The Jana Sangh face, who stood between JP and police
On November 4, 1974, Jayaprakash Narayan was leading a march of protesters, comprising students and Opposition activists, from Gandhi Maidan to the state secretariat in Patna, when police suddenly opened lathicharge.
Narayan, popularly known as JP, would have been injured, but for the intervention of a senior leader of the Jana Sangh (the precursor to the BJP) and ex-RSS functionary, Nanaji Deshmukh, who came in between to take the blows on himself. In the process, Nanaji ended up fracturing his hand.
He would go on to distinguish himself as one of the most intrepid faces of the JP Movement, against 'corruption and misrule' of the Indira Gandhi government. On June 22, 1975, just three days before the Emergency was imposed, Nanaji drew up an action plan for an all-India Janata Front to press for the resignation of Mrs Gandhi, given that her election to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli had been set aside by the Allahabad High Court.
'He (Nanaji) also whittled down JP's aversion to politics, convincing him that political power also has importance,' says former BJP general secretary K N Govindacharya.
On June 25, 1975, the leaders of the newly-formed Janata Front met at JP's residence in Delhi to form a coordination body, with Nanaji named general secretary. The same evening, they held a rally at Ramlila Maidan, where JP called Indira's prime ministership unlawful, and asked the police and Army to disobey 'illegal' orders issued by her, Vinay Sitapati writes in his book Jugalbandi – The BJP Before Modi.
That night, PM Indira clamped the Emergency, suspending key fundamental rights and ordering arrests of Opposition leaders and dissenters across the country. The Cabinet was informed only the next morning at 6.
Nanaji, however, managed to evade arrest. 'Nanaji Deshmukh had escaped after receiving a call… A female voice had told him that he had an hour to get away: 'The police will surround your place around 1 o' clock'… Nanaji made calls to warn others while his assistant packed a couple of shirts and dhotis into a briefcase. While the rest of Delhi slept, he fled to a secret location. He would soon find himself in south Bombay, squirreled away in the home of (industrialist) Nusli Wadia,' writes Sitapati.
Close to Nanaji, Nusli and his wife Maureen protected him. Nusli even helped Opposition leaders with funds to survive the Emergency. Nanaji was finally arrested in August 1975, and sent to jail.
Once Mrs Gandhi declared elections in early 1977, Nanaji was fielded as the Janata Party candidate from UP's Balrampur Lok Sabha seat. He won, with the Janata Party sweeping the polls.
As Morarji Desai became PM, Nanaji was offered the post of Industries Minister in the Janata Party government, but the RSS advised him to keep out, apprehensive that controversies would be stoked about the ties he had developed with industrialists such as Wadia, Mafatlal and Tatas while serving as the Jana Sangh treasurer in the early 1970s. The Sangh trusted him implicitly, which is why he was sent on his own to collect donations.
'His legend was built on relentless pursuit of lucre for the party, including running on foot after a horse-riding prince to entice him to give money,' Sitapati writes.
Incidentally, born in Maharashtra in a poor family, Nanaji or 'Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh' as he was formally named, once sold vegetables to pay his tuition fees to study.
His rise in the RSS was quick. As in-charge of Sangh affairs in UP, he established the first Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Gorakhpur in 1950. He later joined the Jana Sangh, rising to become one of its most prominent leaders.
After the Janata Party government formation, Nanaji faded away from politics, and after he turned 60, decided to retire from public life. He first settled in Gonda and then shifted to Chitrakoot, where he founded Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya, 'India's first rural university'.
He passed away in Chitrakoot in 2010 at the age of 93. In 2019, Nanaji was awarded the Bharat Ratna by the Narendra Modi government.
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