While in the United States he had founded the Indian Home Rule League in New York City and a monthly journal, the Young India and Hindustan Information Services Association. His travelogue, The United States of America (1916), details these travels and features extensive quotations from leading African American intellectuals, including W.E.B. He toured Sikh communities along the Western Seaboard, visited the Tuskegee University in Alabama, and met with workers in the Philippines. Lajpat Rai travelled to the United States in 1917, and then returned during World War I. Travel to the United States Ī 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. He believed that everyone should be allowed to read and learn from the Vedas. Lala Lajpat Rai approved that the lower caste should be allowed to read them and recite the mantras. Vedas were an important part of Sikh religion but the lower caste were not allowed to read them. Īccording to him, Hindu society needs to fight its own battle with caste system, position of women and untouchability. In 1921, he founded Servants of the People Society, a non-profit welfare organisation, in Lahore, which shifted its base to Delhi after partition, and has branches in many parts of India. He was elected President of the Indian National Congress in the Calcutta Special Session of 1920. Graduates of the National College, which he founded inside the Bradlaugh Hall at Lahore as an alternative to British-style institutions, included Bhagat Singh. Lajpat Rai's supporters attempted to secure his election to the presidency of the party session at Surat in December 1907, but he did not succeed. Politics Īfter joining the Indian National Congress and taking part in political agitation in Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai Wadwal was deported to Mandalay, but there was insufficient evidence to hold him for subversion. His early freedom struggle was impacted by Arya Samaj and communal representation. He stayed in the United States from 1917 to 1920.
In October 1917, he founded the Indian Home Rule League of America in New York.
In 1914, he quit law practise to dedicate himself to the Indian independence movement and travelled to Britain, and then to the United States in 1917. In 1886, he helped Mahatma Hansraj establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School, Lahore To shape the political policy of India to gain independence, he also practised journalism and was a regular contributor to several newspapers including The Tribune.
In 1892, he moved to Lahore to practise before the Lahore High Court. In 1888 and again in 1889, he had the honor of being one of the four delegates from Hisar to attend the annual session of the Congress at Allahabad, along with Babu Churamani, Lala Chhabil Das and Seth Gauri Shankar. Dhani Ram, Arya Samaj Pandit Murari Lal, Seth Chhaju Ram Jat (founder of Jat School, Hisar) and Dev Raj Sandhir. In the same year he also founded the Hisar district branch of the Indian National Congress and reformist Arya Samaj with Babu Churamani (lawyer), three Tayal brothers (Chandu Lal Tayal, Hari Lal Tayal and Balmokand Tayal), Dr. In 1886, he moved to Hisar where his father was transferred, and started to practise law and became a founding member of the Bar council of Hisar along with Babu Churamani.
In 1884, his father was transferred to Rohtak and Rai sikh ame along after the completion of his studies at Lahore. Lala Lajpat Rai (left) of Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, and Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal, the triumvirate were popularly known as Lal Bal Pal, changed the political discourse of the Indian independence movement. While studying at Lahore he was influenced by the Hindu reformist movement of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, became a member of existing Arya Samaj Lahore (founded 1877) and founder-editor of Lahore-based Arya Gazette. In 1880, Lajpat Rai joined Government College at Lahore to study law, where he came in contact with patriots and future freedom fighters, such as Lala Hans Raj and Pandit Guru Dutt. In the late 1870s, his father was transferred to Rewari, where he had his initial education in Government Higher Secondary School, Rewari, Punjab province, where his father was posted as an Urdu teacher. He also built first educational institute R.K. His house still stands tall in Jagraon and houses a library and museum. He was from the noble clan of Maharaja Agrasen. Rai was born on 28 January 1865 Aggarwal Punjabi Hindu family as a son of Urdu and Persian government school teacher Munshi Radha Krishna Aggarwall and his wife Gulab Devi Aggarwal at Dhudike in Moga district of Punjab Province. The Ancestral house of Lala Lajpat Rai, Mohalla Misarpura, Jagraon, Punjab