The elder of two sons, Udham Singh was born in Punjab’s Sunam district and lost his parents early in life. He, along with his brother, grew up at an orphanage.

For the first time in the early 1920s, he travelled abroad to East Africa working as a labourer, for the railway lines and then made his way to America. He lived there for five years under various aliases until he came in contact with Gadhar – a group of Punjabi immigrants in America, working towards an armed revolution against British rule in India.