Lala Lajpat Rai

Lala Lajpat Rai

Lala Lajpat Rai

Born

28 January 1865
Dhudike, Punjab, British India (now India)

Died

17 November 1928 (age 63)

Lahore, British India (now Pakistan)

Organization

Indian National Congress, Arya Samaj

Political movement Indian Independence movement

Religion

Hinduism

Lala Lajpat Rai pronunciationWikipedia:Media helpFile:Lala Lajpat Rai.ogg, (28 January 1865 17 November
1928) was an Indian author and politician who is chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian fight for independence
from the British Raj. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari meaning the same and was part of the Lal Bal Pal
trio.[1] He was also associated with activities of Punjab National Bank and Lakshmi Insurance Company in their
early stages. He sustained serious injuries by the police when leading a non-violent protest against the Simon
Commission and died less than three weeks later. His death anniversary (November 17) is one of several days
celebrated as Martyrs' Day in India.[2]

Early life
Lajpat Rai was born in Dhudike (now in Moga district, Punjab) on 28 January 1865.[3][4][5] (The word 'Lala' is a
honorific, applied to prominent Hindu men of the time.) His grandfather was a Svetambara Jain while his father had
great respect for Islam, and he even fasted and prayed like Muslims, but did not embrace Islam largely due to his
family's attachment to the Hindu faith.[6] Rai had his initial education in Government Higher Secondary School,
Rewari (now in Haryana, previously in Punjab), in the late 1870s and early 1880s, where his father, Radha Krishan,
was an Urdu teacher. Rai was influenced by Hinduism and Manusmriti and created a career of reforming Indian
policy through politics and writing.[7] (When studying law in Lahore, he continued to practice Hinduism. He became
a large believer in the idea that Hinduism, above nationality, was the pivotal point upon which an Indian lifestyle
must be based.) Hinduism, he believed, led to practices of peace to humanity, and the idea that when nationalist ideas
were added to this peaceful belief system, a non-secular nation could be formed. His involvement with Hindu
Mahasabha leaders gathered criticism from the Bharat Sabha as the Mahasabhas were non-secular, which did not

Lala Lajpat Rai

conform with the system laid out by the Indian National Congress.[8] This focus on Hindu practices in the
subcontinent would ultimately lead him to the continuation of peaceful movements to create successful
demonstrations for Indian independence. He was a devotee of Arya Samaj and was editor of Arya Gazette, which he
set up during his student time.[9]
Graduates of the National College, which he founded inside the Bradlaugh Hall at Lahore as an alternative to British
institutions, included Bhagat Singh.[10] He was elected President of the Congress party in the Calcutta Special
Session of 1920.[11]

Travels to America
Lajpat Rai travelled to the US in 1907, and then returned during World War I. He toured Sikh communities along the
US West Coast; visited Tuskegee University in Alabama; and met with workers in the Philippines. His travelogue,
The United States of America (1916), details these travels and features extensive quotations from leading African
American intellectuals, including W.E.B. DuBois and Fredrick Douglass. The book also argues for the notion of
color-caste, suggesting sociological similarities between race in the US and caste in India. During World War I,
Lajpat Rai lived in the United States, but he returned to India in 1919 and in the following year led the special
session of the Congress Party that launched the noncooperation movement. Imprisoned from 1921 to 1923, he was
elected to the legislative assembly on his release. []

Partition of Punjab
He initiated the discussion on the partition of Punjab. Writing in The Tribune in November-December 1924, he
penned,
My suggestion is that the Punjab should be partitioned into two provinces, the Western Punjab with a
large Muslim majority to be [a] Muslim-governed province; the Eastern Punjab with a large Hindu-Sikh
majority to be [a] non-Muslim-governed province.
He also proposed Muslim provinces to be set up in the North West Frontier Province, Sindh and East Bengal.[12]

Commission protests
In 1928, the British government set up the Commission, headed by Sir John Simon, to report on the political
situation in India. The Indian political parties boycotted the Commission, because it did not include a single Indian in
its membership, and it met with country-wide protests. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928,
Lajpat Rai led a non-violent protest against the Commission in a silent march, but the police responded with
violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and
personally assaulted Rai, who was grievously injured. Rai could not recover from the injuries and died on 17
November 1928 of a heart attack. It was obviously known that Scott's blows had hastened his demise.[13] However,
when the matter was raised in the British Parliament, the British Government denied any role in Rai's death.[]
Although Singh did not witness the event,[14] he vowed to take revenge,[] and joined other revolutionaries, Shivaram
Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar and Chandrashekhar Azad, in a plot to kill Scott.[] However, in a case of mistaken identity,
Singh was signalled to shoot on the appearance of John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police. He was
shot by Rajguru and Singh while leaving the District Police Headquarters in Lahore on 17 December 1928.[15]
Chanan Singh, a Head Constable who was chasing them, was fatally injured by Azad's covering fire.[16]
This case of mistaken identity did not stop Singh and his fellow-members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican
Association from claiming that retribution had been exacted.[]

Lala Lajpat Rai

Inspiration and memorial

The Lala Lajpat Rai Trust was formed in 1959 on the eve of his Centenary Birth Celebration, to promote education.
The trust was founded by a group of Punjabi philanthropists (including R.P Gupta and B.M Grover) who have settled
and prospered in the Indian State of Maharashtra. The Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences,
in Hisar, Haryana, is a state university was created in memory of Lajpat Rai. A statue of Lajpat Rai stands at the
central square in Shimla, India (having been originally erected in Lahore and moved to Shimla in 1948). Lajpat
Nagar and Lajpat Nagar Central Market in New Delhi, Lajpat Rai Market in Chandani Chowk, Delhi; Lala Lajpat
Rai Hall of Residence at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur and Kharagpur; as well as the Lala Lajpat
Rai Institute of Engineering and Technology(LLRIET), Moga, are named in his honor. Also many institutes, schools
and libraries in his hometown of Jagraon, district Ludhiana are named after him. The bus terminus in Jagraon,
Punjab, India is named after Lala Lajpat Rai. Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital, Kanpur is also named in his honor.
The Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Management is a business school in Mumbai.

Gulab Devi Chest Hospital

Lala Lajpat Rai's mother, Gulab Devi, died of TB in Lahore. In order to perpetuate her memory, Lala Lajpat Rai
established a Trust in 1927 to build and run a TB Hospital for women reportedly at the spot where she had died.[17]
The Trust purchased 40 acres of land in April 1930 from the then Government which gave a free grant of an
additional 10 acres on Ferozepur Road (the road is now called Sharah-e- Roomi). Construction work was started in
1931 and completed in 1934 when the Hospital gates were opened to TB patients.
A marble plaque bears witness to the opening of the Hospital on 17 July 1934 by Mahatma Gandhi. On the migration
of trustees to India in 1947, the Government invited Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan, Syed Maratab Ali, Professor
Dr.Amiruddin and some other notables and philanthropists to become acting Trustees of the Hospital in July 1948.
They constituted a Managing Committee with Begum Raana in the Chair, for running the Gulab Devi Chest
Hospital.

Works
"England's Debt To India" at Hindustan Books [18]
"Young India" at Hindustan Books [19]
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE EDWIN SAMUEL MONTAGUE : His Brittanic Majestys
Secretary of State for India at Hindustan Books [20]
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE DAVID LLOYD GEORGE: PRIME MINISTER OF
GREAT BRITAIN at Hindustan Books [21]

References
[3] Kathryn Tidrick (2006) Gandhi: a political and spiritual life I.B.Tauris ISBN 978-1-84511-166-3 pp. 113-114
[4] Kenneth W. Jones (1976) Arya dharm: Hindu consciousness in 19th-century Punjab University of California Press ISBN 978-0-520-02920-0
p.52
[5] Purushottam Nagar (1977) Lala Lajpat Rai: the man and his ideas Manohar Book Service p.161
[7] Lala Lajpat Rai. Encyclopdia Britannica. http:/ / www. britannica. com/ EBchecked/ topic/ 328063/ Lala-Lajpat-Rai
[8] S. K. Mittal and Irfan Habib. Towards Independence and Socialist Republic: Naujawan Bharat Sabha. Social Scientist Vol. 8 2, 1979.
[18] http:/ / www. hindustanbooks. com/ books/ englands_debt_to_india/ EnglandsDebtToIndia. html
[19] http:/ / www. hindustanbooks. com/ books/ young_india/ young_india. html
[20] http:/ / www. hindustanbooks. com/ books/ open_letters_by_lajpat_rai/ AnOpenLetterToMrEdwinSamuelMontague. html
[21] http:/ / www. hindustanbooks. com/ books/ open_letters_by_lajpat_rai/ AnOpenLetterToDavidLlyodGeorge. html

Lala Lajpat Rai

External links
Lala Lajpat Rai's books at Hindustan Books (http://www.hindustanbooks.com/books_by_authers/
lala_lajpat_rai.html)
Lala Lajpat Rai's "Young India" in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) (http://www.
saadigitalarchive.org/collection/india-home-rule-league)
Satish K Kapoor, He gave a fillip to freedom struggle (http://www.tribuneindia.com/1998/98nov15/sunday/
head8.htm), Tribune
Works by Lajpat Rai (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Lajpat_Rai) at Project Gutenberg

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