By Rahul Juneja
"Tasting the Whisper of an Unfired Shot" extends my inquiry into the appropriation of Sardar Udham Singh by the rising wing extremism in the current Indian socio-political landscape. Over 20 statues of Udham Singh have been placed in Northern India in the last five years, and numerous exhibitions in museums; painting him as a symbol of a hyper-aggressive nationalism exuding a violent fervour. The text below aims to provide contextual density, and the crises of language and coherent frames that become apparent while dealing with such complex triangulations between intent, output and translation.
Image of Udham Singh pointing a gun at a state-installed screen, Udham Singh Chowk, Karnal
Sardar Udham Singh was a national hero claimed by both the left and right-wing lobbies, famed for his dilated revenge against Michael O Dwyer for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre; his association with the Ghadar party and contribution to an armed Indian freedom struggle; and his championing of a Hindu Sikh Muslim unity- famously announcing himself as Ram Mohammad Singh Azad at the Old Bailey in London during his trial. However, in the current decolonial flip, he finds himself at the helm of an invasive hyper-nationalism that blatantly creates an ‘other’, where a floating hostility constantly threatens to turn corporeal.
At the heart of the story of Udham Singh lay his love for his country and a call for revolution, which he continued to follow until the end of his journey. In the now, patriotic, based in love for the nation, quickly turns intolerant and engages in dismissive differentiation. Instruments that generate truths, whether through fact or affect, like statues, exhibitions, movies, etc., construct histories, invoke revolutionary sentiments, and promise emancipation and justice, but at their heart- prompt discrimination, othering and violence.
Images of various Udham Singh statues (from left to right): Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, Jalandhar, Hisar, Sunam, Fazilka, Balongi, Shahbad, Moga.
In such a landscape, the emergence of these statues marks a shift, where the subterranean movements wilting the surface of the contemporary Indian political landscape have become much more apparent. Every statue placed, vandalised, or reinstated thus; is a symptom. These are hypertexts in a larger ur-system, where the form of the statues, their aesthetics, placement, as well as instrumentalization, are manifestations of various impulses within the state machinery- ranging from extreme control to ideological adherence, to its self-awareness and even its paranoia and insecurities.
Udham Singh statue at Udham Singh statue, Ambala
The whisper of the unfired shot from Udham Singh's gun thus travels and reacts with the combustionary mechanism of power (state) to manifest its various forms. The heat produced is such that it permanently deforms the translucent, seemingly opaque membrane of the machinery of power- widening the crack caused by its intense ontological compression in pursuit of an absolute, foolproof system.
फुसफुसाहटों से टकराहट, विकृति पैदा करती है।
The pursuit of this absolute and my urge to map this lateral expanse raises the question- why does there need to be an attempt to place this ur and, by its extension, the various spatial manifestations of this hypertext? What purpose do they serve? Is there ever an original? Does the hypertext ever link back to the ur? In our case, what is the ur?
At first glance, mapping these hypertexts seems easy- one could imagine a large laterality within which some placeholders hold various facets of the expanse undergoing translation. However, the problem within it lies in the flips the expanse takes knowingly or unknowingly, as well as the appropriation it goes through while being translated.
For instance, the intent and the drive of Udham Singh for freedom lies at one end of this spectrum, which makes him travel, transform himself, adorn himself with aliases for the love of his country, and the urge for revolution. At the other end of the spectrum lies its blatant appropriation by the decolonial discourse, at the heart of which lies a nation-state’s heroes; formulated through turning the act of courage into a penetrative, vertical thrust that fits well within the linear history which we are trying to project, as well as invent—hindsight and foresight, in tandem.
The verticality of the monument in our case, is the containment of a gesture full of potentiality within fiber, granite and enamel paint. With all its claim on grandeur, what does the monument truly signify, and in its signification, what effect does it have on the character it renders grand? Does it hold any granularity? Would the character ascribe to such readings if it was present amongst us? Is dehumanization directly proportionate to scale and grandeur?
Letters by Udham Singh to Detective Swain.
Part of the speech Udham Singh gave at his trial in Old Bailey, London.
The affordance of the monument is to gain in scale and reduce in grain; the dehumanisation of the character the monument embodies ripens it to be appropriated by bureaucratic structures that chip away the whispers continuously produced by the unrealized gesture. Hence, we see that such a strong character is appropriated by the hypernational, flipped decolonial drive that asserts its capacities for violence repeatedly through the rubric of 'self-made'.
The hyper-nationalist machinery also fails to accommodate the new paradigm of revolution and resistance that Udham Singh brings to the world through his act. While the assassination of Michael O Dwyer could be simply thought of as an act of revenge, Udham Singh, in his personal statements to Detective Swain and later in the court during his trial, makes it clear that his first priority was to register his mark as a sign of protest. Udham Singh went to great heights to wait for the appropriate moment when the assassination could be registered as a protest rather than revenge. The thirst for revenge is a catalyst for providing momentum to the movement back home- for people to rally together, and reveal the gap in the impenetrable defence of the british empire.
Part of the speech Udham Singh gave at his trial in Old Bailey, London.
An important question thus arises- Is the vision of nationalism the monument indexes towards now the same as the one visible within the archives? Beyond the symptoms that are emerging and continue to manifest in different spaces- the language within these excerpts speaks of unification, mutual respect and secularism rather than dismissive differentiation.
Perhaps consolidating a language or a frame, which can contain this laterality and the continuing combustion and morphing of the structural membrane of the state, would only lead to failure- since the variables here afford themselves to be part of different discursive spaces. The volatile 'UR' whisper here continues to generate physicalities to be dissected and excavated to understand the crisis that Udham Singh might reveal not within the state but the larger epistemic direction of ‘reclaiming’ and ‘decolonising’ oneself.
With its immense kinetic energy contained, this whisper of the unfired shot is tastable even through the distance- Who is to say what, who, or where does it burn next?
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