The Collected Works of Lala Lajpat Rai: Volume 10

Lala Lajpat Rai was one of the outstanding leaders of modern India, a contemporary of Dadabhai Naoroji, Tilak, Gokhale and Gandhi. His public life spanned the last decade of the nineteenth century and first three decades of the twentieth century. In his twenties he practised law at the Lahore Chief Court and built up a lucrative practice but was drawn very early into public activities pertaining to religious, educational and social reforms and then to nationalist politics. Lajpat Rai was one of the foremost leaders of the Indian National Congress in the years before the First World War. His arrest and deportation without trial to Burma in 1907 created great sensation in India. He spent the war years in the United States promoting the Indian case for self-government. He returned to India in 1920 and presided over the historic session of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta which approved of Gandhi’s programme for non-cooperation with the Raj. Later, he was the deputy leader of the Swaraj Party in the Central Legislative Assembly. He remained active both in provincial and national politics in the 1920s. While leading a demonstration against the Simon Commission at Lahore in 1928 he received injuries in an assault by the police which hastened his death. The tenth volume in this series covers the period from January 1921 to 1924.  Lajpat Rai, arrested for taking part in the non-cooperation movement, was imprisoned in the Lahore central Jail from 3 December 1921 to 16 August 1923 -on 31 January 1922 he was released but re-arrested the same day. From the prison he sent a letter to his colleagues in the Congress Working Committee Lamenting Gandhi’s decision to revoke civil disobedience after the Chauri Chaura tragedy. He also contributed articles to the press arguing for Council-entry and criticizing the  Moderates for their alliance with the bureaucracy. In prison he revised two of his books written in the 1890s ad wrote a new one Samrat Ashoka (Emperor Ashoka). After being released from the prison Lajpat Rai went to Solan. While convalescing there he organised and directed the election campaign of the Swaraj party, although he was not a member of the party, for the Punjab legislative Council and secured significant victories for it. After the labour party came into power in England lajpat rai went there in April 1924 as an informal delegate of the Congress and met Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonand. He also formally joined the Independent labour party. In June Lajpat Rai went to Switzerland and after a recovery of his health returned to India via Turkey in September 1924.