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Singh changed his name to Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, symbolizing the equality of all faith & of the three major religions of India: Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. Singh is considered one of the best-known revolutionaries of the Indian independence struggle; he is also sometimes referred to as Shaheed-i-Azam Sardar Udham Singh (the expression "Shaheed-i-Azam," Urdu: شans "the great martyr"). Bhagat Singh and Singh along with Chandrasekhar Azad, Rajguru and Sukhdev, were among the most famous revolutionaries in the first half of 20th-century India. For their actions, the British government labelled these men as "India's earliest Marxists".
Singh was born on 26 December, 1899 in Shahpur Kalan village in Sunam Tehsil in Sangrur district of Punjab, India to a Sikh Kamboj farming family headed by Sardar Tehal Singh Jammu (known as Chuhar Singh before taking the Amrit). Sardar Tehal Singh was at that time working as a watchman on a railway crossing in the village of Upalli. Sher Singh's mother died in 1901. His father followed in 1907.
With the help of Bhai Kishan Singh Ragi, both Sher Singh and his elder brother, Mukta Singh, were taken in by the Central Khalsa Orphanage Putlighar in Amritsar on October 24, 1907. They were administered the Sikh initiatory rites at the orphanage and received new names: Sher Singh became Udham Singh, and Mukta Singh became Sadhu Singh. Sadhu Singh died in 1917, which came as a great shock to his brother. While at orphanage, Singh was trained in various arts and crafts. He passed his matriculation examination in 1918 and left the orphanage in 1919.
On April 13, 1919, over twenty thousand unarmed Indians (Muslims, Sikhs & Hindus), peacefully assembled in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, to listen to several prominent local leaders speak out against British colonial rule in India and against the arrest and deportation of Dr. Satya Pal, Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew, and few others under the unpopular Rowlatt Act. Singh and his friends from the orphanage were serving water to the crowd.
Not much later, a band of 90 soldiers armed with rifles and khukris (Gurkha short swords) marched to the park accompanied by two armoured cars with mounted machine guns. The vehicles were unable to enter the Bagh owing to the narrow entrance.[2] Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer was in command. The troops had entered the Bagh by about 5:15 PM. With no warning to the crowd to disperse, Dyer ordered his troops to open fire. The attack lasted ten minutes. Since the only exit was barred by soldiers, people tried to climb the walls of the park. Some also jumped into a well inside the compound to escape the bullets. A plaque in the monument says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well alone.
Singh mainly held Michael O'Dwyer responsible for what came to be known as the Amritsar Massacre. New research supporting this fact reveal the massacre to have occurred with the Governor's full connivance "to teach the Indians a lesson, to make a wide impression and to strike terror throughout Punjab".[4] The incident had greatly shaken young Singh and proved a turning point in his life. After bathing in the holy sarovar (pool of nectar), Singh took a silent vow and solemn pledge in front of the Golden Temple to wreak a vengeance on the perpetrators of the crime and to restore honour to what he saw as a humiliated nation.
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