Lala Hardayal was a revolutionary Indian freedom fighter. He was an accomplished scholar who left his civil service career to participate in the movements for India’s independence. During World War I, his simple life and patriotic zeal inspired many Indians living in Canada and the US to join movements against British rule in India.
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Wiki/Biography
Lala Har Dayal was born as Har Dayal Singh Mathur on Tuesday, 14 October 1884 (age 54 at the time of death) in Delhi, Delhi Division, Punjab Province, British Indian Empire (present-day India). His zodiac sign was Libra. He did BA in Sanskrit from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. Later, he went to Punjab University to pursue MA in Sanskrit.
Physical Appearance
Hair Color: Black
Eye colour: black
Family
Lala Har Dayal belonged to a Hindu Mathur Kayastha family.
parents and siblings
His father’s name was Gauri Dayal Mathur and he was a reader in a district court. His mother’s name was Bholi Rani.
early life
Lala Har Dayal was a great follower of revolutionary Indian freedom fighters like Shyamji Krishna Verma, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Bhikaji Cama and was also highly influenced by the ideologies of Arya Samaj. His methods of fighting for India’s independence resembled those of Giuseppe Mazzini, Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin. According to an American scholar, Mark Jurgensmeyer quoted Lala Har Dayal,
“In order, an atheist, a revolutionary, a Buddhist and a pacifist.”
In 1907, when he was studying at St. John’s College, Oxford University in England, he wrote a letter to the magazine ‘The Indian Sociologist’. In the letter he argued,
Our object is not to reform the government, but to reform it if necessary by leaving only nominal traces of its existence.
Soon after the publication of this letter in The Sociologist Journal against colonial rule in India, the British government kept a secret watch on him. That same year, he gave up his Oxford scholarship and made a controversial statement,
To hell with ICS”
In 1908 he returned to India to live a rigorous life. In India, he wrote various articles in major Indian newspapers against colonial oppression in India, which led the British government to object to his further writings. Later, on the advice of Lala Lajpat Rai and to avoid police arrest, he went abroad. In 1909 he reached Paris. He worked as the editor of Vande Mataram, an Indian publication launched in September 1909 by Paris India under the leadership of Madam Bhikaji Cama.
An issue of Vande Mataram publication in 1909
Later, he moved from Paris to Algeria. Then he went to Cuba and then Japan. After this, he lived for a long time in Martinique where he lived a lonely and isolated life. He was living on simple food like boiled grains and potatoes. He gave up all his worldly comforts by sleeping on the floor and meditating in a private place. Arya Samaj Astha’s brother Parmanand went to Martinique to take care of him. Soon, brothers Parmanand and Hardayal discussed Buddhism with mutual consent and soon started following the same. Later, Har Dayal’s friend Guy Aldred explained to him about Buddhism, not to believe in religious gods, that all humans on earth belong to the same community, and to follow ethical behavior and standard laws. Later, Bhai Parmanand told his associates that Lala Hardayal wanted to go to the United States to spread the ideology of the Aryan race and its ancient roots. Soon, he moved to Boston and then to California. There he wrote about his extremely happy and peaceful life in the United States. Soon, he moved to Honolulu in Hawaii. There, he made some Japanese Buddhist friends and spent some time meditating on Waikiki Beach. During the same time he studied the writings of Karl Marx. One of his articles titled “Some Phases of Contemporary Thought in India” was published in a publication called ‘Modern Review’ in Calcutta. After this, his fellow brother Parmanand inspired Lala Hardayal to go to California.
Activism in the United States
In 1911, Lala Hardayal reached the United States and became involved in industrial unionism. After this, he worked as a secretary in the San Francisco branch of the Industrial Workers of the World. In America, Lala Hardayal, as an active member of this organization, explained the principles of the revolutionary organization Fraternity of the Red Flag, established in California in 1912. He said,
The establishment of Communism, and the abolition of private property in land and capital through an industrial organization and general strike, the final abolition of the coercive organization of government.
The following year, Har Dayal founded the Bakunin Institute of California which he had mentioned
The First Monastery of Anarchism”
This organization was given land and a home by Californian nationalists in Oakland, California, where it joined its activities with the Regeneración movement, which was started by Mexicans Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón. Later, Lala Har Dayal worked as Leland Professor of Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit at Stanford University. Soon, he was expelled from the university due to his involvement in the anarchist movement and its activities. During his stay in California, he met Punjabi Sikh farmers in Stockton. These Sikh communities began moving to the West Coast at the turn of the century as they were attracted by the behavior of Canadians living in Vancouver. Lala Hardayal also got attracted towards these Sikhs and Punjabis living in Canada. There, Hardayal inspired Indians to acquire education related to Western science, political philosophy and sociology as part of propaganda against colonial rule. Soon, he received funding from a wealthy farmer named Jwala Singh in Stockton and with the help of his colleagues Teja Singh, Tarak Nath Das, and Arthur Pope, he established the Guru Gobind Singh Sahib Educational Scholarship for Indian students. Like Shyamji Krishna Varma, Lala Har Dayal also opened an India House in Berkeley as residential space for Indian students receiving scholarships. Names of popular students of this house were Nand Singh Sehra, Darisi Chenchaiya and Gobind Bihari Lal. They lived close to the University of California, Berkeley. On 23 December 1912, Basant Kumar Biswas, an Indian activist, attempted to assassinate the Viceroy of India and this incident so affected Har Dayal that he personally went to the Nalanda Club of Indian students to deliver the news. There he delivered a lecture which ended with an Urdu couplet,
Take care of your salary ‘Mir’! And this is not a colony, this is Delhi!!
[Take care of your turban Mr Mir ! (Note: Here Mir is Quoted for Britishers.)This is not just any town, this is Delhi, India Okay !!]
Soon, after the speech Vande Mataram song and dance started by the members of their groups in Nalanda Club. He then gave a speech and enthusiastically told everyone that he was proud that one of his anarchist friends had attempted to assassinate the Viceroy of India. Suddenly he brought out a pamphlet and named it ‘Yugantar Circular’ in which he praised the bombing:
Hail! Hail! Hail!
Bomb of 23 December 1912
harbinger of hope and courage
Dear reviver of sleeping souls
concentrated moral dynamite
Esperanto of the Revolution
Who can describe the moral power of the bomb? This is concentrated moral dynamite. When the strong and the cunning in boast of their power display their glory before their helpless victims, when the rich and the mischievous set themselves on a pedestal and call their slaves to fall down before them and worship them, when the earth But the wicked appear lifted up to the sky and nothing seems unable to withstand their power, then in that dark hour, comes the bomb for the glory of humanity, which crushes the tyrant to the dust. This tells all the timid slaves that the one who sits on the throne as God is an ordinary human being just like them. Then, in that hour of shame, a bomb preaches the eternal truth of human equality and sends the proud superiors and the Viceroy from palace and Howrah to grave and hospital. Then, in that tense moment, when human nature is ashamed of itself, the Bomb announces the futility of power and ostentation and frees us from our own wretchedness.
How good do we feel when someone does a heroic deed? We share in their moral power. We are happy with his claim for human equality and dignity.”
— Lala Hardayal (Yugantar Circular 1913)
literary work
Published in 1922 Our Educational Problem, Thoughts on Education, Social Victory of the Hindu Race, Writings of Lala Har Dayal in 1920, Forty-Four Months in Germany and Turkey in 1920, Independent Thoughts of Lala Har Dayal Ji in 1922, Poison in Amrit. 1922, Hints for Self-Culture in 1934, Glimpses of World Religions, Bodhisattva Doctrine in 1932. He also wrote a book of 392 pages with seven chapters describing the bodhisattva principles mentioned in the Sanskrit literature of the Buddhists.
Death
Lala Har Dayal was detained by the US government for his involvement in spreading anarchism. To avoid police arrest, he went to Berlin, Germany. There he founded the Berlin Committee and worked for the German Intelligence Bureau against the East. Later, he lived in Sweden for ten years and in 1930, he received a PhD degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He published his book titled ‘Hints for Self Culture’ in 1932. Lala Har Dayal died on 4 March 1939 in Philadelphia. Before his death, he gave a lecture as usual. In his lecture he mentioned,
I am at peace with everyone.”
Later, Lala Har Dayal’s friend Lala Hanumant Sahay suspected that Har Dayal did not die a natural death and said that it was probably caused by poison. Lala Hanumant Sahay was a founding member of the Bharat Mata Society which was established in 1907.
Facts/General Knowledge
- The word ‘Lala’ before his name is not a type of surname that was used in the Kayastha community, rather, it was a respectable name given to exceptional writers.
- Lala Har Dayal was awarded two scholarships by Oxford University for higher studies in England in 1905, namely Sanskrit: Bowden Scholarship, and in 1907, he was awarded the Casebird Exhibitioner Prize by his St. John’s College in Delhi.
- Prof. Dharmaveera appreciated the works of Hardayal in his writings. One of his quotes about Lala Hardayal is mentioned below:
Hardayal dedicated his entire life to the sacred cause of the motherland. Surely only to such a person can one ask: “O good Master, what must I do to attain eternal life?” Let us enjoy this spring to the fullest and infuse joy, strength and courage into every vein and fiber of our being. He was one of the first to write a new era with blood. His course was painstaking, true, simple, free, noble; And all of them are at an excellent level. His experience of internal and external warfare was not insignificant and was not limited to his early manhood, but extended throughout his life. Lala Har Dayal had a touch of Janak and Dadhichi in him and his life demonstrated that he was everything he should be.”
– Pro. Dharamveera (9 July 1969)
- In 1987, a postage stamp in the name of Lala Har Dayal was issued by the Indian Postal Department to honor his sacrifice for India’s independence against colonial rule on foreign soil.
Postal stamp issued in honor of Lala Har Dayal
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn