It is said that he was very fond of discussing important Indian subjects with as many villagers as came under his influence, and that he instilled into their unsophisticated minds fondness for free and frank discussion, and interest in matters that affected India's well-being. Young Lajpat matricu lated from a school in Jullundhur, and won a scholar ship that enabled him to take his B.A. degree from the Government College, Lahore, with distinction. Later he took the diploma of Licentiate-in-Law from the Lahore Law College and soon after settled down to legal practice in Jullundhar. It is ample credit to his legal acumen, industry and popularity that in a comparatively short span of years he built up a large practice and amassed a modest fortune. During this period, he was always eager to promote religious and social reform in his spare time, and was always solicitous for the welfare of the masses. It is true of Lajpat Rai that he was seldom engrossed in schemes of personal self-interest, and that he always exhibited a ponderous capacity for public spirit without whose development he felt that political and social discussions were mere moonshine.
But success and talent naturally gravitate towards large metropolitan cities that offer abundant scope for initiative and genius, and Laj pat Rai soon became the centre of attraction in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. Having already served his probation and made considerable headway, he did not at all find it an up-hill task to establish himself as a prominent member of the local bar, so to speak. At the same time, it must be remembered, that even during his palmiest days Lajpat Rai never came up, in point of intellectual brilliance and forensic aptitude to the doyens of the Bar. The unique position which Laj pat Rai for long con tinued to occupy in the public life of the Punjab is due more to the transparent honesty of his character and his abounding enthusiasm for service, rather than to any unique capacities of thought and mind. It is more as a political and social reformer of the advanced type that Lajpat Rai has attained pre-eminence ; not as a scholar, jurist, lawyer or even constructive political thinker. He takes life too seriously, is endowed with but little sense of humour and scores more through his saintly manner of life than through any more conspicuous individual qualification.
It also has to be remembered that the Government of India are mainly responsible for placing Lajpat Rai on a pedestal of distinction, through their con tinuous suspicion of him and a prolonged persecution, which to Western readers may appear as a strange perversion of humour. Deported without trial ; suspected without any formal production of corro borative evidence ; branded as a fire-eater wielding tremendous influence over the masses ; such treat ment is enough to convert any mediocrity into a national hero. And when we realise that on the
eve of Lajpat's deportation, the Lahore Arya Samaj itself repudiated any friendly associations with him, and denounced his tactics as extremist and lacking sanity—a treatment to which Lajpat Rai later responded with the chivalry, characteristic of him—can we express astonishment at the natural revulsion of popular feeling in his favour that acclaimed him as a political martyr and converted him from an innocuous political reformer to a political enthusiast ? Lajpat Rai was considerably aggrieved, in the earlier stages of his political career over Syed Ahmad's political apostasy, after his knighthood by Lord Lytton, more especially be cause he was prepared by his father to look upon the Syed as a prophet of sweeping political reforms. As a result he wrote a series of " Open Letters " to the Syed. These letters are characterised by his usual earnestness and burning conviction, though not by any great felicity in expression.
During the Rawal Pindi and Lahore disturbances Lajpat Rai strove, to the best of his ability, to con vince the authorities that the best method of treat ing unrest was to remedy the grievances that fostered it, and that mere drastic suppression was at best futile. But the powers that be brushed aside his recommendations as only calculated to promote further discontent, and saw in him not one that was anxious to throw oil over troubled waters, but one whose only aim was to intensify discontent and rally round him the forces of rebellion.
We are far from suggesting Lajpat's impeccability as a political leader and from impugning the motives of the authorities. The Government may have in their possession abundant evidence that might have justified even a more vigorous mode of punishment than was actually meted out to him. All that we say is that the evidence, if any, at the disposal of the authorities was never marshalled, the public have had no chance to judge of the character of that evidence, and the courts of law where he could be brought to justice, under existing provisions dealing with disaffection of varying magnitudes, were never used. And we are certainly within our rights, without holding any brief for Laj pat Rai, to allege that the mere whispering, in vague and nebulous words, of the most serious accusations of appalling criminality, without resort to courts of competent jurisdiction, leaves us rather unconvinced and conveys the impression that the men on the spot were not only ill-informed in regard to the causes engendering dis content, but were seized with panic, a phenomenon by no means uncommon where Governments are not responsible to the people themselves.