Ravi Rohmetra
Duggar land has its own brilliant and unique history. It has given birth to veteran political, academicians, social workers and leaders of caliber. One amongst them has been Sher-e-Duggar Lala Hans Raj Mahajan. This is the tale of a towering personality who worked selflessly for the cause of the people. He was a friend, a guide and a social worker. During his life time he was counted amongst the great personalities of Jammu.
By the turn of the 19th century, Jammu started experiencing reverberations of the political and social awakening that was taking place in the rest of the country. In the field of religious and social reform, since politics was still a taboo in state, Lala Hans Raj Mahajan was the most outstanding leader of that phase of Jammu’s history. He pioneered formation of associations of various communities like the Mahajan Sabha and the Rajput Sabha as also of the Anjuman-i-Islamia and acted as their honorary secretary which ensured their mutual cooperation in the common task of social reform. The first secular organization of the State, also non-political to start with, was Dogra Sadar Sabha in 1904. He dominated the entire social reform movement in Jammu region for half a century from 1892, when he entered public life, to 1944 when he died. His field of work included campaign for Swadeshi, rights of women, spread of education, economic betterment of backward areas, reform in ceremonies observed at marriage, death and other social occasions, help to widows and orphans cow protection, cleanliness and redressal of grievances against omissions and commissions of administration. Needless to remind that these activities were vital adjuncts of the national freedom movement. Lala Hans Raj started first two monthly newspapers in the state — the Dogra Gazette and The Mahajan Niti Patar in 1907.
In 1892 Lala Ji founded Mahajan Sabha. Whole of the Mahajan Community in this country is ‘feeling proud to have such prominent social worker and a very good leader. ‘He. in fact was the live example of wisdom, humility and tolerance. Lala Hans Raj Ji was born on 2nd October 1866 at Hamirpur Sidhar, Tehsil Akhnoor District Jammu in a well known family. His father’s name was Lala Harish Chand Mahajan. At that time standard of education was not so high so he got his education at a Masjid of his village from Mian Innam Aldin in Persian and Urdu. Once Late Maharaja, Ranbir Singh (1857-1885 AD) the ruler of the State paid visit to Mirpur village and met its inhabitants. Boy Hans Raj was also very curious to see the ruler. Maharaja became impressed on seeing Hans Raj who was with his father and asked a few questions from Hans Raj which he answered very quickly and accurately . On account of this Maharaja asked Harish to send his child to Jammu for further studies where he got his education from Choba Ganesh Prasad and Choba Janki Prasad. After sometime, he passed the degree of law in first, division. He was also interested in religious . works and in 1916 he constructed the Ved Mandir Ashram. Besides preaching Vedas, his motive was to improve the conditions of orphans and to stop cow slaughter. When independence movement spread from Bengal to whole of India. Lala Ji played his role in Jammu and Kashmir. After this, he adopted Khaddar and also urged ” the people to wear “Khaddar”. For this, he started a workshop to make and dye “Khaddar” at Purani Mandi Jammu. After retirement from Government job, he as a lawyer helped people in one or another way.
He was also known as the “Dogra General”. Lala Ji died in the intervening night of 26th / 27th February 1944 at 4:00 a.m. He was 77. A park has been constructed in his memory known as Lala Hans Raj Mahajan Park.
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