Lala Lajpat Raiਲਾਲਾ ਲਾਜਪਤ ਰਾਏ

Early life and education

Lala Lajpat Rai was born on 28 January 1865 in the village of Dhudike, in what is now the Moga district of Punjab. His father, Munshi Radha Krishna, was a teacher of Urdu and Persian, and his mother, Gulab Devi, was a devout and strong-willed woman who shaped his moral outlook. The family was of modest means but valued learning. Young Lajpat was a brilliant student; he studied law at Lahore and began practising at Hissar, later moving his practice to Lahore.

Two influences defined his youth: the Arya Samaj, the Hindu reform movement founded by Dayanand Saraswati, and the example of his father, who had himself joined the Samaj. Lajpat Rai threw himself into the Samaj's work - its schools, its campaign against caste and superstition, its defence of Hindu society - and the movement's ethic of selfless service became the template of his public life.

Entry into public life

Lajpat Rai's energies were extraordinary. He helped found the Punjab National Bank in 1894 - India's first bank owned and managed by Indians - and the Lakshmi Insurance Company. He was instrumental in building the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) network of schools and colleges, which brought modern education to Punjab. In 1921 he founded the Servants of the People Society, dedicated to training selfless workers for the nation. Journalism was another of his weapons: he founded and edited journals in English, Urdu and Hindi.

He entered the Indian National Congress and quickly became one of its most forceful voices. Along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra and Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal, he formed the famous Lal-Bal-Pal trio - the leaders who demanded swaraj (self-rule) as a birthright, in contrast to the moderates who sought gradual reform. The British considered him dangerous: in 1907 he was arrested and deported to Mandalay in Burma without trial, an act that made him a national hero.

The freedom struggle

Lajpat Rai spent the First World War years in exile in the United States, where he founded the India Home Rule League and wrote Young India, introducing India's cause to American readers. He returned to a changed country - Gandhi's non-cooperation movement was rising - and though he differed with Gandhi on tactics, he presided over the Congress's special Calcutta session in 1920 that launched non-cooperation. He was jailed repeatedly in the 1920s and never wavered.

His final battle came in 1928, when the British sent the Simon Commission to India - a constitutional review body with not a single Indian member. Lajpat Rai led the boycott in Punjab. On 30 October 1928, he headed a peaceful protest in Lahore against the Commission. The police ordered a lathi charge; the sixty-three-year-old leader was struck repeatedly. He addressed the crowd even as he bled.

Death and the famous words

Lajpat Rai never recovered from the assault. He died on 17 November 1928, less than three weeks later. His dying declaration became immortal: he declared that the blows struck at him that day would be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India. The nation was convulsed. Bhagat Singh - who revered him - and his comrades avenged the assault weeks later in the assassination of a British police officer. Lajpat Rai's martyrdom thus became the spark of the revolutionary movement's most famous chapter.

Legacy

Lala Lajpat Rai is remembered as the Punjab Kesari - the Lion of Punjab - and as one of the great builders of modern India: banker, educator, journalist, social reformer and freedom fighter in one life. His Servants of the People Society continued his work after his death. Statues of him stand across India, and his birthday is commemorated in Punjab. He embodied the idea that freedom must be built as well as won - in banks and schools and newspapers, not only on the streets.