ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF INDIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Vol. 11 CONTENTS Preface 1. Jayaprakash Narayan 1 2. Jayaprakash Narayan: Keeper of India's Conscience 36 3. Ram Manohar Lohia 77 4. Raja Ram Mohan Roy : The Father of Modern India 108 5. Language Policy of the British Raj 133 6. Mohan Roy and the Rebellion of 1857 157 7. Roy and Bengal Renaissance 171 8. Mohan Roy and Indian Writing in English 212 9. Brahmo Samaj 231 Bibliography 301 Index 303 Jayaprakash Narayan 1 1 JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN Jayaprakash Narayan October 11, 1902 - October 8, 1979, widely known as JP, was an Indian freedom fighter and political leader, remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for peaceful Total Revolution. His biography, Jayaprakash, was written by his nationalist friend and an eminent writer of Hindi literature, Ramavriksha Benipuri. EARLY LIFE Narayan was born in Sitabdiara village between Ballia District of UP and Saran District of Bihar. His father Harsudayal was a junior official in the canal department of the State government and was often touring the region. Jayaprakash, called Baul affectionately, was left with his grandmother to study in Sitabdiara. There was no high school in the village, so Jayaprakash was sent to Patna to study in the Collegiate School. He excelled in school. His essay, "The present state of Hindi in Bihar", won a best essay award. He entered the Patna College on a Government scholarship. In October, 1920 Jayaprakash was married to Prabhavati Devi, a freedom fighter in her own right and a staunch disciple of Kasturba Gandhi. Prabhavati was the daughter of lawyer and nationalist Brij Kishore Prasad, one of the first Gandhians in Bihar and one who played a major role in Gandhi's campaign in Champaran. She often held opinions which were not in agreement with JP's views, but Narayan respected her independence. On Gandhiji's invitation, she stayed at his Sabarmati Ashram while Jayaprakash continued his studies. 2 Encyclopaedia of Indian War of Independence Jayaprakash Narayan 3 In 1922, Narayan went to the United States, where he worked After independence and the death of Mahatma Gandhi, to support his studies in political science, sociology and economics Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Basawon Singh (Sinha) led at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Iowa, the CSP out of Congress to become the opposition Socialist Party, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University. He which later took the name Praja Socialist Party. Basawon Singh adopted Marxism while studying at the University of Wisconsin- (Sinha) became the first leader of the opposition in the state and Madison under sociologist Edward A. Ross; he was also deeply assembly of Bihar and Acharya Narendra Deva became the first influenced by the writings of M. N. Roy. Financial constraints and leader of opposition in the state and assembly of U.P. his mother's health forced him to abandon his wish of earning a PhD. He became acquainted with Rajani Palme Dutt and other SARVODAYA revolutionaries in London on his way back to India. On April 19, 1954, Narayan announced in Gaya that he was After returning to India, Narayan joined the Indian National dedicating his life (Jeevandan) to Vinoba Bhave's Sarvodaya Congress on the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1929; M. K. movement and its Bhoodan campaign, which promoted Gandhi became his mentor in the Congress. He was personally distributing land to Harijans (untouchables). He gave up his land, close, among others, to the great Gandhian Bihar Bibhuti Dr. set up an ashram in Hazaribagh, and worked towards uplifting Anugrah Narayan Sinha; a prominent leader of the time and a the village. close colleague of Brajkishore Prasad. During the Indian In 1957, Narayan formally broke with the Praja Socialist Party independence movement he was arrested, jailed, and tortured in order to pursue lokniti [Polity of the people], as opposed to several times by the British. He won particular fame during the rajniti [Polity of the state]. By this time, Narayan had become Quit India movement. convinced that lokniti should be non-partisan in order to build After being jailed in 1932 for civil disobedience against British a consensus-based, classless, participatory democracy which he rule, Narayan was imprisoned in Nasik Jail, where he met Ram termed Sarvodaya. Narayan became an important figure in the Manohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Ashok India-wide network of Gandhian Sarvodaya workers. Mehta, Yusuf Desai and other national leaders. After his release, In 1964, Narayan was vilified across the political spectrum for the Congress Socialist Party, or (CSP), a left-wing group within arguing in an article in the Hindustan Times that India had a the Congress, was formed with Acharya Narendra Deva as responsibility to keep its promise to allow self-determination to President and Narayan as General secretary. the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He hit back at critics in a second During the Quit India Movement of 1942, when senior article, dismissing the Indian version of the "domino theory" which Congress leaders were arrested in the early stages, JP, Lohia and held that the rest of India's states would disintegrate if Kashmir Basawon Singh (Sinha) were at the forefront of the agitations. were allowed its promised freedom. In his graceful if old-fashioned Leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali were style, Narayan ridiculed the premise that "the states of India are described as "the political children of Gandhi but recent students held together by force and not by the sentiment of a common of Karl Marx." nationality. It is an assumption that makes a mockery of the Indian Nation and a tyrant of the Indian State". Initially a defender of physical force, Narayan was won over to Gandhi's position on nonviolence and advocated the use of BIHAR MOVEMENT AND TOTAL REVOLUTION satyagrahas to achieve the ideals of democratic socialism. Furthermore, he became deeply disillusioned with the practical Narayan returned to prominence in State politics in the late experience of socialism in Nehru's India. 1960s. In 1974, he led the student's movement in the state of Bihar which gradually developed into a popular people's movement 4 Encyclopaedia of Indian War of Independence Jayaprakash Narayan 5 known as the Bihar movement. It was during this movement that catalysing the political forces that set in train the Congress's political JP gave a call for peaceful Total Revolution Together with V. M. decline. Tarkunde, he founded the Citizens for Democracy in 1974 and the Narayan also wrote several books, notably Reconstruction of People's Union for Civil Liberties in 1976, both NGOs, to uphold Indian Polity. He promoted Hindu revivalism, but was deeply and defend civil liberties. critical of the form of revivalism promoted by the Sangh Parivar. EMERGENCY He died in October 1979; but a few months before that, in March 1979, his death was erroneously announced by the Indian When Indira Gandhi was found guilty of violating electoral prime minister to the parliament as he lay fighting for his life in laws by the Allahabad High Court, Narayan called for Indira to Jaslok Hospital, causing a brief wave of national mourning, resign, and advocated a program of social transformation which including the suspension of parliament and regular radio he termed Sampoorna kraanthi [Total Revolution]. Instead she broadcasting, and closure of schools and shops. When he was told proclaimed a national Emergency on the midnight of June 25, about the gaffe a few weeks later, he smiled. 1975, immediately after Narayan had called for the PM's resignation and had asked the military and the police to disregard In 1998, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, unconstitutional and immoral orders; JP, opposition leaders, and India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social work. dissenting members of her own party (the 'Young Turks') were Other awards include the Magsaysay award for Public Service in arrested on that day. 1965. Narayan was kept as detenu at Chandigarh even after he had Narayan is sometimes referred to with the honorific title Lok asked for a month's parole for mobilising relief in areas of Bihar nayak or 'guide of the people'. gravely affected by flood. His health suddenly deteriorated on A university (J P University in Chhapra, Bihar) and two October 24, and he was released on November 12; diagnosis at Hospitals (L N J P Hospital in New Delhi and Jai Prabha Hospital Jaslok Hospital, Bombay, revealed kidney failure; he would be on in Patna) have been opened in his memory. The capital's largest dialysis for the rest of his life. and best-equipped trauma centre, the Jai Prakash Narayan Apex After Indira revoked the emergency on January 18, 1977 and Trauma Centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, also announced elections, it was under JP's guidance that the Janata honors his contributions. Party (a vehicle for the broad spectrum of the anti-Indira Gandhi It is said when he was being taken away at dead of night on opposition) was formed. The Janata Party was voted into power, June 25, 1975, a bewildered Jayaprakash Narayan looked out of and became the first non-Congress party to form a government the windows of the police car, unable to understand why the at the Centre. somnolent city showed no signs of exploding in massive outrage at the blow that Indira Gandhi had dealt to democracy. AN EVALUATION The story is probably apocryphal; but it might well be true. Narayan spent the first 25 years of independence as the patron JP did not fail the people.