Distant relatives of Ghadar Party revolutionary Udham Singh, who was hanged to death in London on July 31, 1940 when he was just 40 years old, are still waiting for the government to formally accord him the status of a ‘freedom fighter.’

Udham Singh’s March 13, 1940 murder of former lieutenant-governor Michael O’ Dwyer of undivided Punjab in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre became a controversial issue for the supporters of a pacifist struggle for freedom. With freedom fighters at the time, including Mahatma Gandhi, not speaking in support of Udham Singh, he was relegated to corners of history.

It was almost three decades after the independence that the remains of Udham Singh, who had been buried in the Pentonville Prison where he was hanged, were finally repatriated to India on insistence of Punjab Congress MLA Sadhu Singh Thind, who was supported by the then Punjab chief minister Giani Zail Singh and

other politicians from Punjab.

The remains

So finally, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, as Udham Singh had identified himself to the UK police, was cremated in Sunam, his birthplace, in 1974 many decades after his burial at the British prison and a portion of his ashes were placed in an urn at the Jallianwala Bagh.

Udham Singh’s relatives, descendants of his elder brother, are still waiting for the authorities to fulfill the promise of commemorating his memory with a museum at Sunam. Udham Singh himself never got married.

“As per the plan, a museum was to come up on a piece of four-acre land on the outskirts of the city on Bathinda road. We were told that Rs 2 crore had also been sanctioned in 2016. But successive governments have failed to begin work on the project,” Harpal Singh, grandson of Udham Singh’s nephew said.

Harpal, who works as a nonteaching staffer with the Punjabi University, added, “Belongings of Shaheedji are still lying in a London museum and people of Sunam want that the stuff should be displayed at the museum. He also had 2,600 deposited in a bank in Italy.

These are facts that the coming generation should know to instill a feeling of patriotism in them.”

Another pending issue, Harpal added, was the Centre had still not given Udham Singh and others the status of a freedom fighters in its records. “We have raised the issue with the concerned authorities several times but to no avail,” he said. The martyr's 106-year-old nephew Khushi Nand, who used to live with Harpal, passed away on January 9 in Sunam.

Harpal said that Udham Singh continues to be a role model for people of the area. “We have made a Ram Mohammad Singh Club and carry out various welfare activities in the area,” he said.

Udham Singh’s house in Suman is quite an attraction. “It has been taken over by the archeological department and an employee has been posted there. However, it is not a museum. The house too was in illegal possession and the Club had to buy it so that it comes back to the family,” he said.

During the previous Congress government in Punjab in 2004, four government jobs were given to the relatives of Udham Singh, including one to Harpal. He denied unconfirmed media reports that some members of his extended family were struggling to make the ends meet. “There were some news reports that son of my grandfather’s younger brother (Bachan Singh) was doing menial jobs. That is wrong depiction of facts,” he said.

