Lala Lajpat Rai

Also called: Punjab Kesari · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"

Meaning

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928), called Punjab Kesari ("Lion of Punjab"), was a militant nationalist leader from Punjab and the "Lal" of the trio Lal, Bal and Pal. In 1928 he led a protest against the Simon Commission at Lahore, was badly hurt in a police lathi-charge (an attack with long sticks), and died a few weeks later.

He matters for two reasons. He links the militant nationalism of the Swadeshi years with the mass movements of the Gandhian era. His death in 1928 also turned the Simon boycott into a national cause and pushed young revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh into action.

Explanation

Background: a militant of the Swadeshi years

• He came from Punjab and worked with the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. He helped its schools and its welfare work.
• The Swadeshi movement (1905–07) made Congress bigger and its demands sharper. Before it, Congress was a small yearly meeting of educated people.
• At that time Congress had two camps:
• Militants, also called Extremists. These were "Lal, Bal and Pal": Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal. They wanted direct, aggressive action such as boycott (refusing to buy British goods) and swadeshi (using Indian-made goods).

• Moderates, such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. They wanted steady, lawful pressure through petitions and debate.

• 1907: the British saw him as a danger to order in Punjab. They deported him (sent him out of the country) to Mandalay in Burma for some months.

Abroad, then into the Gandhian movement

• First World War years: he lived in the USA and kept arguing India's case there. He founded the Indian Home Rule League of America in New York (c. 1917).
• He came back to India after the war, just as Gandhi was building a mass movement.
• 1920: he presided over the special Calcutta session of the Congress. This session accepted Gandhi's plan for Non-Cooperation (refusing to work with British rule: boycotting courts, schools, councils and foreign cloth).
• He had doubts about parts of the plan, but he joined the movement and went to jail.

• So an old militant ended up working inside Gandhi's non-violent struggle.

• 1921: he founded the Servants of the People Society at Lahore to train workers for national service.

• He was also a writer. He wrote Unhappy India as a reply to the American writer Katherine Mayo's book Mother India, which had attacked Indian society.

1928: the Simon Commission and his death

• The cause: the British sent the Simon Commission to India in 1928 to suggest the next steps in constitutional reform. It had no Indian member, so all parties boycotted it with the slogan "Simon Go Back". The 1928 Simon boycott is a key milestone in the Gandhian-era timeline.
• The protest: he led a silent, peaceful march against the Commission at Lahore in October 1928.
• The attack: police hit the marchers with lathis, and he was badly injured. He reportedly said that every blow on him would be a nail in the coffin of British rule.
• The death: he died in November 1928.

Results

• Anger across India: the boycott grew stronger, and so did the feeling against British rule.
• Revolutionary revenge: in December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and their comrades shot J.P. Saunders, a police officer they blamed for the attack. This made Bhagat Singh a national figure.
• A bridge in time: his life covers both stages of the movement, the elite-and-militant phase before 1915 and the mass phase after it.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 1865–1928. He was most active during the Swadeshi era (1905–07) and the Gandhian era (from 1915).
• Region: Punjab, especially Lahore, which was the scene of his 1928 protest. He was exiled to Mandalay in 1907 and lived in the USA during the war years.
• Key people around him:
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal: his partners in the militant trio.
• Gokhale: the Moderate leader on the other side of the Congress split.
• Gandhi: whose Non-Cooperation plan was accepted at the Calcutta session (1920) he presided over.

• Bhagat Singh: who avenged his death.

• How we know:

• Congress session records, such as the Calcutta special session of 1920.
• His own writings, such as Unhappy India.
• Reports in the press and official reports of the 1928 Lahore lathi-charge.
• NCERT Class 10 Ch 2 "Nationalism in India" and Class 12 Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement", which describe the Simon boycott and the move from elite to mass nationalism.

Don't confuse with

• Bipin Chandra Pal: the "Pal" of the trio. He came from Bengal, not Punjab. The "Lal" is Lajpat Rai of Punjab.
• Servants of India Society: founded by Gokhale in 1905 to train Indians of all communities for welfare work [2]. Lajpat Rai's group was the Servants of the People Society (1921, Lahore).
• Jallianwala Bagh (1919): this was also in Punjab, but it was a massacre by firing at Amritsar on 13 April 1919. Lajpat Rai's injury came from a lathi-charge at Lahore in 1928, during the Simon boycott.
• Home Rule League of America vs the Indian Home Rule Leagues: Lajpat Rai set up the one in New York. The two Home Rule Leagues inside India (1916) were led by Tilak and Annie Besant.

Prelims Hooks

• Punjab Kesari = Lala Lajpat Rai. The trio "Lal, Bal, Pal" = Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal.
• He was deported to Mandalay (Burma) in 1907.
• He presided over the special Calcutta session of the Congress (1920), which accepted Non-Cooperation.
• He founded the Servants of the People Society (Lahore, 1921). Don't mix it up with Gokhale's Servants of India Society (1905) [2].
• He was injured at Lahore in 1928 while protesting the Simon Commission, and died in November 1928.
• Correct order of events: Lajpat Rai's death (Nov 1928) → Saunders killed (Dec 1928) → Lahore Congress and Purna Swaraj (Dec 1929).

Mains Points

• From militant to mass politics. Lajpat Rai belonged to the militant camp of the Swadeshi years, and he later presided over the session that accepted Gandhi's Non-Cooperation plan.
• This shows that early nationalism was an elite affair, made by lawyers, doctors and landowners [3].
• It also shows how that nationalism was absorbed into Gandhi's mass movement rather than simply replaced.

• Use him to argue that the national movement changed step by step, not in a sudden break.

• 1928 as a turning point. His death joined two currents:

• the constitutional boycott of the all-white Simon Commission, and
• the revolutionary answer of Bhagat Singh and his comrades.

• Together these raised the political temperature that led to the demand for Purna Swaraj (complete independence) at Lahore in 1929.

• Regional leadership in a national cause. As Punjab Kesari he brought Punjab into national politics. He worked through Arya Samaj institutions, his writing and Congress work, which shows how regional leaders built the national movement from below.

Related concepts

• Mahatma Gandhi
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Natal Indian Congress
• Indian Opinion
• Phoenix Settlement
• Tolstoy Farm
• Indian National Congress
• Moderates
• Extremists
• Lal Bal Pal

Read more

• Gandhi's arrival: South Africa, the India of 1915, the BHU announcement