Dhudikeਧੂਦਿਕੇ

History

On 28 January 1865, in this village — then in Faridkot district of British Punjab, now in Moga — Lala Lajpat Rai was born to Munshi Radha Krishna, an Urdu and Persian schoolteacher, and Gulab Devi. The boy from Dhudike would become the 'Punjab Kesari', the Lion of Punjab: a third of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio, founder of the Servants of the People Society (1921), president of the Congress's Calcutta special session (1920), and the leader whose death from injuries in the 1928 anti-Simon Commission lathi charge in Lahore electrified the nation and inspired Bhagat Singh's vengeance.

Dhudike's freedom record extends beyond Lalaji. The village gave Ghadarites to the revolutionary movement — Baba Isher Singh, Baba Pala Singh Jathedar and Baba Pakhar Singh among them — men who carried the Ghadar's call for armed revolt from North America back to Punjab. A memorial in the village honours Lala Lajpat Rai, and the state government holds functions here on his birth anniversary; his sesquicentennial in January 2016 was marked by a state-level event at Dhudike.

Geography & people

Dhudike lies 17 kilometres east of Moga city at about 233 metres above sea level, in the heart of the Malwa's wheat–paddy belt. The 2011 census counted about 6,200 residents. Punjabi is the everyday language; the village is a typical Malwa farming settlement — brick houses, a gurdwara, schools — distinguished from a hundred like it only by the history made by its most famous son.

Lalaji spent his youth largely in nearby Jagraon, where the family house still stands as a library and museum — but Dhudike remains, officially and emotionally, his birthplace.

Places of interest

The Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial at Dhudike is the village's landmark — the essential stop for anyone tracing the freedom struggle through Punjab. The village's lanes, its gurdwara and the surrounding fields show the rural Punjab that shaped Lalaji's early years. Jagraon, with the Rai family house-museum, is a short drive away.

Notable people

Dhudike's notable person is Lala Lajpat Rai (28 January 1865 – 17 November 1928), 'Punjab Kesari' — lawyer, journalist, educationist, and one of the architects of militant nationalism. The village also honours its Ghadarites: Baba Isher Singh, Baba Pala Singh Jathedar and Baba Pakhar Singh, who took the revolutionary path a generation after Lalaji showed the way.