[1][2][3] Prior to the Partition of India, Lyallpuri's family held a land ownership of roughly 150–180 acres in Lyallpur (present-day Faisalabad, in Pakistan).

[4] The young Lyallpuri became a political activist through the student movement in the 1930s and after finishing his BSc at Khalsa College in Amritsar he joined the Indian National Congress at the age of 18.

[5][6] Whilst in jail, he was ordered by the party leadership to instigate a prisoner revolt, which led to riots and a hunger strike.

[5] Lyallpuri was a member of the National Council of CPI, elected at the 1958 extraordinary party conference in Amritsar.

[2] In 1959 Lyallpuri and Harkishan Singh Surjit emerged as the leaders of a mass peasants struggle against the Khush Hasiyati Tax, a campaign mobilised by the Punjab State Committee of the Communist Party.

[5] Lyallpuri contested the Ludhiana Rural seat in the 1980 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, finishing in second place with 17,874.