Madan Lal Dhingra

      Madan Lal Dhingra(1887 – Forever)


He was an Indian freedom fighter ,political activist, a revolutionatry studying in England, where he killed Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official, which is hailed as one of the first acts of revolution (killing an invader on invader’s land)(much before the udham singh and bhagat singh)in the Indian independence movement in the 20th century. Dhingra’s family were loyalists of the British, and disowned him after his expulsion from college in Lahore owing to illicit political activities. Dhingra had to work as a clerk, a Tonga (rickshaw) puller, and a factory laborer. Dhingra attempted to organize a union there, but was sacked. He worked for sometime in Bombay, before acting upon the advice of his elder brother and going to England for higher studies. In 1906, Madan Lal departed for England to enroll at University College, London, to study Mechanical Engineering. He was supported by his elder brother and some nationalist activists in England. Dhingra came into contact with noted Indian political activists Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Shyamji Krishnavarma, who were impressed by Dhingra’s perseverance and intense patriotism, and turned his focus to the freedom struggle. Savarkar believed in revolution by any means, and supposedly gave Dhingra arms training, apart from membership in a secretive society, the Abhinav Bharat Mandal. He was also a member of India House, the base for Indian student political activity.

During this period, Savarkar, Dhingra and other student activists were enraged by the execution of freedom fighters such as Khudiram Bose, Kannai Dutt, Satinder Pal and Kanshi Ram in India. It is this event that is attributed by many historians as having led Savarkar and Dhingra scheme of exacting direct revenge upon the British. On the evening of July 1, 1909, a large number of Indians and Englishmen had gathered to attend the annual day function of the Indian National Association. When Sir Curzon Wyllie, political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, entered the hall with his wife, Dhingra fired five shots right at his face, four of which hit their target. Cowasji Lalkaka, a Parsee doctor who tried to save Sir Curzon, died of Madan Lal’s sixth and seventh bullets, which the latter fired because Lalkaka caught hold of him.

Failing to commit suicide by turning his pistol on himself, Dhingra was arrested after a brief struggle.

This statement was said just before he died at the gallows:

“I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war. Since open battle is rendered impossible to a disarmed race, I attacked by surprise. Since guns were denied to me I drew forth my pistol and fired. Poor in health and intellect, a son like myself has nothing else to offer to the mother but his own blood. And so I have sacrificed the same on her altar. The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. My only prayer to God is that I may be re-born of the same mother and I may re-die in the same sacred cause till the cause is successful. Vande Mataram!”

A Collection By Chetan

You May Also Like