Lala Lajpat Rai (28 January 1865 - 17 November 1928) was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and author, popularly known as Punjab Kesari. He was one of the three members of the Lal Bal Pal trio. He died of severe trauma injuries sustained in October 1928 during a British-ordered baton charge by police in Lahore, when he led a peaceful protest march against the all-British Simon Commission.
Lajpat Rai was born on 28 January 1865 into an Agrawal Jain family as the eldest son of six children of Munshi Radha Krishna, an Urdu and Persian government school teacher and Gulab Devi Aggarwal at Dhudike in the Faridkot district of the Punjab Province of British India (now in Moga district, Punjab, India). He spent much of his youth in Jagraon. His house still stands in Jagraon and houses a library and museum.
Lajpat Rai had his initial education in Government Higher Secondary School, Rewari, Punjab province, where his father was posted as an Urdu teacher. In 1880, he 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 Gurudutta. While studying at Lahore he was influenced by the Hindu reformist movement of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, became a member of the existing Arya Samaj Lahore (founded 1877) and founder-editor of Lahore-based Arya Gazette.
In 1884, his father was transferred to Rohtak, and Rai came along after the completion of his studies at Lahore. In 1886, he moved to Hisar where his father was transferred, and started to practice law and became a founding member of the Bar Council of Hisar along with Babu Churamani. In the same year, he helped Mahatma Hansraj establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School, Lahore, and he also founded the Hisar district branches of the Indian National Congress, and the reformist Arya Samaj movement with several other local leaders. These included Babu Churamani (lawyer), the three Tayal brothers (Chandu Lal Tayal, Hari Lal Tayal and Balmokand Tayal), Dr. Ramji Lal Hooda, Dr. Dhani Ram, Arya Samaj Pandit Murari Lal, Seth Chhaju Ram Jat (founder of Jat School, Hisar) and Dev Raj Sandhir. In 1888 and again in 1889, he had the honour of being one of the four delegates from Hisar to attend the annual session of the Congress at Allahabad, along with Babu Churamani, Lala Chhabil Das and Seth Gauri Shankar. In 1892, he moved to Lahore to practise before the Lahore High Court. To shape the political policy of India to gain independence, he also practised journalism, and was a regular contributor to several newspapers including The Tribune. He was also associated with the management of the Punjab National Bank and Lakshmi Insurance Company in their early stages in 1894.
In 1914, he quit law practice to dedicate himself to the Indian independence movement and travelled to Britain, 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. His early freedom struggle was impacted by Arya Samaj and communal representation.
After joining the Indian National Congress and taking part in political agitation in Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai Wadwal was deported to Mandalay by the British Raj, but there was insufficient evidence to hold him for subversion. Lajpat Rai's supporters attempted to secure his election to the presidency of the party session at Surat in December 1907, but he did not succeed.
Graduates of the National College, which he founded inside the Bradlaugh Hall at Lahore as an alternative to British-style institutions, included Bhagat Singh. He was elected President of the Indian National Congress in the Calcutta Special Session of 1920. In 1921, he founded Servants of the People Society, a non-profit welfare organisation, in Lahore, which shifted its base to Delhi after partition, and has branches in many parts of India. He was a politician who had followed the policy of non - violence. According to him, Hindu society needs to fight its own battle with caste system, position of women and untouchability. Vedas were an important part of Hindu religion and approved everyone should be allowed to read them and recite the mantras. He believed that everyone should be allowed to read and learn from the Vedas.
After the return from the Exile to Mandalay
After returning from the exile, Lala Lajpat Rai went for a tour to the Great Britain. His stay for there was actually planned for a few weeks.
But when he tried to come back from the tour he was unable to return to India because of -
The World War I - Due to the war, the British Government denied the return of any person except few dignitaries.
Blacklisted Passport - His passport was 'Blacklisted' by the British Government as the government feared that Lala Lajpat Rai would become a prominent leader and lead several revolts throughout the country.
Lalaji was a hard working person. He didn't pass his time in idleness', instead he utilised his time and delivered lectures, wrote for many newspapers like The Times and wrote some great books like the Young India (which was banned by the British Government for several years but the ban was released when a case was filed against the ban and nothing special was found which would have caused the government to ban the book) and collected a large amount of money. He had to do learn all the skills necessary to running a household including cooking food, cleaning and doing laundry. He faced hardship due to shortage of money set aside for himself though he had lot of money but he said that he won't use a single penny from the fund as the fund was meant for the investment for the country's needs. He also extended his trip to Japan and the US.
After applying many times for the return to India, he went to the UK and spoke to the Secretary of India and managed to get his permit back to India.
Lajpat Rai travelled to the United States in 1916, and then returned during World War I. He toured Sikh communities along the Western Seaboard, visited the 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. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. While in the United States he had founded the Indian Home Rule League in New York City and a monthly journal, the Young India and Hindustan Information Services Association. Rai petitioned the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, painting a vivid picture of maladministration by the British Raj in India, the aspirations of Indian public for independence amongst many other points which strongly sought the support of the international community for the attainment of Indian independence. The 32-page petition, which was prepared overnight, was discussed in the U.S. Senate in October 1917. 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 Indian National Congress that launched the non-co-operation movement. He was imprisoned from 1921 to 1923 and elected to the legislative assembly on his release.
Protests Against The Simon Commission
In 1928, the United Kingdom set up the Simon Commission, headed by Sir John Simon to report on the political situation in India. The commission was boycotted by Indian political parties because it did not include any Indian members, and it was met with country-wide protests. When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lajpat Rai led a non-violent march in protest against it and gave the slogan "Simon Go Back!". The protesters chanted the slogan and carried black flags.
The police superintendent in Lahore, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and personally assaulted Rai. Despite being severely injured, Rai subsequently addressed the crowd at Mochi Gate the same evening and said "I declare that the blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India."