Context:
The Prime Minister paid tributes to Punjab Kesari Lala Lajpat Rai on his 160th birthday anniversary on 28th January 2025.
Lala Lajpat Rai
He was born in an Agarwal Baniya family on 28th January 1865 at Dhudike village in the Ludhiana district of Punjab.
He is popularly known as ‘Punjab Kesari’ or ‘Lion of Punjab’.
He was baptized in the cult of Arya Samaj in 1882 and soon became one of its foremost leaders.
- Arya Samaj is a Hindu reform movement founded in 1875 by Dayananda Sarasvati to reestablish the Vedas.
After passing the Pleader’s Examination from Punjab University in 1886, he started his lawyer’s practice in Hissar, where he quickly gained recognition for his legal expertise.
He joined the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1888 at the Allahabad session, which was presided over by
George Yule (the First English President of INC).
In 1897, he founded the Hindu Relief Movement to provide help to the famine-stricken people and prevent them from falling into the clutches of the missionaries.
To support the Home Rule Movement in India and to cooperate with the Home Rule League and other such organizations in India and America, he founded the Indian Home Rule League of America in 1917 in New York.
At the special session of the Congress held in Calcutta in September 1920, Lala Lajpat Rai was elected as the Congress President and it was under his leadership that the Congress adopted the resolution of Non-cooperation with the British Government after the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy.
He was also elected the first President of the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in 1920.
He founded the Servants of People Society in 1921 at Lahore to enlist and train national missionaries for the service of the motherland.
Later on, after the withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation Movement, he joined the Swaraj Party founded by Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das and was elected its Deputy Leader.
He was also elected deputy leader of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1926. In 1928, he moved a resolution in the assembly refusing cooperation with the Simon Commission since the Commission had no Indian members.
While leading a silent protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore in October 1928, he was brutally lathi-charged by Superintendent of Police, James Scott and he died after a few weeks on 17 November 1928.
Philosophy of Lala Lajpat Rai
- He was a multi-faceted personality of Indian freedom struggle and he led a life of ceaseless activity dedicated to a selfless service to the nation.
- He was one of the legendary triumvirate of Lal-Bal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal), who had been promoting self-reliance and opposing the monopoly of British goods in India.
- To him, patriotism is an immense love of liberty and justice and a matter of self-respect.
Writings of Lala Lajpat Rai
- He wrote biographical books on Mazzini, Garibaldi, Shivaji and Swami Dayanand.
He wrote several books –
- The Story of My Deportation (1908)
- Arya Samaj (1915)
- The United States of America: A Hindu’s Impression (1916)
- Young India (1916)
- Unhappy India (1928)