The Lion in Lala Lajpat.

Popularly remembered as 'The Lion of Punjab' Lala Lajpat Rai was born on 28th January 1865 at Jagraon in  the Punjab presidency.  His father, Munshi Radha Krishna Agarwal was the teacher of Persian and Urdu of the Government school in Dhudike married to Gulab Devi, the Lala's mother. His early education began at the Government Higher Secondary School in Rewari where his father was transferred in 1870. Upon completing his schooling, he began to pursue law at the Government College, Lahore where he came in contact with other noteworthy members of the freedom struggle Lala Hans Raj and Pandit Guru Dutt. Being brought up in a Hindu household, Lajpat Rai was attracted to the ideals of Swami Dayanand Saraswati and his Arya Samaj. Upon becoming the member of the Society's Lahore Branch, Rai founded the Arya-Gazette which strengthened his beliefs in the tenets of Hinduism. According to him, Hinduism paved way for a humane society on which Indian lifestyle should be based. However he was a strong advocate of secularism for he believed that upon the addition of nationalist ideals, a peaceful pluralistic society could be developed.

Lala Lajpat Rai (28th January 1865-17th November 1928)

Rai accompanied his father in 1886, when he moved to Hisar. He was responsible in setting up the Bar Council of Hisar. In the meantime he had also resolved to serve his country to free it from colonial rule and established the Hisar district branch of the Indian National Congress, a year after the party had its founding session in Bombay. He became one of the four delegates to the Annual sessions of 1888 and 1889 from the district and wrote in several prominent dailies like The Tribune in Lahore where he had moved to in 1892 to practice at the Lahore High Court aiding Mahatma Hansraj to establish the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College. 

The Lal-Bal-Pal Trio was the face of the Radicals in the Congress party enunciating on its four-pronged policy of Revivalism, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education.

The turn of a new century witnessed a great sense of disappointment with the methods of Prayers, pleas and petitions adopted by the Congress High Command. Lajpat Rai and his close comrades like Lokmanya Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh became highly dejected and wanted to adopt far more radical and coercive methods in order to achieve home-rule. Rai was a vocal supporter of Indian enterprises and had founded the Punjab National Bank in 1895. In 1907, he was arrested along with Sardar Ajit Singh and was deported to Mandalay for 6 months. He was projected as the face for the Presidency of the party in the Surat Session of 1907 by the Radicals. In a tense and somewhat disruptive session, it resulted in moderate leader Dr Rashbehari Ghosh being elected to the position and the Radicals being expelled from the party. 

A postage stamp issued by the Government of India in Lala Lajpat Rai's honour. 

In 1914, Rai abandoned his lucrative legal practice to dedicate himself to the freedom struggle full time. He was selected by the Congress in its delegation to England in 1914 following which he moved to the USA in 1916. This was a landmark moment and he was instrumental in organizing the American public opinion on India. Visiting the Tuskegee University, he interacted with African American intellectuals like W.E.B. Du Bois and Fredrick Douglass. He established the Indian Home Rule League in New York and the Hindustan Information Services Association and founded a monthly magazine titled 'Young India'. He composed a petition that he submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American Senate where he elaborated on British maladministration, India's ongoing struggle for freedom and the necessity for Americans to condone it. The 32-page petition was discussed in the Senate in October 1917.

Lajpat Rai travelled to the USA in 1916 returning to India in 1920 touring Sikh communities along the US West Coast.

He returned to India in 1920, where he presided over the Kolkata Session of the Congress where the resolution of Non-cooperation was passed. Although he endorsed a more vigorous struggle comprising Civil Disobedience, nevertheless he supported the resolution. In 1921 under his leadership the Servants of People Society was formed. He was arrested under the Rowlatt Act in the same year and released after the movement was suspended in 1923. He became a member of the Swaraj Party joining hands with the Pro-Changers of the Congress Party like CR Das and Motilal Nehru to fight elections to the Legislative Councils of which he became its Deputy Leader on being elected to the Central Legislative Assembly. Later along with Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, he founded the Nationalist Party and was re-elected to the Assembly in 1926. 

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.

Lalaji's ideals was a major source of inspiration for the revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad. He wrote several books like The Call to Young India, England's Debt to India and the Political Future of India receiving the title of 'Punjab Keshri'. When the Simon Commission was appointed to review the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms of 1917, he was one of its harshest critics and often took to the streets against it. It was on one of these marches that superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered his men to lathi-charge in which Rai received a fair share of blows from which he could never recover. He passed away on 17th November 1928 proclaiming, "I declare that the blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the coffin of British Rule in India." Later Bhagat Singh and his comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev avenged his death by assassinating John P. Saunders, an Assistant Superintendent of Police. 

The statue of Lala Lajpat Rai in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

Lalaji was one of the first freedom fighters to have taken the message of the Indian freedom struggle to the international world. Although he was a Hindu, he was a fierce critic of untouchability and strongly enunciated women empowerment and equality amongst the social stratification of the Hindu society. To him the prospect that a member of the lower caste couldn't recite and learn from the Vedas was absurd and plain and simple discriminatory. Even at this age when we are struggling with problems of Honour killings and caste related violence, we must remember what this man stood and sacrificed his life for.