Periyar Lalai Singh was born on 1 September 1911 in a Yadav family. His father, Choudhari Gajju Singh, was an Arya Samajist.
Singh studied till 7th standard and took up a job as a forest guard in 1929. He later joined Gwalior National Army as a constable.
After he retired from service in 1950, he devoted himself to anti-caste activism. He met Dr BR Ambedkar in 1951 for the first time and was highly impressed by him. Gagan mentions in the first volume that after this meeting, Lalai Singh decided to work towards spreading Ambedkar’s thoughts for the rest of his life.
Singh wanted to attend Ambedkar’s historic conversion to Buddhism on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur, Maharashtra but had to cancel his trip due to sudden sickness. While, for the next decade, he had already started living by Buddhist principles and was writing about Buddhism, he officially took dhamma deeksha on 21 July 1967 from Mahasthavir Chandramani – the same monk who had given deeksha to Ambedkar.
“At that time he said…