Sardar Udham is an Indian biographical historical drama based on the life of Indian freedom fighter Udham Singh, who assassinated Punjab’s former Lieutenant-Governor Michael O’Dwyer in London in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, India.
In 1919, Udham was a young adult working in a textile mill near Amritsar. On April 13, 1919, British Brigadier-General R.E.H. Dyer, following orders from O’Dwyer, opened fire on a crowd of 20,000 peaceful protestors inside Jallianwala Bagh. Udham was sleeping, unaware of the massacre, until he was woken by a friend, who was bleeding profusely, mortally wounded.
The young Udham Singh was left deeply scarred by the event. He became involved in revolutionary politics, moving to London in 1933-34. There, he spent the most crucial six years of his life, working for the revolution. On March 13, 1940, after 21 years of carrying the burden of his memories, he assassinated O’Dwyer, the man who had been at the helm of Punjab at the time of the massacre.
The Hindi-language film is directed by Shoojit Sircar. Principal photography began in London, and then the team moved to Russia to film several sequences in Saint Petersburg. Since the film is set in the era before Indian independence came about, Shoojit wanted to recreate the settings of that period.
Even as a young college student, Shoojit Sircar knew he wanted to explore the heartbreaking events of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in a movie. “For a few years, I visited the place on the anniversary of massacre. A lot of people would sit beside the wall and cry.”
Vicky Kaushal plays the lead character Udham Singh/Ram Mohammad Singh Azad. Four days before the shooting, Kaushal was injured while shooting another film and was required to have 13 stitches on his cheek. But Shoojit urged him to come for the shoot, nevertheless, saying that Sardar Udham could also have stitches; he shot the film with a real scar on his face.
Kaushal is the recipient of a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award and has appeared on Forbes’ India’s Celebrity list of 2019.