Sardar Udham

About the film

Sardar Udham is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language epic biographical historical drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar, and produced by Rising Sun Films in collaboration with Kino Works. The screenplay is written by Shubhendu Bhattacharya and Ritesh Shah, with Bhattacharya also writing the story based on team research, and Shah also writing the dialogues, while playing a supporting role. Based on the life of Udham Singh, who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in London to avenge the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, the film starred Vicky Kaushal in the title role, along with Shaun Scott, Stephen Hogan, Amol Parashar, Banita Sandhu and Kirsty Averton in supporting roles.

The film was officially announced in March 2019, with principal photography began on April. In a marathon schedule of 7 months, the makers completed the shooting of the film in December 2019. Set in India and England, principal photography took place in Russia and India, with few sequences in United Kingdom and Ireland. Sardar Udham features musical score composed by Shantanu Moitra, cinematography handled by Avik Mukhopadhyay and editing done by Chandrashekhar Prajapati.

Plot

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.

Production

A film based on the life of the Indian revolutionary Udham Singh was announced in March 2019, with Shoojit Sircar directing the film and has Vicky Kaushal playing the lead character. Sircar decided to cast Kaushal in the lead, because he wanted an "actor who is ready to give his heart and soul to the film" and the latter, hailing from Punjab, similar to Udham Singh, also a native of Punjab. Kaushal stated it as his dream project as he admired of Sircar's filmography, further saying "The way he is looking at the character (Udham Singh) and the world is extraordinary as well as beautiful. Plus, it's also a big honour for me that finally, I am going to be directed by him. Honestly, that's something that will take time to sink in". The film marked the second Indian project to be based on the life of the Indian revolutionary after the Raj Babbar-starrer Shaheed Udham Singh (2000).

The film's storyline traces from Singh's age of 20 to 40, showcasing the events of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, to the assassination of Michael O'Dwyer, the Governor of Punjab who was responsible for the incident. The idea was initially pitched to be presented in the mid-1990s, after Sircar read about the events and life of Udham Singh, when he was a student at the Shaheed Bhagat Singh College in Delhi, but had waited for two decades due to his extensive research about Udham Singh, with Sircar wanting to showcase Udham's life to the current generation of younger audiences. Initially, the role was offered to Irrfan Khan, and his son Babil Khan was reported to play the younger version of Udham Singh. However, due to the former's health issues, he stepped out doing the role and insisted Kaushal to play the lead. Kaushal had undergone physical transformation to represent the younger version of Singh, losing 15 kilograms within two months.

Key details