His early life and struggle :
With the changing times, we have forgotten many martyrs and their sacrifices, Khatris (Kshatriyas) have been a great contributors to the history of Punjab and India from the very beginning and among them one great martyr was Swargiya Mahashay Rajpal born in Khatri family of Malhotra clan. He was born in the famous cultural and historical city of India, Amritsar on the Panchmi tithi of Ashadh Samvat (AD 1885), his father’s name was Swargiya Lala Ramdas Khatri. Mahashay Rajpal ji was very intelligent, hard working and perseverant since childhood and was also a great student. Even after his father left, his steps did not falter, due to this the entire family, including his mother and brother Santram, suffered a lot and in this poor and challenging state, he somehow passed the middle examination and he never lost courage despite being surrounded by these troubles and the difficult circumstances added to his life.In connection with the work, he met an Amritsar based, a famous Aryasamaji Hakim Fatahchand, who was in need of an employee. Rajpal ji secured a job with Hakim ji on a monthly income of twelve rupees and Rajpal got a special place in Hakim ji’s heart with his qualities of duty, hard work, honesty and for being perseverant.
Contribution to society:
Rajpal ji had set up an organization called ‘Bal sudhar Sabha’ for public purification and contacted the boys of his locality, gathered them, there were Hindu Sikh boys in this organization, as well as Muslim children.The principle of this organization was the character building of these children, which is not an easy task, this meeting used to start at 8 o’clock every night and Rajpal ji used to give sermons to all the children for building life. In this meeting, there used to be debates on subjects like meat-eating, tobacco and alcoholic beverages. Many youths abandoned the mischiefs by attending these meetings and they achieved glory following this noble path. Once Rajpal ji had to discuss on meat-eating topic with a Muslim youth in the said assembly. Aryasamaji workers of that era did not back down from written or oral debates. This debate earned him much reputation. The famous debater of the Arya Samaj, Maharathi Master Atmaram ji was also from Amritsar and in that day he came to know about the deep and intensive study of Rajpal ji. During his young age, Rajpal ji pursued religious texts very diligently and as a result he was victorious in debates.Rajpal ji was virtuous and philanthropic from very young age, everyone who came in contact with him praised his courtesy. He was not only hardworking and honest, but also he had two qualities of humility and sweetness, due to which he also knew to make the unknowns his own.He often used to address others as ‘ji’. Everyone was mesmerized by the modesty of his nature. Before independence, Hindi was not very prevalent in Punjab, Hindi publishers were negligible. Most books were published in Urdu or Punjabi. At that time, Mahashahi Rajpal not only started Hindi publication under the names ‘Arya Library’ and ‘Saraswati Ashram’, but he also became a powerful medium for the propagation of Hindi. He established Rajpal and Sons, a prominent publisher of Hindi books, was founded in 1912 by Lahore in Lahore. Initially, this publication had published books on spiritual, social and political subjects in Hindi, Urdu, English and Punjabi languages.Previously, when book publishing was completely disorganized, there were no facilities for learning the art of publishing like today, nor was there any authentic book available on the subject, Rajpal ji established such dimensions of level publishing that even today it seems difficult to believe them. While living in Lahore, he had published several books from the famous ‘Indian Press’ of Allahabad. When Rajpal ji started the work of publishing Arya literature under the name ‘Arya Library’, he distributed them personally to the public in the form of ‘Saraswati Ashram Granthamala’. The second collection of books was ‘Satyopadesh Mala’. It was a collection of sermons and writings of Swami Satyananda, which was written by Rajpal himself after listening to Swami Ji’s sermons. Rajpal ji had published authentic Hindi translations of popular English language books of the time like the popular book ‘MARRIED LOVE’ of ‘Mary Stopes’ translated by Pt. Santram B. A in Hindi. On the other hand, he also dared to publish books of such subjects in Hindi, which were forbidden. In India, he published the first Hindi book on children-planning, ‘Santan Sankhya ka Seema Bandhan’. It was a 300-page illustrated authentic book.There was no Hindi word for birth control then, because the public did not understand birth control nor knew its usefulness. There was uproar when the book was published, and he faced much opposition.
His Sacrifice for religion:
It is a matter of the year 1923 when two books were published by Muslims on the same day – ‘Krishna Teri Geeta Jalani Padegi’ and ‘Unisavi sadi ka Mahrishi’. In both those books, Yogeshwar Shri Krishna and Maharishi Dayanand were abused and defamed in very lewd and vulgar terms, at that time even the religious people used to answer the unrighteous like them. For this reply, in 1926 a book was printed in the name of “Rangeela Rasool”, in which the biography of Muhammad (the Prophet of Muslims) was presented in a satirical style. This book was in Urdu and all the events in it were history-oriented and authentic.he author’s name in the book was printed “Dudh Ka DUdh aur PAni ka Pani”. In fact the author of this book was Pandit Chamupati ji who was a great scholar of Arya Samaj and a close friend of Mahasya Rajpal. Due to possible reaction from Muslim community Pandit Chamupati ji did not want to give his name in this book ,Therefore, he took a promise from him, that whatever happens, no matter what unbearable situation you will not tell the name of the author of the book to anyone. Rajpal was the publisher of Rangeela Rasool .Mahashahi Rajpal protected his promise by sacrificing his life at the last moment and kept the promise given to Pandit Chamupati ji.Rangila Rasool, printed in 1926, continued to be sold like common books, but no one made a noise against it, but Mahatma Gandhi, who was a Muslim preceptor and a non-violence reciter only to Hindus, wrote an article against this reply book in his Muslim proclamation policy.The work of this article served as fuel in the fire against Rajayapal ji and Mahatma Gandhi played back the bugle on behalf of the Muslims in this retaliatory war, as a result of which many Muslims started many agitations against him. The voice of this movement reached the government, due to which he was prosecuted for 6 years under section 153A and according to the order of the lower court. There was 5 years of imprisonment or a fine of 1000 rupees, during the five years from 1926 to 1929, he was asked many times that if you tell the name of the real writer, we will have no complaint with you.This thing was also published in the leading Muslim daily paper ‘Zamindar’ of that time, but Mahashiya Rajpal ji reiterated the same point that I am solely responsible for the publication and publication of this book, not anyone else. He kept the promise he made till the end. He was also told during these five years that you stop publishing this book and apologize. Khatri Rajpal ji gave the same answer that “I believe in freedom of thought and freedom of publication and am ready to face the greatest punishment for this recognition.” On appeal against this decision, his 1 year Imprisonment reduced and after this the case was sent to the High Court of Dilip Singh where Mahashahi Rajpal was exonerated.This decision provoked Muslims and started thinking of ways to kill them, when the first attack was made by a wrestler named Khudabakhsh while he was sitting in his shop, at that time the Arya Sannyasi Swatantanandji Maharaj and Swami Vedanandji Maharaj were also there was present with him, He caught Khudabakhsh so tightly that he could not get rid of him and was handed over to the police, he was sentenced to seven years, a few days after that, the second attack on him was on Sunday, October 8, 1926, Considering swami satyanand ji maharaj as rajpal, a Muslim named Abdul Aziz carried a knife in one hand or a razor in the other, and attacked swami ji and he got injured very badly and as Abdul Aziz was exorcised, the neighborhood shopkeeper Khatri Nanakchand Kapoor ji and his brother Chunilal Kapoor were both injured in capturing him, but he was imprisoned at Anarkali Chowk and was sentenced to 14 years and the sentence of anticipation of peace was pronounced for three years.Swami Satyanand ji took almost one and a half months to heal and in the meantime, on 3rd April 1929, the third and successful attack was made by Ilamdeen with a stab in his chest, as a result of which Rajpal ji left the world and Ilmedin to save his life, entered a wooden stall of Mahasaya Sitaram ji ,Rajpal ji’s son Vidyaratan ji caught him tightly and handed him over to the police. As soon as a crowd of thousands of people gathered and you can guess the reverence of the people from their part of this funeral procession only when the Hindus of Lahore decided that the funeral would be done the next day, hearing this, fear of unfounded ghosts in the mind of the police and deputy The Commissioner prohibited the procession by putting Section 144 overnight without government permission and the crowd of thousands gathered at seven in the morning.The crowd wanted to carry out the funeral procession from the center of the city, but the commissioner was not allowing it and as a result, the crowd was furious. The officers ordered a lathi charge which left twenty-five persons injured. There was a re-interaction with the officials and the police allowed people to go to their homes. The police again charged sticks and around 150 people were injured, but the crowd remained the same.The body was left in the hospital. On the second day, the body was taken to the main markets with great pomp as a compromise between the government and Arya Samaj leaders. The Hindus paid their homage with reverential flowers by showering flowers from their houses and Mahatma Hansraj gave fire to the mortal body of the soul at exactly quarter to twelve. Maharanji’s eldest son Prannathji was only 11 years old, but Aryan leaders decided that Mahatma Hansraj gave Mukhgni as he be the representative of all Arya Hindu Samaj.When the cremation took place, the immense group calmed down and after that Swami Swatrantanand ji offered a prayer and at the end of the prayer, Rajpal’s wife Sadhvi got up and said that I must be sad to see my husband killed like this but I have pride on his sacrificial body for his sacrifice for religion.His fame and this great sacrifice have been described by Swami Paramanandji as “the third great sacrifice in the history of Aryasamaj” in his editorial, and the famous journalist and poet Nanakchand ji “Naz” of Punjab then wrote Khatri Mahashi in a poem. The real depiction of Rajpal’s sacrifice was described as :
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“फ़ख से सर उनके ऊँचे आसमान तक तक हो गए,हिंदुओ ने जब अर्थी उठाई राजपाल।
फूल बरसाए शहीदों ने तेरी अर्थी पे खूब, देवताओं ने तेरी जय जय बुलाई राजपाल।
हो हर इक हिन्दू को तेरी ही तरह दुनिया नसीब जिस तरह तूने छुरी सिने पै खाई राजपाल।
तेरे कातिल पर न क्यूँ इस्लाम भेजे लानतें, जब मुजम्मत कर रही हैं इक खुदाई राजपाल।
मैंने क्या देखा की लाखों राजपाल उठने लगे दोस्तों ने लाश तेरी जब जलाई राजपाल।”
After partition Mahashi ji’s family came to Delhi and started the work of publishing. At the World Book Fair in Delhi in June 1949, Home Minister Shri LK Advani honored the ‘Freedom to Publish’ award to the late Rajpal ji and his son Vishwanath ji received the award.
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