Lala Lajapat Rai

In news : Prime Minister paid tribute to Lal Lajapat rai on his 156th birth anniversary

A brief note on Lala Lajpat Rai

Born on January, 28 1865, Lala Lajpat Rai was popularly known as ‘Punjab Kesari’.
He was a great freedom fighter, historian, eminent editor, social and religious reformer, and powerful orator.
Lala Lajpat Rai along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal formed the trinity of militant leaders ‘Lal-Bal-Pal’.
He was also associated with activities of Punjab National Bank and Lakshmi Insurance Company in their early stages in 1894.
While studying law at the Government College in Lahore, he was influenced by the Hindu reformist movement of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, became a member of existing Arya Samaj Lahore (founded 1877) and founder editor of Lahore-based Arya Gazette
He also helped to establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School and became a follower of Dayananda Sarasvati, the founder of the Arya Samaj (“Society of Aryans”).
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.

His role in freedom struggle

He actively campaigned for Swadeshi and propagated the message of self-reliance in India and abroad.
After joining the Congress Party and taking part in political agitation in the Punjab, Lajpat Rai was deported to Mandalay, Burma (now Myanmar), without trial, in May 1907
During World War I, Lajpat Rai lived in the United States, where he founded the Indian Home Rule League of America (1917) in New York City.
He returned to India in early 1920, and later that year he led a special session of the Congress Party that launched Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-cooperation movement.
He also founded the ‘Servants of the People Society’ at Lahore in 1921, which did remarkable work in various fields.
He was elected as the President of the Indian National Congress in 1920.
Lala Lajpat Rai died while leading a demonstration against the Simon Commission in Lahore (now in Pakistan) on November 17, 1928.

His literary works

Lajpat Rai’s most important writings include

The Story of My Deportation (1908)
Arya Samaj (1915)
The United States of America: A Hindu’s Impression (1916)
England’s Debt to India: A Historical Narrative of Britain’s Fiscal Policy in India (1917), and
Unhappy India (1928).