The Patient Assassin

May 13, 2019
Biographer and BBC host Anand (Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary) delivers a gripping, multifaceted tale of India in the twilight years of the British Empire, about Udham Singh, who bided his time for 20 years until he could exact revenge for the 1919 British massacre of Indians in a public garden in Amritsar, Punjab. On April 13, 1919, British Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer, hearing of an illegal political meeting in the walled garden, ordered his soldiers to fire on 20,000 unarmed people, many of whom were picnicking and strolling. The lieutenant governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, praised Dyer’s actions and subsequently endorsed punitive laws to increase control over his Indian subjects, fueling the people’s growing desire for independence. At the heart of this story is the enigmatic Singh, who fatally shot O’Dwyer in London in 1940 and was executed. A charmer, con man, and assassin, Singh drew people to him yet remained a mystery even to his close friends. Anand diligently follows the circuitous trail of Singh’s life, piecing together his various aliases, addresses, jobs, and international travels, and exploring his work distributing literature, recruiting, and gun-running for the Ghadars, an Indian revolutionary organization. This vivid and meticulously researched account will have readers riveted. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary.

May 15, 2019
A carefully reconstructed story of political murder that began to unfold a century ago. The mass killing of protestors in Amritsar on April 13, 1919, is a central moment in Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi. It is also a moment enshrined in Indian memory--and, in many ways, the beginning of the end of British rule. The officer who ordered the killings, Gen. Reginald Dyer, was forever haunted by his act, writes British journalist and BBC presenter Anand (Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, 2015, etc.): "His family would always believe that he died of a broken heart" and not the cerebral hemorrhage on the death certificate. While no one can quite agree on how many died there, hundreds or thousands, one man vowed to do something to avenge them, traveling to Britain and laying a careful trap for the colonial governor who had not only authorized the killings, but spent the rest of his days defending them. It took 20 years to enact that vengeance, but, as the author writes, when Udham Singh shot Sir Michael O'Dwyer in central London, he "became the most hated man in Britain, a hero to his countrymen in India and a pawn in international politics"--lauded, among other champions, by Joseph Goebbels as a hero of the anti-British struggle. Anand painstakingly follows Singh's long path from the killing fields of India to the Houses of Parliament and that climactic moment, which might have resulted in the deaths of many other officials had he used the right caliber for the bullets he fired. Singh was executed for his act, though supporters tried to give him the means to kill himself while in prison--and his jailers therefore even took away Singh's glasses lest he "break one of the lenses and slit his wrists." A memorial in Amritsar now commemorates Singh's act, which, as Anand suggests, was far more nuanced than the simple act of assassination it was made out to be. A footnote to Anglo-Indian history, to be sure, but a telling one, and very well done.

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June 7, 2019

In 1919, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the lieutenant governor of Punjab, countered growing political unrest in India by ordering Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer to Amritsar. There, Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on an unauthorized gathering, resulting in the slaughter of over 1,000 unarmed men, women, and children. Legend has it that 18-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh managed to survive and swore vengeance, finally tracking down O'Dwyer in 1940 London. Tracing Singh's two-decade quest to find O'Dwyer, award-winning journalist and BBC Radio 4 host Anand reveals that what really happened is different yet just as dramatic. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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