Pandit Lekh Ram



Pandit Lekh Ram (1858 – 6 March 1897) was an Arya Samaj Sanatan Dharmi leader. He is famous for his encounters with the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He also wrote a book in falsification of Ahmad's Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya and named it Takzeeb e Barahin Ahmadiyya (A falsification of the Barahin e Ahmadiyya). He was assassinated on March 6, 1897. Ahmadis claim this was in accordance with the prophecies of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

Quotes

 * Dear Brethern! Let us remove hatred and jealousy from our hearts.... The doors of penance of your return to the fold of your former real faith are wide open to let you in. Shed the burden put on your necks by force and under compulsion. Befriend the truth and help us in spreading the truth, because God helps those who help themselves.
 * Risala-i-Jihad, Treatise on Holy War, or the basis of the Mohammedan religion, 1892, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.108-9

About Lekh Ram

 * Mirza Ghulam Ahmad published a tract in which he thanked God for the fulfillment of his prophecy that Lekh Ram would die a violent death. .... Individuals reported receiving threatening letters, and mysterious notices appeared on the wall throughout the province. 'All Hindus are warned to remember the Islamic prophets and believe in them; otherwise they will be murdered like Lekh Ram...'
 * Kenneth W Jones, Arya Dharm, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. 108-9


 * Twenty thousand people attended Lekh Ram's funeral rites...
 * Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. 108-9


 * Pandit Lekh Ram's Risala-i-Jihad was the object of lawsuit, in which Muslims demanded that the book be banned. After several rounds in court, they lost definitively in 1896. But the matter did not end there, for Lekh Ram was murdered in March 1897.
 * Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 108


 * The Arya Samaj was the first Hindu movement to take up a bold stand in this context. Maharshi Dayanand himself had showed up Muhammad for the sort of man he was. Soon after, however, the Arya Samaj was silenced effectively by a series of murders, notably that of Pandit Lekhram and Swami Shraddhananda. The British were inclined to permit fair criticism, particularly that which was based on Islamic sources. But they could not prevent Muslim assassins from taking the law in their own hands.
 * Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy. Ch. 6