Delhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta on Sunday described Swami Dayanand Saraswati not just as a reformer but as the “true architect of India’s freedom.”
He credited his ideas for inspiring India’s earliest revolutionaries and shaping the moral foundation of the independence movement.
He is speaking at the International Arya Samaj Conference held in Rohini. The event commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Arya Samaj.
He said Swami Dayanand’s teachings “ignited the flame of revolution that later illuminated the entire nation.”
The event saw participation from Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, DAV Management National President Punam Suri and international delegates from across India and abroad.
Gupta said the founder of Arya Samaj was “a saint who gave India its first real ideology of freedom.”
Citing Satyarth Prakash as “the philosophical foundation of a new India”, he said the text inspired generations to question injustice and colonial rule.
“During Swami Dayanand’s era, the foremost need of the nation was independence, and it was he who first sowed the seeds of that great revolution,” Gupta said.
He drew a direct historical link between Dayanand’s reformist movement and India’s freedom struggle, recalling how leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai and Ram Prasad Bismil were deeply influenced by Arya Samaj ideals.
“The moral courage that guided India’s patriots came from the truth that Swami Dayanand preached,” he added.
Turning to the contributions of Swami Shrad-dhanand, Gupta said the Arya Samaj leader carried Dayanand’s mission forward during some of India’s most turbulent years.
“Swami Shraddhanand’s leadership during the 1919 Satyagraha in Delhi marked the first spark of the Jallianwala Bagh movement,” he said.
Gupta recalled that when British troops opened fire on peaceful protesters in Chandni Chowk that year, Shraddhanand stood at the frontlines.
Drawing a connection between the city’s past and present, Gupta said the site of today’s Delhi Legislative Assembly once housed the Imperial Legislative Council, “the country’s first Parliament.”
It was there, he reminded, that the controversial Rowlatt Act was passed in 1919 despite Indian opposition, prompting Mahatma Gandhi’s first nationwide Satyagraha.
“Swami Shraddhanand gave the movement its first form in Delhi, awakening the conscience of the nation,” he said.
Gupta said Arya Samaj’s foundation rested not only on religious reform but also on the spirit of revolution and righteousness.
“Swami Dayanand built a movement that rose above caste and creed to create ideal citizens for whom the nation stood above all else,” he said.
