The Punjab Kesari

The Punjab Kesari

Born: January 28, 1865
Died: November 17, 1928

Shri Lala Lajpat Rai was born as a son of Urdu and Persian government School teacher, Munshi Radha Krishna Azad and Gulab Devi on January 28, 1865, in Ferozepur District. His mother was a strict religious lady and inculcated in her children strong moral values. His family values granted him the freedom of having different faiths and beliefs.

Lala Lajpatrai received his elementary education in the school where his father was posted as a teacher. In 1880 Lajpat Rai ji joined the Government College at Lahore to study law. In college, he got influenced by future freedom fighters and patriots and thereafter started his legal practice in Hisar, Haryana. Having a desire to serve his country since childhood he, therefore, took a pledge to free it from foreign rule.

In 1886 the family shifted to Hisar, where he practiced law. There he became a follower of Dayanand Saraswati Ji and helped to establish the Nationalistic Dayanand Anglo-Vedic School. He was a representative of the annual sessions of the National Congress during 1888 and 1889.

Demonstrating his concern for self-help and enterprise, Rai founded Lakshmi Insurance Company in 1894 and the Punjab National Bank in 1895. He also founded the Hindu Orphan Relief Movement. In the National Congress in 1900 he emphasized the importance of constructive, nation-building activity and programs for independence.

Cautiously, Lajpat Rai had reduced his legal practice and was making all his efforts to free the nation from the British. In October 1917, Lajpatrai founded the Indian Home Rule League of America in New York.

In 1920, after his return from America, Lajpat Rai was invited to guide over the special session of the Congress in Calcutta, (now Kolkata). He entered into the non-cooperation movement, which was being initiated in retaliation to the Rowlatt Act, in principle, played a pivotal role, and soon he came to be known as “Punjab Kesri” i.e. “The Lion of Punjab”.

Besides, a great freedom fighter and leader, Lala Lajpat Rai was also an Author. The Problems Of National Education In India, The United States of America: A Hindu’s impressions and a study, History of the Arya Samaj, England’s Debt to India: India, Swaraj, and social change, are some of the books he had written.

Lala Lajpat Rai tremendously contributed towards independence in the nation. He also helped in establishing few schools in the country and was one of the three Lal Bal Pal Triumvirate. Like many before him, he sadly died due to a police lathi-charge on the activists, protesting for the arrival of Simon Commission by the British Government in 1928.

 

He will always be remembered as Punjab Kesari.

Comments

No comments yet. Why don’t you start the discussion?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *