoming the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab in British India from 1913 to 1919.
  • During O'Dwyer's tenure as Punjab's Lieutenant Governor, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre occurred in Amritsar on April 13, 1919.
• On April 13, 1919, many locals came to the park to celebrate Baisakhi. There was a carnage known as the Amritsar Carnage or Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.
  • The demonstrators also aimed to peacefully oppose the apprehension and expulsion of two prominent national figures, Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew.
    • The incident resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people and sparked outrage across India.
  • Brigadier R.E.H. Dyer (General Dyer), an Anglo-Indian at the time, gave the order for the Gurkha British Indian army to carry it out.
• Sydney Roullete/Rowlatt was an Anglo-Egyptian judge who presided over a Sedition Committee appointed in 1917 by the British Indian Government to evaluate political terrorism in India.
  • Based on the Rowlatt Committee's report, the Rowlatt Act (Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919) was passed, which authorized the arrest, for 2 years without trial, of any person suspected of terrorism living in British India.
• John Simon was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War.
  • He was appointed Chairman of the Simon Commission (the Indian Statutory Commission) in 1927.
  • The Commission was a group of seven British Members of Parliament and was supposed to investigate the workings of the Government of India Act of 1919 and suggest improvements to the system.
  • The 3rd of February 1928 saw the arrival of the Simon Commission in Bombay. The nation as a whole persisted in boycotting the commission the same day.