The Collected Works of Lala Lajpat Rai, Vol. X
Contents: Foreword. Editorial note. 1. Non-Cooperation. 2. Elections to legislative councils. 3. Hindu-Muslim Unity. 4. Moderates and non-cooperation. 5. Imprisonment. 6. Congress affairs. 7. Foreign affairs. 8. Visit to England. 9. Gurdwara Reform Movement. 10. Miscellaneous. Appendixes. Chronology. Index.
"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 the first three decades of the twentieth century. He practiced 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 into nationalist politics. Lajpat Rai was one of the foremost leaders of the Indian National Congress. His arrest and deportation without trial to Burma in 1907 created a great sensation in India. He spent the war years (1914-18) in the United States, propagating the Indian case for self-government. He returned to India in 1920 and had the honour presiding over the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress which approved of Gandhi’s Campaign for Non-Cooperation with the government. He was the deputy leader of the Swaraj Party in the Central Legislative Assembly and played a prominent role in provincial as well as 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 the series covers the period from January 1921 to October 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 Cahura 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 and wrote a new one Samrat Ashoka (Emperor Ashoka).
After being released from the prison Lajpat Rai went to Solan. While convalescing there he organized 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 MacDonald. 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." (jacket)
