Lala Lajpat Rai
Context: PM pays tributes to Lala Lajpat Rai on his Jayanti.
About Lajpat Rai:
- He was an Indian independence activist.
- He played a pivotal role in the Indian Independence movement.
- He was popularly known as Punjab Kesari.
- He was one of the three Lal Bal Pal triumvirate.
- He was also associated with activities of Punjab National Bank and Lakshmi Insurance Company in their early stages in 1894.
- He was elected President of the Indian National Congress in the Calcutta Special Session of 1920.
- In 1921, he founded Servants of the People Society, a non-profit welfare organisation, in Lahore.
- Lala Lajpat Rai approved that the lower caste should be allowed to read them and recite the mantras from the Vedas.
- He helped to establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School and became a follower of Dayananda Sarasvati, the founder of the conservative Hindu society Arya Samaj (“Society of Aryans”).
- Lajpat Rai’s most important writings include The Story of My Deportation (1908), Arya Samaj (1915), The United States of America: A Hindu’s Impression (1916), England’s Debt to India: A Historical Narrative of Britain’s Fiscal Policy in India (1917), and Unhappy India (1928).