Tej Bahadur Sapru

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (), KCSI (8 December 1875 – 20 January 1949) was an eminent lawyer, political and social leader in India during the British Raj. He was knighted in 1922.<!-- Image with unknown copyright status removed: -->

Tej Bahadur Sapru was born on December 8, 1875 in Aligarh, what is now a district of the state of Uttar Pradesh. He was born in a Kashmiri Hindu family of the Sapru sub-caste. He was educated at the Agra College,

Sapru worked in the Allahabad High Court as a lawyer where Purushottam Das Tandonworked as his junior. Tej Sapru was probably the best Hindu lawyer in British India.

Indian Liberal

Sapru was a jurist and leader of the Indian Liberal Party. He favoured a dialogue with the British Empire and sought self-government reforms, but not independence from the Empire.

Sapru and others like M.R. Jayakar favored discussions and dialogue with the British, and were regular participants in the provincial and central legislatures that most Indians thought were rubber-stamps of the Viceroy.

Political career

He carried forward the moderate policies of Gopal Krishna Gokhale in the radicalized post-Amritsar Massacre period after World War I. Sapru criticized Mahatma Gandhi's leadership, as well as the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Salt Satyagraha.

However, he often acted as a mediator which helped him to broker the Gandhi-Irwin Pact,...
Read More