Lala Lajpat Rai in the Eyes of His Muslim Contemporaries
By
Saquib Salim, New Age Islam
17-11-2022
The
colonial historians and their brown successors often lead us to believe that
Lala Lajpat Rai was a Hindu communal leader and should be blamed for fanning
the communal divide. They even call him as one of the earliest proponents of
the two-nation theory. The reality is different.
Was Lala
Lajpat Rai a communal anti-Muslim leader? The answer should be sought out from
his Muslim contemporaries.
Lala Lajpat Rai
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A Slice
Of History
Ubaidullah
Sindhi, one of the pioneer Muslim revolutionaries of the Indian Freedom
Struggle who formed a Provisional Government in 1915 and later collaborated
with Subhash Chandra Bose, remembered Lala Lajpat Rai as a committed
nationalist. In the 1940s, Sindhi recalled how Lala once reached Turkey, where
he was living in exile, on receiving his letter in which he wondered if they
could discuss revolutionary plans. Lala also helped him in taking care of her
mother living in India.
On 17
November 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai received martyrdom after being hit brutally by
police batons on 30 October, while protesting against the Simon Commission in
Lahore. The reaction of Muslims was evidence of the respect he commanded as a
leader among them. Dr. Mohamed Alam, a tall Muslim leader of Lahore, told the
press, “The funeral procession of Lala Lajpat Rai testified to the love with
which the people of Punjab regarded the departed leader….. I am glad that Muslims
took a prominent part in demonstrating their grief, and I know that the Muslim
community shared the sense of loss that the country has suffered”
In his
newspaper, Hamdard, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar wrote that “the country will
deeply mourn the death of Lalaji. The paper laments that the Punjab leader
should have passed away at a time when the nation wanted its leadership.”
Maulana
Zafar Ali Khan, a freedom fighter and editor of Zamindar, that the lathi blows,
which led to Lala’s death, were the last nails in the coffin of the British
Raj.
Dr. M. A.
Ansari, another stalwart of the Indian Freedom struggle, said, “Lala Lajpat
Rai’s death is a great national calamity, his presence at this critical
juncture was most needed.” He further said that “the death of Lala Lajpat Rai
meant to him the loss of a friend so lovable, intimate and dear…… Many thought
that Lala Lajpat Rai was a bigoted Hindu. Far from it. He was a devout
nationalist.” Maulana Yakub Hasan also seconded these thoughts at the same meeting
in Chennai.
In Lucknow,
Raja of Mahmudabad presided over a large public meeting and said, “Lala Lajpat
Rai was the shining sun in the Indian political firmament. He had given every
minute of his life to the country's cause. For the good of his motherland, he
was prepared to go any limit.”
In Delhi,
it was Sheikh Muhammad Taqqi who presided over a huge public meeting held at
Victoria guarded to pay tribute to Lala. Asaf Ali, who later advocated for
Bhagat Singh in the court when the latter was tried for avenging the killing of
Lala, said, “the only way in which you can give proof of your love for Lalji
and commemorate him, is by following in his footsteps and working for achieving
the ideal which Lalaji had died in trying to achieve, namely the liberty of the
motherland.”
The appeal
to observe Lala Lajpat Rai also came from a Muslim leader, Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad. The new report read, “an appeal to the nation under the signature of Dr.
Ansari and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has been issued for observing November 29 as
Lala Lajpat Rai Day. They urge that on that day meetings should be held all
over the country to mourn the loss sustained in the death of the bravest
lighter in the cause of the country’s liberation.”
We should
understand that Bhagat Singh and his comrades would not have risked their lives
in avenging Lala Lajpat Rai’s death if Lala had an iota of religious bigotry in
him.
In the
words of G. K Nariman, a contemporary scholar of religions, literature, and
culture, “It is an error, if it exists, that Lala Lajpat Rai was anti-Musalman.
What he was against, is the periodic insanity which possesses some of us and
which we euphemistically style religious fanaticism.”
Source: Muslims Respected And Loved Lala
Lajpat Rai
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/muslims-lala-lajpat-rai/d/128427
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