Heroes of Freedom
Struggle-5
Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928)
*Dr Saradindu Mukherji
One
of the legendary triumvirate – Lal-Bal-Pal ( Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal
Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal) of India’s freedom movement against
the British colonial rule, Lala Lajpat Rai was a multi-faceted personality
and led a life of ceaseless activity dedicated to a self-less service to the
nation.
Born
in an educated Aggarwal family of Punjab, he studied in Rewari and later in
Lahore, capital of undivided Punjab. He was drawn into one of the most creative
movements of revitalization of 19th century India, Arya Samaj, founded and led
by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Later on, he set up a Dayanand Anglo-Vedic school
in Lahore.
Lajpat
Rai belonged to that period of our history, when people like Aurobindo, Bal
Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal had come to see the basic faults in the “Moderate”
politics - what they called “political mendicancy” and the inadequacies of
gradual constitutional progress. As venerable, R.C. Mazumdar, the doyen of
Indian historians explains, “The ideals of new nationalism preached by its high
priests like Tilak, Arabinda and Lajpat Rai assumed concrete shape, which may
be regarded as the precursor of the Civil Disobedience Movement of Mahatma
Gandhi”. He realized that “the British people were indifferent to Indian
affairs and the British press was not willing to champion Indian aspirations”
as some Moderates believed.
As
early as 1897, he had founded the Hindu Relief Movement to provide help to the
famine -stricken people and thus preventing them falling into the clutches of
the missionaries.
In
the two articles he wrote for the Kayastha Samachar (1901), he called for
technical education and industrial self-help. In the wake of the Swadeshi
movement (anti-partition of Bengal. 1905-8), when “the idea of a national
education caught the imagination of the whole of India”, it was Lajpat Rai and
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who “propagated the idea”. He went to set up the National
College in Lahore, where Bhagat Singh studied. When the agitation against an
increased irrigation rates and higher land-revenue began in Punjab, it was led
by the Indian Patriots Association led by Ajit Singh (uncle of Bhagat Singh)
and Lajpat Rai would often address their meetings.
As
one contemporary British report pointed out, “The head and centre of the entire
movement is Lala Lajpat Rai, a Khatri pleader--- he is a revolutionary and a
political enthusiast who is inspired by the most intense hatred of the British
government”.
For
his growing involvement in the freedom movement, he was given the toughest
prison sentences in far away Mandalay (now Myanmar) in 1907 without trial. He
also led the protest against the horrendous massacre of Jalianwalla Bagh.
He
visited USA and Japan where he kept in touch with the Indian revolutionaries.
In England, he also became a member of the British Labour party.
In
recognition of his outstanding role in the freedom movement, he was elected
President of the Indian National Congress at the Calcutta session (1920).
As
he took much interest in the condition of the working class people, he was also
elected as the President of the All India Trade Union Congress.
Lajpat
Rai called for “highest devotion and the greatest sacrifice from us” and “our
first want, then, is to raise our patriotism to the level of religion, and to
aspire to live or die for it”.
He
has been seen as “a champion of moral courage than of physical courage” and was
aware of the basic problems of the society
Taking
lessons from India’s millennium old civilizational problems, and learning the
correct message from the politics of communal separatism being voiced since
long by the likes of Sir Syed Ahmad and his movement, Khilfatists and the Pan
Islamists which were taken forward by the Muslim League camp, he was one of the
few leaders who realized the difficulties of an united anti-colonial struggle.
He stressed the need for unity in the Hindu society first and thus get ready
for the struggle against the British. That is why, he was actively associated
with the Hindu Mahasabha, which had leaders like Madan Mohan Malaviya, and realized
that the larger national interest was being sidetracked.
He
had also clearly set out an agenda for socio-cultural resurgence through Hindi
and Nagri script, text-books on India’s indigenous cultural heritage ( much of
which were lying in ruins), propagation of Sanskrit literature, shuddhi
movement of those whose ancestors were Hindus earlier, and protested against
British government’s favouritism to non-Hindus.
Gifted
with a perceptive mind, he was a prolific writer and authored several works
like – “Unhappy India”, “Young India: An Interpretation”, “History of Arya
Samaj”, “England’s Debt to India” and a series of popular biographies on
Mazzini, Garibaldi and Swami Dayanand. As a visionary and man with a mission,
he founded the Punjab National Bank, the Lakshmi Insurance Company and the
Servants of the Peoples Society at Lahore.
A
mass leader, he led from the front. While leading a protest march against the
all-White Simon Commission in Lahore, he was brutally assaulted by the British
authorities and was seriously injured which caused the untimely death of this
towering freedom fighter in Lahore on 17 November 1928. It was to avenge this
brutality, that Bhagat Singh took up arms along with and paid the ultimate
price.
One
may end this short essay by asking as to why Lahore which was indeed such a culturally
and politically advanced city suffered a decline later on.
***
*Dr
Saradindu Mukherji, currently a Member of the Indian Council of Historical
Research (ICHR), has taught Modern History at the University of Delhi. Formerly
a Post-Doc Research Scholar at the University of London and a Charles Wallace
Visiting Fellow at the University of Hull (U.K). He has written several books/articles
on historical/contemporary issues
The views
expressed in the article are personal.