Hardayal Municipal Library reopens
- The historical Hardayal Municipal Public Library (HMPL) reopens after the first major restoration in over a century.
- The library was set up in 1862, as part of a reading club meant for the whites.
- In 1902, the Library was renamed as the Delhi Public Library, again renamed as Hardinge Library in 1942.
- Eventually, in 1970 Hardinge Library become Hardayal Municipal Public Library.
- Library contains 1.7 lakhs books which include 8000 rare texts and 350 handwritten manuscripts.
Lala Hardayal:
- He was born on 14 October 1884, to a Punjabi family in Delhi.
- He completed his bachelor’s degree from Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College and his master’s from Punjab University both in Sanskrit.
- In 1905, he was awarded two scholarships to Oxford University. He also pursued his doctoral degree from London University.
- He was influenced by Shyamji Krishna Varma, the lawyer-revolutionary who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House, and The Indian Sociologist in London.
- He was also influenced by the works of Karl Marx.
- He founded the Gadar Party in 1913. He was arrested by the US government for spreading anarchism. He later went to Berlin and lived in Sweden for ten years where he was a professor of Indian philosophy.
- His works include ‘Thoughts in Education’, ‘Social Conquest of Hindu Race’, ‘Forty-Four Months in Germany and Turkey’, ‘Hints for Self Culture’, ‘Bodhisatva Doctrines’, etc.
- died in Philadelphia on March 4, 1939, aged 54.
- In 1987, India Post released a commemorative stamp in Har Dayal’s honour.