Lala Lajpat Rai was one of the greatest leaders of India's independence movement who sacrificed his life while protesting against the arrival of Simon Commission. His death anniversary on 17th November is celebrated as Martyr's day in India.

1. THE LION OF PUNJAB

2. Lala Lajpat Rai was born on (28 January 1865 – 17 November
1928) was an Indian Punjabi author and politician who is
chiefly remembered as a leader in the Indian Independence
movement. He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari. Lala
Lajpat Rai immensely contributed in attaining independence
of the nation from the clutches of the British. He helped in
establishing few schools in the country. He also initiated the
foundation of Punjab National Bank.

3. He sustained severe injuries in the protest against Simon
Commission and died less than three weeks later. His death
anniversary (17 November) is celebrated as Martyrs' Day in India.
His father was a great scholar of Persian and Urdu. His mother was a
strict religious lady who inculcated strong morals values in her
children. His family values allowed Lajpat Rai to have the freedom of
following different faiths and beliefs.

4. Lala Lajpat Rai in 1908

5. EARLY LIFE

6. Lajpat Rai was born in Dhudike which is now in Moga
district, Punjab) on 28 January 1865.The word 'Lala' is an honorific
applied to prominent Hindu men of the time. His father was an
Aggarwal by caste .
Rai completed his initial education in Government Higher
Secondary School, Rewari(now in Haryana, previously in Punjab),
in the late 1870s and early 1880s, where his father, Radha Krishan
worked as an Urdu teacher. Rai was influenced by Hinduism and
created a career of reforming Indian policy through politics and
writing.When studying law in Lahore, he continued to practice
Hinduism.

7. He became a huge believer in the philosophy that Hinduism,
above nationality, was crucial upon which an Indian lifestyle must
be based.
His involvement with Hindu Mahasabha leaders gathered criticism
from the Bharat Sabha as the Mahasabhas were non-secular,
which did not conform with the system laid out by the Indian
National Congress.

8. BELIEVER IN HINDUISM

9. As an orthodox Hindu, Rai was thoroughly influenced by Hinduism and created a
career of reforming Indian policy through politics and writing.
He ardently practised Hinduism.
He firmly believed that Hinduism paves way for the practices of peace to humanity.
He opined that when nationalist ideas were added to this peaceful belief system, a
secular nation could be formed. His involvement with Hindu Mahasabha leaders
gathered criticism from the Bharat Sabha because the Mahasabhas were non-
secular, which did not conform with the system laid out by the Indian National
Congress. This focus on Hindu practices in the subcontinent would ultimately lead
him to the continuation of peaceful movements to create successful demonstrations
for Indian independence.

10. HIS CONTRIBUTION TO ARYA SAMAJ

11. He was a sincere devotee of Arya Samaj. He was editor of Arya Gazette, which
he set up during his student time.
After obtaining bachelor’s degree in law at the Government College in Lahore,
Lajpat Rai worked as a practising lawyer at Hissar and Lahore. This was where
he helped to establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School and
became a follower of Dayananda Sarasvati, the founder of the reformist Hindu
society Arya Samaj ("Society of Noble People").
In 1897, he founded the Hindu Orphan Relief Movement to keep the Christian missions
from securing custody of these children.

12. HIS ROLE IN PROMOTION OF
EDUCATION

13. Lalaji was opposed to the recommendations of the
University Education Commission. The commission
recommended Government control of education and set
forth difficult standards for starting private schools. Punjab
was adversely affected by the commission because the
Arya Samaj was extremely active in the field of education.
After the commission, it became impossible for the people
to have any say in their children's education. Lalaji
declared that the Government by these new regulations has
made it almost impossible for the Private Education
Societies to start schools or improve them.

14. PARTICIPATION IN THE INDIAN NATIONAL
CONGRESS AND HIS ROLE IN THE
POLITICAL AGITATION IN THE PUNJAB

15. After joining the Indian National Congress, he soon took part in political agitation
in the Punjab. Lajpat Rai was deported to Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), without
trial, in May 1907. The viceroy, Lord Minto, decided that there was insufficient
evidence to hold him for subversion and so Rai was allowed to return in
November.
Though Lajpat Rai's supporters attempted to secure his election to the presidency
of the party session at Surat in December 1907, but elements in favour of the
British refused to accept him. Thus the party split over the issues.

16. ELECTED AS PRESIDENT OF THE
CONGRESS PARTY

17. He founded Bradlaugh Hall at Lahore as an alternative to British Institutions.
Graduates of the National College included Bhagat Singh. He was elected
President of the Congress party in the Calcutta Special Session of 1920.
In 1921, He founded Servants of the People Society a non-profit welfare
organization, in Lahore, which shifted based to Delhi after partition, and has
branches in many parts of India.

18. BONVOYAGE: AMERICA

19. Lajpat Rai travelled to the US in 1907. He returned during World War I. During
his stay in US, he toured Sikh communities along the US West Coast. He
visited Tuskegee University in Alabama; and met with workers in the Philippines.
His travelogue, The United States of America (1916), provides a detailed
account of these travels and features extensive quotations from leading African
American intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Boisand Fredrick Douglass. 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 . The following
year he led the special session of the Congress Party that launched the non co-
operation movement. He was imprisoned from 1921 to 1923. Soon after his
release, he was elected to the legislative assembly.

20. A banquet given in honour of Lala Lajpat Rai by the California Chapter of the Hindustan
Association of America at Hotel Shattuck in Berkeley on 12 February 1916.

21. PROTEST AGAINST SIMON COMMISSION

22. In 1928, the British government set up the Commission, headed by Sir John
Simon. The commission has to report on the political situation in India. The
Indian political parties boycotted the Commission because it did not include a
single Indian in its membership. This resulted in country-wide protests.
When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lajpat Rai led silent
march in protest against it. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott,
ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and personally assaulted Rai. In
this attack, he was severely injured. Later, Rai addressed the crowd and said
that "I declare that the blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the
coffin of British rule in India"

23. DEMISE

24. He did not fully recover from his injuries and soon died on
17 November 1928 of heart failure. Doctors thought that
Scott's blows had hastened his death. However, when the
matter was raised in the British Parliament, the British
Government denied any role in Rai's death.

25. REVENGE OF BHAGAT SINGH

26. Although Bhagat Singh did not witness the event, he vowed to take
revenge, and joined other revolutionaries, Shivaram Rajguru,Sukhdev
Thaparand Chandrashekhar Azad, in a plot to kill Scott.
However, in a case of mistaken identity, Bhagat Singh was signalled to shoot
on the appearance of John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of
Police. Rajguru and Bhagat Singh while leaving the District Police
Headquarters shot the (ASP) , John Saunders in Lahore on 17 December
1928.
Azad opened fire on the Head Constable, Chanan Singh who was chasing
them. Subsequently, he was fatally injured by Azad's covering fire.
This case of mistaken identity did not stop Bhagat Singh and his fellow-
members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association from claiming
that vengeance had been exacted.

27. LEGACY

28. Rai has been described as "a pillar of
extremist nationalism in India“.The Lala
Lajpat Rai Trust was formed in 1959 on the
eve of his Centenary Birth Celebration, to
promote education. The trust was founded
by a group of Punjabi philanthropists
(including R.P Gupta and B.M Grover) who
have settled and prospered in the Indian
State of Maharashtra.
The Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary
& Animal Sciences in Hisar, Haryana, is a
state university was created in memory of
Lajpat Rai. A statue of Lajpat Rai stands at
the central square in Shimla, India (having
been originally erected in Lahore and
moved to Shimla in 1948).The statue of Rai at
Shimla, Himachal
Pradesh.

29. In 1927, Lajpat Rai established a trust in her memory of his
mother, Gulab Devi who died of Tuberculosis which came
to be known as the Gulab Devi Chest Hospital which was
opened on 17 July 1934.

30. Lajpat Nagar and Lajpat Nagar Central Market in New Delhi, Lajpat Rai Market
in Chandani Chowk, Delhi; Lala Lajpat Rai Hall of Residence at Indian Institutes
of Technology IIT) in Kanpur and Kharagpur; as well as the Lala Lajpat Rai
Institute of Engineering and Technology, Moga are named in his honour. Also
many institutes, schools and libraries in his hometown of Jagraon, district
Ludhiana are named after him.
The bus terminus in Jagraon, Punjab, India is named after Lala Lajpat Rai. Lala
Lajpat Rai Hospital, Kanpur is also named in his honour. Further, there are
several roads named after him in many metropolis and other towns of India.
Lala Lajpat Rai was also head of the "Lakshmi Insurance Company," and
commissioned the Lakshmi Building in Karachi, which still bears a plaque in
remembrance of him.

31. WORKS

32. Rai's writings include:
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)
England's Debt to India (1917)
Autobiographical Writings

33. YOUNG INDIA

34. Young India was written just after World War I broke out in Europe. Lajpat Rai was
travelling in the United States when Franz Ferdinand was assasinated. Rai wrote the
book to exclaim his people's desire to help the British, who had been ruling in India
since the mid-1700s, fight against the Germans. Rai wishes to have complete
sovereignty from all foreign rule, but he needs to gain the support of America, his
only true hope for an ally against Britain. Young India gives an actual account of one
of the primary freedom fighters in India in the early 1900s. By writing an account
outlining the history of India, showing that the Indian people are better than the
stereotype given by the West, willing and able to govern themselves, and attempting
to gain American support against the Colonial British. Thus Rai allows his readers to
understand what is actually happening in India and why India should become an
independent nation.

35. The book, Young India makes the Indian people sound good, saying that they
were rushing en masse to volunteer for war, one must take what Rai says with a
grain of salt:
•to gain American support in India against British colonialism
•makes many parallels to the American fight for independence against the
British
•convey his idea of an independent India, free from the viceroys and rule of the
English Parliament.

36. REFERENCES

37. 1. Wikipedia
2. Lalalajpat Rai retrieved 4 May 2012
3. Lala Lajpat Rai. Encyclopaedia Britannica
4. www.culturalindia.net