Lala Lajpat Rai

Lala Lajpat Rai Biography

Lala Lajpat Rai is an Indian freedom fighter and politician who was popularly called Punjab Kesari. He had active participation in the establishment of Punjab National Bank and Lakshmi Insurance Company.

Lala Lajpat Rai was born on 28^th January 1865 in Dhudike in Moga District of Punjab. His father’s name was Radha Krishnan and he was an Urdu teacher. His mother’s name is Gulab Devi. He did his schooling at Government Higher Secondary School in Rewari and studied law at Lahore. He had great involvement with Hindu Mahasabha and was a devotee of Arya Samaj. He also has worked as the editor of Arya Gazette.

He travelled to US in 1907 and wrote a book on that titled The United States of America (1916). He was elected as the President of the Congress party in the Calcutta Special Session of 1920. He took part in the protest march of Simon Commission and was beaten by the police. He was fatally injured and died of heart attack on 17^th November 1928.

Lala Lajpat Rai Trust was formed in 1959 to promote education. At Hisar in Haryana, a state university was started and named after him as the Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences. It started to function from 1^st December 2010.

The bus terminus in Jagraon in Punjab is named after him. The Lala Lajpat Rai Hal of Residence at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur and Kharagpur and the Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Engineering and Technology at Moga are named after him.

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Updated: February 01, 2013