Forget Yakub Memon, Udham Singh was hanged on July 31
Yes Yakub Memon will hang at the end of this month if the government can help it. Even as the event is being co-opted in headline terms by those who will remember it for the potential death of one who abetted a terrorist act; from the "one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter" cliché plays out a reminder.
Even as the following day’s headlines will be stolen by a potential martyr to someone’s cause, the date’s primary commemoration remains the 75th death anniversary of the revolutionary Ghadar Party member Udham Singh, who avenged the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre with the murder of Governor Michael O’Dwyer in Caxton Hall and was hanged for it at the Pentonville Prison on July 31, 1940 where he is also buried within the grounds.
“For full 21 years, I have been trying to wreak vengeance. I am happy that I have done the job. I am not scared of death. I am dying for my country,” Singh said when asked in court why he did it.
These 21 years are now the subject of a murder ballad, a song whose lyrics deal with the events leading up to and following a murder (think Dixie Chicks "Goodbye Earl" or Bon Iver’s "Down in the Willow Garden"), by the band, the Ska Vengers, releasing on July 31. The song, "Frank Brazil" taking the pseudonym Udham Singh used while making his way from India to Germany and London, is in line with much of the band’s former work - political, relevant, edgy and seeking the darker corners of alternative figures in Indian contemporary and historical politics.
From their original eponymous debut, they’ve drawn from the works of Fela Kuti, SD Burman, and Philip Glass, blending the precursor to the reggae style with Indian popular and folk influences. They have performed a Ska Ska gig in Tihar Jail along with inmates and the Delhi-based SlumGods. Their rage against the machine style of singing-songwriting tells the least mainstream stories of India - about corruption, Naxalism, the brutality of police action and censorship. They address subjects like income gaps between the rich and the poor. They address the inaction of the state and the disappointment with the Republic. They performed "A Message to You Modi" in 2014.
The origins of "Frank Brazil" lies in research by Taru Dalmia, who performs as Delhi Sultanate, a Germany-raised Hindu College DU-SOAS-JNU graduate, who came across the figure while studying and was stunned to realise he didn’t know more. Dalmia’s previous writing in the "Word Sound Power" project has also dealt with figures like Bant Singh, the Dalit poet activist from Punjab. He recorded mining activity in Orissa and included that in his work "Blood Earth". Raising of the creeping sacrifice is inherent to his strain of writing. It’s also influenced by "Assasin" the 1998 Asian Dub Foundation song about Udham Singh.
The band today also comprises Begum X, Stefan Kaye on percussion, Chaitanya Bhalla on guitar, Tony Bass on the bass, with drums recorded by 'The Late' Nikhil Vasudevan supported by Shirish Malhotra on tenor saxophone and Kishore Sodha on the trumpet. The edgy animation video is by Kunal Sen and Tisha Deb. The song is not backed by a label.