| Director | Shoojit Sircar |
|---|
The narrative utilizes a non-linear structure, alternating between the 1940s in London, where revolutionary Udham Singh plans a high-profile assassination, and his formative years in British India as a member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). After being released from a Punjab prison, Udham is kept under strict surveillance by colonial authorities. Evading his handlers, he travels through the frozen terrain of the USSR before securing passage on a cargo ship bound for London. Operating under aliases, Udham blends into the city, working as a salesman and a welder while tracking his target: Michael O'Dwyer, the former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab. Udham infiltrates a public meeting at Caxton Hall, where O'Dwyer is delivering a speech defending his controversial administration. As the event concludes, Udham approaches O'Dwyer and fatally shoots him, willingly surrendering to the police immediately after.
In custody, Udham is assigned a legal defense counsel, John Hutchinson, while being rigorously interrogated by Inspector Swain of Scotland Yard. Despite Hutchinson's dedicated legal strategy, the court sentences Udham to death. Upon hearing the verdict, Udham delivers an impassioned speech condemning British imperialism and reaffirming his unwavering devotion to Indian independence. Confined to Brixton Prison, Udham goes on a grueling 42-day hunger strike to protest the dismal conditions of his detention, which is eventually broken when prison authorities subject him to painful force-feeding. Over time, a mutual respect develops between Udham and Inspector Swain, to whom Udham gradually unveils the deep-seated trauma that motivated the assassination.
The narrative shifts back to April 1919 in Amritsar, where a young Udham works at a textile mill and shares a quiet romance with Reshma, a mute factory worker. On April 13, 1919, acting under O'Dwyer's administrative endorsement, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer marches British Indian Army troops into Jallianwala Bagh and orders them to open fire on a peaceful, unarmed crowd of over twenty thousand men, women, and children. Udham, who was asleep during the onset of the shooting, is jolted awake by a mortally wounded friend. He rushes to the walled garden, only to find a scene of horrific carnage. Alongside a handful of volunteers, Udham spends a agonizing night navigating piles of corpses, searching for survivors, and transporting the wounded to an overwhelmed, makeshift medical clinic. The profound psychological trauma of witnessing the Jallianwala Bagh massacre solidifies his lifelong vow to hold the architects of the tragedy accountable.
Back in 1940, as his execution date nears, Udham remains stoic and at peace with his fate. He is hanged at Pentonville Prison on July 31, 1940, clutching a cherished photograph of his revolutionary mentor, Bhagat Singh, who had been executed years prior. Decades later, in 1974, through the diplomatic efforts of Punjab Chief Minister Giani Zail Singh, Udham’s remains are exhumed and repatriated to an independent India. He is posthumously honored with the title Shaheed-i-Azam. His ashes are received with state honors and immersed in the Sutlej River, at the exact location where the remains of Bhagat Singh were placed. The film closes with archival testimonies from the Hunter Commission, where both Dyer and O'Dwyer rigidly defend their actions during the massacre.