[1] He died of severe trauma injuries sustained in October 1928 during a baton charge by police in Lahore, when he led a peaceful protest march against the all-British Simon Commission.

Lajpat Rai had his initial education in Government Higher Secondary School, Rewari, Punjab province, where his father was posted as an Urdu teacher.

In 1880, he joined Government College at Lahore to study law, where he came in contact with patriots and future freedom fighters, such as Lala Hans Raj and Pandit Guru Dutt.

In the same year, he helped Mahatma Hansraj establish the nationalistic Dayananda Anglo-Vedic School, Lahore, and he also founded the Hisar district branches of the Indian National Congress, and the reformist Arya Samaj movement with several other local leaders.

In 1888 and again in 1889, he had the honour of being one of the four delegates from Hisar to attend the annual session of the Congress at Allahabad, along with Babu Churamani, Lala Chhabil Das and Seth Gauri Shankar.

To shape the political policy of India to gain independence, he also practised journalism, and was a regular contributor to several newspapers including The Tribune.

[9] After joining the Indian National Congress and taking part in political agitation in Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai Wadwal was deported to Mandalay by the British Raj, but there was insufficient evidence to hold him for subversion.

[10] Graduates of the National College, which he founded inside the Bradlaugh Hall at Lahore as an alternative to British-style institutions, included Bhagat Singh.

[12] In 1921, he founded Servants of the People Society, a non-profit welfare organisation, in Lahore, which shifted its base to Delhi after partition, and has branches in many parts of India.

His travelogue, The United States of America (1916), details these travels and features extensive quotations from leading African American intellectuals, including W.E.B.

While in the United States he had founded the Indian Home Rule League in New York City and a monthly journal, the Young India and Hindustan Information Services Association.

During World War I, Lajpat Rai lived in the United States, but he returned to India in 1919 and in the following year led the special session of the Indian National Congress that launched the non-co-operation movement.

[17] When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lajpat Rai led a non-violent march in protest against it and gave the slogan "Simon Go Back!".

[18] Despite being severely injured, Rai subsequently addressed the crowd at Mochi Gate the same evening and said "I declare that the blows struck at me today will be the last nails in the coffin of British rule in India.

[20] Bhagat Singh, an HSRA revolutionary who was a witness to the event,[21] swore to avenge the death of Rai, who was a significant leader of the Indian independence movement.

[20] He joined other revolutionaries, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar and Chandra Shekhar Azad, in a plot to kill Scott to send a message to the British government.

[32] A protest is brewing and threatening to become a full-fledged rebellion in the aftermath of the arrest of Lala Lajpat Rai is referenced at the starting scene of 2022 released movie 'RRR'.

[35] Along with founding Arya Gazette as its editor, he regularly contributed to several major Hindi, Punjabi, English and Urdu newspapers and magazines.