Service and Sacrifice
AIM AND OBJECTS: Servants of the People Society was founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921 at Lahore, which was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi. After partition, the Society was shifted to Delhi and is operating since then at Lajpat Bhawan, Lajpat Nagar-IV, New Delhi-110024.
The object of the Society is to enlist and train national missionaries for the service of the motherland. It is their duty to work for the educational, cultural, social, economic and political advancement of the country under the supervision of the Society … (full text Homepage).
South Asian Fraternity SAF; Origin; Organization; Head Office; Branches and activity;
Address: Lajpat Bhawan, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi – 110024, India;
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About Lalaji: Lala Lajpat Rai, popularly known as « Punjab Kesari », was born on January 28, 1865 in Jagraon tehsil of the Ludhiana district, Punjab, in a Hindu Aggarwal family. His mother, Gulab Devi, came from a Sikh family. Lajpat Rai’s family was far from affluent.
Lajpat Rai’s interest in politics was aroused by his father who in his early life was a great admirer of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan but whom he condemned later for his anti-Congress tirade. Lajpat Rai too had shared his father’s admiration for Sir Syed Ahmed Khan but from 1888 began to criticize in his writings the anti-Congress activities of Sir Syed. Lajpat Rai’s father was well-versed in Urdu and Persian, had great respect for Islam, fasted and prayed like a Muslim, but did not embrace Islam largely due to his wife’s attachment to the Hindu and Sikh faiths. The Arya Samaj movement, a vital force in the Punjab in the later 19th and early 20th century, had a tremendous appeal for Lajpat Rai (he had met Swami Dayanand at fourteen), who came under its influence from his student days. It was his attachment to the Arya Samaj which led his father also to veer round to Hinduism.
Lajpat Rai’s political activity began from 1885 when he joined the Congress session at Allahabad. In the early part of his political career, his interest was confined to social and educational reforms, but his views on politics changed radically as a result of the hasty and ill-conceived measures thrust on the country by Lord Curzon. He organised big meetings in the Punjab, traveled widely, raised funds for the national cause and exposed the poverty of the people and its causes. He brought out in his writings and speeches lurid comparisons between the economic conditions in India and those in the Western countries, and attacked the economic exploitation by the British as oppressive.