Bal Raj Bhalla was born in June, 1888 in Tehsil Wazirabad of Gujranwala District. He was from an influential family of the Punjab. Bal Raj after receiving his school education at Wazirabad, joined the D.A.V. College, Lahore, from where he passed his M.A. in 1911. But because of his participation in the revolutionary movement, all of his degrees were confiscated. He was influenced by the ideas of Dadabhai Naroji, R.C. Dutt Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, B.G. Tilak and he joined the freedom movement at the young age of seventeen.

He was against caste system and untouchability and fought for widow-remarriage. He was a protagonist of scientific and technical education. He wanted science and English to be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum. Besides Hindi and Sanskrit.

Bal Raj was a revolutionary and worked to raise an armed revolt against the British empire in India. He was imprisoned in 1919 for participating in a conspiracy to prepare and throw a bomb on a Governor General. The conspiracy was foiled and he was put behind the bars for three years. He was again imprisoned in 1927 for two and a half years in connection with the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. Later, he had another term of imprisonment lasting for one and a half years.

He was a follower of Lala Lajpat Rai who was a close friend of his father. At one time he left India for England from where he secretly went to Germany.

After Gandhiji’s influence he left the violent means and propagated his ideas through his writings and speeches in English, Hindi and Punjabi.

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