Lala Lajpat Rai, an Indian freedom fighter played a pivotal role in the Indian Independence movement, died today. The patriot died at Lahore in 1928 after he was attacked by police during a protest rally against the Simon Commission.
He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari. He was one of the three Lal Bal Pal triumvirate. Lajpat Rai was born on 28 January 1865 in a Punjabi Hindu family, as a son of Urdu and Persian Government School teacher Munshi Radha Krishan and his wife Gulab Devi, in Dhudike. During his early life, Rai’s liberal views and belief in Hinduism were shaped by his father and deeply religious mother respectively, which he successfully applied to create a career of reforming the religion and Indian policy through politics and journalistic writing.In 1880, Lajpat Rai joined Government College at Lahore to study Law, where he came in contact with patriots and future freedom fighters, such as Lala Hans Raj and Pandit Guru Dutt. While studying at Lahore he was influenced by the Hindu reformist movement of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, became a member of existing Arya Samaj Lahore and founder editor of Lahore-based Arya Gazette.
In 1881, he joined the Indian National Congress at the age of 16. In 1885, Rai established the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic School in Lahore and remained a committed educationist throughout his life. During the Lahore Session of the Congress in 1893, Rai met Bal Gangadhar Tilak, another nationalist, and the two became lifelong associates. Rai, Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal (called Lal-Bal-Pal) fervently advocated the use of Swadeshi goods and mass agitation in the aftermath of the controversial Partition of Bengal in 1905 by Lord Curzon.
In 1914, he quit law practice to dedicate himself to the freedom of India and went to Britain in 1914 and then to the United States in 1917. In October 1917, he founded the Indian Home Rule League of America in New York. He stayed in the United States from 1917 to 1920. Sometimes according to Indian historians he was born into a Hindu family at Punjab. His early freedom struggle was impacted by Arya Samaj and communal representation.
In 1928, the Simon Commission, a British-appointed group of lawmakers arrived in India to study the implementation of the Government of India Act, 1919 (the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms). The group of 7 did not consist of a single Indian member, a fact that was heavily resented by the Congress. Rai was among the leaders of the movement opposing the Commission and was severely lathi-charged during a protest in Lahore on October 30, 1928. It was after this that Rai famously said, “The blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India.” He died a few days later on November 17.
Lajpat Rai was a heavyweight veteran leader of the Indian Nationalist Movement, Indian independence movement led by the Indian National Congress, Hindu reform movements and Arya Samaj, who inspired young men of his generation and kindled latent spirit of patriotism in their hearts with journalistic writings and lead-by-example activism. Young men, such as Chandrasekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh, were driven to sacrifice their lives for the freedom of their Motherland following Rai’s example.
Rai also wrote extensively in English and Urdu. His important works include: ‘The Arya Samaj’, ‘Young India’, ‘England’s Debt to India’, ‘Evolution of Japan’, ‘India’s Will to Freedom’, ‘Message of the Bhagwad Gita’, ‘Political Future of India’, ‘Problem of National Education in India’, ‘The Depressed Glasses’, and the travelogue ‘United States of America’.
Lala Rajpat Rai is remembered as a nationalist Indian and freedom-fighter who was unafraid of putting his views, even when they were critical of the Congress or Mahatma Gandhi, in the public domain. As an author and thinker his writings leave behind a fascinating and rich legacy.
