assassination

Madan Lal Dhingra

About: 

Madan Lal Dhingra was the sixth of seven children of a civil surgeon. All six sons studied abroad. In June 1906, Dhingra left Amritsar for Britain. He enrolled in University College, London, to study engineering.

Dhingra arrived in London a year after the foundation of Shyamaji Krishnavarma's India House. This organization in Highgate was a meeting place for Indian radicals. They had weekly meetings, which Dhingra would often attend. V. D. Savarkar became manager of India House and inspired Dhingra's admiration in the cult of assassination. However, Dhingra became aloof from India House and was known to undertake shooting practice at a range on Tottenham Court Road. On 1 July 1909, he attended an 'At Home' hosted by the National Indian Association at the Imperial Institute. At the end of the event, as the guests were leaving, Dhingra shot Sir Curzon-Wyllie, an India Office official, at close range. His bullets also hit Dr Lalcaca, a Parsee doctor, who was killed.

Dhingra was immediately arrested. At his trial, Dhingra represented himself, although he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court. He claimed that he had murdered Curzon-Wyllie as a patriotic act and in revenge for the inhumane killings of Indians by the British Government in India. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed at Pentonville Prison on 17 August 1909.

Example: 

Daily News, 18 August 1909

Date of birth: 
18 Sep 1883
Content: 

The end of the statement written by Dhingra that was published after his execution.

Connections: 

Curzon-Wyllie, David Garnett (met briefly at India House and arranged publication of Dhingra's statement in Daily News), Shyamaji Krishnavarma, V. D. Savarkar.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Daily News, 18 August 1909

Extract: 

The only lesson required in India today is to learn how to die and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves, and so, I die and glory in my Martyrdom. Bande Mataram.

Secondary works: 

Datta, V. N., Madan Lal Dhingra and the Revolutionary Movement (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978)

Dhingra, Leena, ‘Dhingra, Madan Lal (1883–1909)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71628]

Garnet, David, The Golden Echo (London: Chatto & Windus, 1953)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Archive source: 

Criminal Files, National Archives, Kew

L/P&J/6/986, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

Assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon-Wyllie at Imperial Institute, South Kensington, 1 July 1909.

City of birth: 
Amritsar
Country of birth: 
India

Locations

Pentonville Prison London, N7 8TT
United Kingdom
51° 32' 52.1304" N, 0° 6' 47.4012" W
108 Ledbury Road Bayswater
London, W11 2AG
United Kingdom
51° 30' 59.8968" N, 0° 11' 59.4528" W
Date of death: 
17 Aug 1909
Location of death: 
Pentonville Prison, London, England
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1906
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1906-9

Udham Singh

About: 

Udham Singh was a political activist from the Punjab. He was closely linked to communist activists and parties associated with the independence movement. During the early 1920s, after a brief three-month stay in Dover in 1921, he spent some time in the US, working in Detroit for the Ford Motor Company as a tool maker, before relocating to California. While in California, he established contacts with the Ghadar Party, which was dedicated to Indian freedom and independence. It had strong communist tendencies and was founded by South Asians living in America and Canada. He returned to India in 1927.

Back in the Punjab, Udham Singh was arrested for the illegal possession of firearms and sentenced to five years imprisonment. Singh was released from prison in October 1931. He managed to acquire a passport and made his way to London in 1934. In his application for his passport endorsement, he claimed to have been working as a sports outfitter in India, but since his arrival, living in Canterbury, Kent, he was unable to secure employment. There are suggestions that in this period he worked as a pedlar. During 1937, he worked as an extra in crowd scenes for Alexander Korda’s London Studios at Denham. During 1938, he worked as a carpenter at the RAF Station at Great Chessington, Gloucestershire, before becoming unemployed.

Udham Singh was well known in the Indian community at the time and also had contacts with Sikh pedlars living in Coventry, and Southampton. The objective of his stay in London was to find an opportunity to assassinate Michael O’Dwyer, the Governor of the Punjab in 1919, whom Singh held responsible for the Amritsar massacre, which had left a lasting impression on Singh after his brother and sister were killed there. Subsequently he had sworn to avenge the massacre. Singh had had a few opportunities to assassinate O’Dwyer but he was waiting for an occasion when his actions would have the most public impact.

On 13 March 1940, Singh shot O’Dwyer at a meeting of the East India Association and the Royal Central Asian Society at Caxton Hall. O’Dwyer was killed instantly and Lord Zetland, Lord Lamington and Louis Dane were also hit and wounded by the shots. Singh was immediately arrested and held in Brixton prison. There he staged a thirty-six day hunger strike, which resulted in him being forcibly fed through a tube. The assassination of O’Dwyer was reported widely in the press. In police statements and at court Singh gave his name as Mohamed Singh Azad as a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity in the fight for Indian freedom. He was tried at the Old Bailey on 4 June 1940. Krishna Menon was part of his defence team. After a trial in which the prosecution presented a simple case and the defence of Singh was often sketchy and chaotic he was sentenced to death by hanging on 5 June and executed on 31 July at Pentonville Prison, where he was also buried. In 1974, his body was repatriated to India and cremated in his home village of Sunam.

Example: 

Statement of Witness, Cannon Row, Station ‘A Division’ 13 March 1940, L/PJ/12/500, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Date of birth: 
26 Dec 1899
Content: 

This extract from Udham Singh’s witness statement details his motivation to assassinate Michael O’Dwyer at Caxton Hall.

Connections: 

Surat Alley, Krishna Menon, Michael O'Dwyer, Marquess of Zetland.

Ghadar Party

Extract: 

I went back home again, then I thought it was time to go to this afternoon meeting to protest. I take my revolver from home with me to protest.

In the beginning of the meeting I was standing up. I did not take the revolver to kill but just to protest. Well then when the meeting was already finished I took the revolver from my pocket and I shot like I think at the wall. I just shot to make the protest.
 
I have seen people starving in India under British Imperialism. I done it, the pistol went off three or four times. I am not sorry for protesting. It was my duty to do so. Put some more. Just for the sake of my country to protest.

I do not mind what sentence. Ten, twenty or fifty years, or to be hanged. I done my duty. Actually I did not mean to take a person’s life, do you understand. I just mean protesting you know.

Secondary works: 

Grewal, H. S. and Puri, H. K. (eds), Letters of Udham Singh (Amritsar: Guru Nanak University, 1974)

Maighowalia, B. S., Sardar Udham Singh : A Prince Amongst Patriots of India, the avenger of the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, foreword by Krishna Menon (Hoshiarpur : Chhabra Printing Press, 1969)

Singh, H. (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, 2nd ed. (Patiala, 1998)

Singh, Navtej, Challenge to Imperial Hegemony: The life story of a great Indian patriot, Udham Singh (Patiala: Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, 1998)

Singh, Navtej and Jouhl, Avtar Singh (eds), Emergence of the Image: Redact Documents of Udham Singh (New Delhi: National Book Organization, 2002)

Singh, Sikander, Udham Singh alias Ram Mohammed Singh Azad: A great patriot and martyr who challenged the British Imperialism: a saga of the freedom movement and Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar: B. Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh, 1998)

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/500, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/637, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/7/1715, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Mss Eur C826 1940 Copy of transcript of proceedings in the trial, on 4 Jun 1940, of Udham Singh for the murder of Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer (1864-1940), Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab 1913-19, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

MEPO 3/1743 Murder of Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer by Udham Singh at Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 13 March, 1940, National Archives, Kew, UK

PCOM 9/872, National Archives, Kew, UK

P&J (s) 466/36, National Archives, Kew, UK

Involved in events: 

Assassination of Michael O’Dwyer

City of birth: 
Sunam, Patiala, Punjab
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Sher Singh, Udhan Singh, Ude Singh, Frank Brazil, Mohamed Singh Azad

Locations

Canterbury CT1 2PR
United Kingdom
51° 15' 57.888" N, 1° 4' 43.3056" E
8 Mornington Terrace
London, NW1 7RS
United Kingdom
51° 32' 2.9436" N, 0° 8' 32.9856" W
Date of death: 
31 Jul 1940
Location of death: 
Pentonville Prison, North London
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1934
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1934-40

Location: 

London, Canterbury, Gloucestershire, Kent.

India House

About: 

Not to be confused with the offices of the Indian Embassy in Aldwych, India House was set up as a hostel for Indian students and became a hotbed for Indian revolutionaries in Europe. The House was opened on 1 July 1905 by H. M. Hyndman in Highgate. Other prominent figures present at the opening included Dadabhai Naoroji, Charlotte Despard and Bhikaji Cama. The Indian Home Rule Society held weekly Sunday meetings at India House, passing resolutions condemning arrests in India and advocating total independence for India. They held Annual Martyrs’ Day celebrations to commemorate the 1857 Rebellion.

Founded by Shyamaji Krishnavarma, leadership was taken up by V. D. Savarkar in 1907 as Krishnavarma was exiled to Paris. Krishnavarma's journal, The Indian Sociologist, was an organ of India House. The organization disbanded after its implication in the murder of Sir Curzon Wyllie in July 1909. The assassin, Madan Lal Dhingra, had been known to frequent India House and Savarkar refused to condemn his actions. Following their arrests, India House was closed down and sold.

Published works: 

The Indian Sociologist, journal edited by Krishnavarma (1905-14 and 1920-2)

Savarkar’s Indian War of Independence, translated from Marathi to English at India House and published in London in May 1909

Secondary works: 

Garnett, David, The Golden Echo (London: Chatto & Windus, 1953)

Ker, J. C., Political Troubles in India, 1907-1917 (Calcutta: Superintendent Govt Printing, 1917)

Srivastava, Harindra, Five Stormy Years: Savarkar in London (June 1906 - June 1911) (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1983)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Date began: 
01 Jul 1905
Connections: 

Madame Cama, Lala Har Dayal, Charlotte Despard, Madan Lal Dhingra, M. K. Gandhi (stayed there on a visit in 1906), David Garnett, H. M. Hyndman, Dadabhai Naoroji.

Ghadr Party

Date ended: 
01 Jan 1909
Archive source: 

Metropolitan Police Report, File 3264 (2 Sep 1908), L/PJ/6/890, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

65 Cromwell Avenue Highgate
London, N6 5HH
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Murder of Curzon Wyllie, July 1909

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