How a semi-retired Jayaprakash Narayan stirred student protests into a storm

Indian Express

4 days ago

The JAYAPRAKASH Narayan Movement which began 51 years ago this month left an indelible mark, shaping the course of not only Bihar but also national politics.
In Bihar, the imprint of the movement led by the socialist icon, known better as JP, is illustrated by the fact that two of its products, Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, have governed the state for 35 years, with only Jitan Ram Manjhi providing a brief break in between. As Bihar goes to the polls later this year, leaders in both the socialist and NDA camps moulded by the JP Movement continue to be at the thick of things in Bihar.
The beginning
While the defining moment of this important chapter of Indian political history was JP's 'Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revolution)' call from Patna's Gandhi Maidan on June 5, 1974, the seed was planted a few months earlier when, on March 18, students gheraoed the Bihar Assembly.
The protests against the then Congress-led state government of Abdul Ghafoor were over high college fees, bus fares, and alleged mismanagement of university administration. They came at a time of high poverty, challenges on the economic front, and allegations of corruption and nepotism against the Indira Gandhi government, that had started mounting right after her win in 1971.
The late Sushil Kumar Modi, former Deputy CM and another product of the JP Movement, once told this correspondent, 'When the 5-km protest march started from the Science College to the Vidhan Sabha, there were barely 30-odd people. But as we started walking, the crowd started building up… The government was caught unawares and the police had to open lathicharge.'
There were incidents of arson — the printing presses of two newspapers were torched — and three students were killed. As the situation threatened to spiral out of control, some students and young leaders, including Modi and Shivanand Tiwari (later a Rajya Sabha MP), approached JP to request him to lead the movement. Though the veteran socialist had been away from active politics for over two decades, the month before, he had visited college students in Gujarat protesting over mess fee hikes.
'Dissent is not just an intellectual luxury but a necessary catalytic agent to which society owes its revolution, its progress,' says a book on JP, quoting him
According to former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya, JP was angry over the violence, but calmed down when he was told that the students were not behind it. According to Govindacharya, on April 8, JP addressed a meeting of students in Patna and placed a few conditions before them, including that they wouldn't engage in violence. The students agreed and JP came to lead the movement.
Mrs Gandhi was already alarmed and, at a public meeting in Bhubaneswar on April 1, labelled JP a 'fascist', and said he was walking on the path of 'violence'.
At Gandhi Maidan
Then came the Gandhi Maidan meeting and the 'Sampoorna Kranti' call, in which JP demanded changes on all fronts, from the economic and social to the political. Former MLC and socialist litterateur Prem Kumar Mani recalled: 'The Gandhi Maidan had not seen such a crowd before. There was no bridge over the Ganga those days, and yet, people arrived using whatever means of transport they could find. JP talked of 'Sampoorna Kranti', adding it was nothing but the 'sapta kranti (seven revolutions framework)' of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia.'
JP also invoked Jawaharlal Nehru. 'I am not going to use angry language. But what I am going to say will contain the ideas of a revolutionary. It will not be easy to act upon them. You will have to make sacrifices, undergo sufferings… Friends, this is a revolution, a total revolution. This is not a movement, not merely for the dissolution of the Assembly. We have to go far, very far… Millions of countrymen filled the jails again and again to attain freedom, but after 27 years of that freedom, the people are groaning. Hunger, soaring prices and corruption stalk everywhere.'
In their book The Dream of Revolution, Bimal Prasad and Sujata Prasad quote JP as saying, 'Dissent is not just an intellectual luxury but a necessary catalytic agent to which society owes its progress, its revolution, and its technological and scientific advances.'
As the political situation continued to simmer, JP's call for another public meeting in Patna on November 4 made Mrs Gandhi open a communication channel with him, and three days before the rally, the two met in Delhi. While the PM requested him not to hold the rally, JP demanded the dismissal of the Ghafoor government in Bihar and drew her attention to the mishandling of democratic institutions.
JP went ahead with the rally, and the Centre deployed paramilitary forces in Patna. During a lathicharge, JP narrowly escaped injury when Jana Sangh leader Nanaji Deshmukh shielded him. Chandra Shekhar, who later became PM, wrote in his weekly Young Indian, 'JP is not fighting for political power; he cannot be defeated by deploying State power.'
'We need to shake India'
The situation in Gujarat took a sharp turn starting in March 1975 after Morarji Desai undertook hunger strikes in support of the Navnirman Movement of students and called for fresh elections in the state. Things came to a head on June 12, when the Allahabad High Court set aside Mrs Gandhi's election from Rae Bareli.
This led to JP intensifying the movement and he met the national committees of the Akali Dal, the Congress (Organisation), and the Lok Dal, all of whom called on Mrs Gandhi to resign as PM. The non-Congress and non-Left parties held a meeting on June 12 at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, but JP could not attend it as his flight was diverted.
He called another meeting at the same venue two days later.
Mrs Gandhi's biographer Pupul Jayakar has written that on being confronted with the escalating situation, the PM told her key advisor and West Bengal CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray, 'Siddhartha, we cannot allow this… I feel that India is like a baby and just as one should sometimes take a child and shake it. I feel we need to shake India.'
Within hours of Emergency being imposed on June 25, top Opposition leaders, including JP, Morarji Desai, Raj Narain, Chandra Shekhar, and L K Advani, were jailed. So were young leaders shaped in the cauldron of those turbulent times, such as Lalu, Nitish, Ram Vilas Paswan, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and many others.