- The Statesman
- 11 Oct 2014
On the Diwali night of 8 November 1942, young Jayaprakash Narayan escaped from the high-security Hazaribagh Jail and a massive manhunt was launched by the British regime to capture him ‘dead or live’. This episode inflamed the fading Quit India Movement launched on 8 August of that year by Mahatma Gandhi, leading eventually to the collapse of the colonial empire and India achieving freedom.
AP Sinha, a co-prisoner and friend whom JP had tried to persuade to join the escapade, had this to say: “JP, I am sorry I cannot make the break with you. I want to come for the love of you and keep you company and support you. But my health is poor and I’m not sure I could be effective. I’m too deeply Gandhian. All I’ll do is to hide myself. I’m only used to attending political meetings and passing resolutions. I would not be able to give you the help you need. Let me help to cover your getaway. You have got the passion that can make people’s spirits soar up. You can inspire them to self-sacrifices, to accept sufferings. You are a great national leader”.
The Emergency proclaimed on the night of 25-26 June 1975 and the excesses that followed proved how prophetic Mr. Sinha was about JP. During the 20 months of active Emergency, the bulk of the Civil Service crawled when asked to bend. The higher echelons of the judiciary bowed to the dust and decreed that under the Emergency regime citizens did not even have the ‘right to life’. Politicians, academics and advocates of all hue and colour, barring honourable exceptions, lay supine and prostrate. There was gloom all around and it looked as if every thing was over and the world’s largest democracy was slowly but surely drifting into dictatorship.
But through this all, one single soul, one lonely spirit, continued to stir in anguish and agony, for the first six months in captivity at Chandigarh and later attached to a dialysis machine at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital and a spartan house in Patna. Yet, this defiant, indomitable spirit in the person of Jayaprakash Narayan dared the might of Indira’s dictatorship and defeated it in less than two years, thereby restoring India back to freedom and democracy. This he did despite being in the frailest of health and living on borrowed time.
In the dying moments of the second millennium, standing on the ramparts of the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C., the former President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton declared: “The story of the 20th century is the triumph of freedom. We must never forget the meaning of the 20th century or the gifts of those who worked and marched, who fought and died for the triumph of Freedom”.
AP Sinha, a co-prisoner and friend whom JP had tried to persuade to join the escapade, had this to say: “JP, I am sorry I cannot make the break with you. I want to come for the love of you and keep you company and support you. But my health is poor and I’m not sure I could be effective. I’m too deeply Gandhian. All I’ll do is to hide myself. I’m only used to attending political meetings and passing resolutions. I would not be able to give you the help you need. Let me help to cover your getaway. You have got the passion that can make people’s spirits soar up. You can inspire them to self-sacrifices, to accept sufferings. You are a great national leader”.
The Emergency proclaimed on the night of 25-26 June 1975 and the excesses that followed proved how prophetic Mr. Sinha was about JP. During the 20 months of active Emergency, the bulk of the Civil Service crawled when asked to bend. The higher echelons of the judiciary bowed to the dust and decreed that under the Emergency regime citizens did not even have the ‘right to life’. Politicians, academics and advocates of all hue and colour, barring honourable exceptions, lay supine and prostrate. There was gloom all around and it looked as if every thing was over and the world’s largest democracy was slowly but surely drifting into dictatorship.
But through this all, one single soul, one lonely spirit, continued to stir in anguish and agony, for the first six months in captivity at Chandigarh and later attached to a dialysis machine at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital and a spartan house in Patna. Yet, this defiant, indomitable spirit in the person of Jayaprakash Narayan dared the might of Indira’s dictatorship and defeated it in less than two years, thereby restoring India back to freedom and democracy. This he did despite being in the frailest of health and living on borrowed time.
In the dying moments of the second millennium, standing on the ramparts of the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C., the former President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton declared: “The story of the 20th century is the triumph of freedom. We must never forget the meaning of the 20th century or the gifts of those who worked and marched, who fought and died for the triumph of Freedom”.
On the Diwali night of 8 November 1942, young Jayaprakash Narayan escaped from the high-security Hazaribagh Jail and a massive manhunt was launched by the British regime to capture him ‘dead or live’. This episode inflamed the fading Quit India Movement launched on 8 August of that year by Mahatma Gandhi, leading eventually to the collapse of the colonial empire and India achieving freedom.
AP Sinha, a co-prisoner and friend whom JP had tried to persuade to join the escapade, had this to say: “JP, I am sorry I cannot make the break with you. I want to come for the love of you and keep you company and support you. But my health is poor and I’m not sure I could be effective. I’m too deeply Gandhian. All I’ll do is to hide myself. I’m only used to attending political meetings and passing resolutions. I would not be able to give you the help you need. Let me help to cover your getaway. You have got the passion that can make people’s spirits soar up. You can inspire them to self-sacrifices, to accept sufferings. You are a great national leader”.
The Emergency proclaimed on the night of 25-26 June 1975 and the excesses that followed proved how prophetic Mr. Sinha was about JP. During the 20 months of active Emergency, the bulk of the Civil Service crawled when asked to bend. The higher echelons of the judiciary bowed to the dust and decreed that under the Emergency regime citizens did not even have the ‘right to life’. Politicians, academics and advocates of all hue and colour, barring honourable exceptions, lay supine and prostrate. There was gloom all around and it looked as if every thing was over and the world’s largest democracy was slowly but surely drifting into dictatorship.
But through this all, one single soul, one lonely spirit, continued to stir in anguish and agony, for the first six months in captivity at Chandigarh and later attached to a dialysis machine at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital and a spartan house in Patna. Yet, this defiant, indomitable spirit in the person of Jayaprakash Narayan dared the might of Indira’s dictatorship and defeated it in less than two years, thereby restoring India back to freedom and democracy. This he did despite being in the frailest of health and living on borrowed time.
In the dying moments of the second millennium, standing on the ramparts of the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C., the former President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton declared: “The story of the 20th century is the triumph of freedom. We must never forget the meaning of the 20th century or the gifts of those who worked and marched, who fought and died for the triumph of Freedom”.
JP was among India’s tallest leaders who had ‘worked and marched, fought and died’ for Independence and the triumph of freedom in a country that is home to one-sixth of the human race. And he did it not once, but twice ~ fighting for Independence from alien rule under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership and later winning freedom back from a native coterie, which brought in ‘Emergency rule’ through the back door, under his own stewardship. Tragically today on the 112th year of his birth, he stands near totally forgotten, slighted and ignored by the very people whom he loved so intensely and passionately.
Those who were closely associated with JP during the post-independence period consider him as the “sentinel and custodian of the Indian conscience” who never sought power. Dada Darmadhikari, a compatriot and close associate of JP says: “Two qualities were unique to Jayaprakash Narayan. This man was never a ‘candidate’ for any office. Democracy allows a legitimate space for ‘candidature’. But this man was never a candidate for office is indeed exceptional. In our country at least, with the exception of Gandhi, there is no other such example”.
Calling him ‘an inconvenient prophet’, JP’s chronicler, Sunanda K Datta-Ray, has written: “The faithful regard him as the best Prime Minister India never had. Like Mohandas Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia, he declined to seek or hold public office”. JP was an iconoclast with compassion and Mr Datta-Ray explains why: “He was heir to an ancient and formidable legacy. Bihar’s Magadha heartland, where JP was born, not only produced relentless fighters and exterminators of kings” but “harkened at the same time to the devout teachings of Vardhamana Mahavira and Gautama Buddha”.
JP who had spurned high offices of Prime Minister and President of India, returned to active politics in 1974 at the advanced age of 73 when student unrest against corruption, unemployment and high inflation was spreading like wild fire, threatening to turn violent and go beyond control. In the face of terror and repression unleashed on the students by the governments of Bihar and Gujarat, JP took charge and thus was born the ‘JP Movement’ that shook corrupt and authoritarian governments at their very foundation. Describing the core of the movement, JP declared: “After 27 years of freedom, people of this country are wracked by hunger, rising prices, corruption... oppressed by every kind of injustice... it is a Total Revolution we want, nothing less!”
Indira Gandhi took the extreme step of imposing Emergency in June 1975 thereby extinguishing freedom and democracy, indeed the very air patriots like Jayaprakash Narayan breathed. Acting fast she and her minions incarcerated JP and all frontline leaders of the opposition including rebels in her own party. But true to his words, JP fought back, put together a disparate coalition of political parties in the form of Janata Party, defeated Indira’s Congress and restored freedom to India within 21 months of the imposition of Emergency.
Among the tributes paid to JP, the most moving came from Atal Behari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister ~ “JP was not merely the name of one person; it symbolised humanity. When one remembered Mr Narayan, two pictures came to one’s mind. One was reminded of Bhishmapitamah lying on a bed of arrows. The second picture was one of Christ on the Cross and Mr Narayan’s life reminded one of Christ’s sacrifices”.
Ailing as JP was and wedded to a dialysis machine, he did not live long to consolidate the forces of democracy. The Janata government that he crafted to counter Congress hegemony in early 1977 collapsed in mid-1979 due to egos, intrigues and betrayals. JP passed away in October 1979 and the Congress returned to power in January 1980. Despite being a crucial chapter of India’s post-Independence history, the JP Movement and the Emergency were blacked out from school-texts, books, forums, media and other avenues by successive Congress governments.
The BJP and its Governments that came to power later also failed to remember this legacy and legend and did not propagate even a semblance of the values for which JP stood, fought and died. None of his political and economic ideals ~ freedom, corruption-free government, decentralized and participatory democracy, people-centric growth ~ are being adhered to by the rulers. Electoral corruption, which JP abhorred, has reached its zenith leading to “incestuous coupling of wealth and power”, posing a deadly threat to India’s democracy. Shortly after the fall of the Janata government in 1979, I visited JP in his Kadam Kuan residence in Patna. He was undergoing dialysis and yet received me with great affection. That he had taken Janata’s collapse to heart was evident when he said with tears welling in his eyes, “Devasahayam, I have failed yet again”. When JP died it was with a heavy heart that he could not succeed in his mission of making India a truly free and democratic nation.
A fickle-minded nation that celebrates fakes and freaks has ignored and discarded this genuine patriot, who fought for India’s First Freedom as a footsoldier and won its ‘Second Freedom’ leading a massive movement against corruption and autocracy. This was evident from the outcome of the online and market research poll by a leading TV Channel in 2012 to select ten ‘Greatest Indians’ after Mahatma Gandhi. JP was nowhere in the list.
This is what the famous Tamil classic Thirukural has to say about ingratitude: Ennandri Kondraarkkum Uyvundaam Uyvillai Seynnandri Kondra Makarku meaning “He who has killed every virtue may yet escape; but there is no escape for one who is ungrateful”. Yet, this is what India has done to JP. For her billion-plus people, the question is ~ Did India ever deserve JP?
AP Sinha, a co-prisoner and friend whom JP had tried to persuade to join the escapade, had this to say: “JP, I am sorry I cannot make the break with you. I want to come for the love of you and keep you company and support you. But my health is poor and I’m not sure I could be effective. I’m too deeply Gandhian. All I’ll do is to hide myself. I’m only used to attending political meetings and passing resolutions. I would not be able to give you the help you need. Let me help to cover your getaway. You have got the passion that can make people’s spirits soar up. You can inspire them to self-sacrifices, to accept sufferings. You are a great national leader”.
The Emergency proclaimed on the night of 25-26 June 1975 and the excesses that followed proved how prophetic Mr. Sinha was about JP. During the 20 months of active Emergency, the bulk of the Civil Service crawled when asked to bend. The higher echelons of the judiciary bowed to the dust and decreed that under the Emergency regime citizens did not even have the ‘right to life’. Politicians, academics and advocates of all hue and colour, barring honourable exceptions, lay supine and prostrate. There was gloom all around and it looked as if every thing was over and the world’s largest democracy was slowly but surely drifting into dictatorship.
But through this all, one single soul, one lonely spirit, continued to stir in anguish and agony, for the first six months in captivity at Chandigarh and later attached to a dialysis machine at Bombay’s Jaslok Hospital and a spartan house in Patna. Yet, this defiant, indomitable spirit in the person of Jayaprakash Narayan dared the might of Indira’s dictatorship and defeated it in less than two years, thereby restoring India back to freedom and democracy. This he did despite being in the frailest of health and living on borrowed time.
In the dying moments of the second millennium, standing on the ramparts of the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C., the former President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton declared: “The story of the 20th century is the triumph of freedom. We must never forget the meaning of the 20th century or the gifts of those who worked and marched, who fought and died for the triumph of Freedom”.
JP was among India’s tallest leaders who had ‘worked and marched, fought and died’ for Independence and the triumph of freedom in a country that is home to one-sixth of the human race. And he did it not once, but twice ~ fighting for Independence from alien rule under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership and later winning freedom back from a native coterie, which brought in ‘Emergency rule’ through the back door, under his own stewardship. Tragically today on the 112th year of his birth, he stands near totally forgotten, slighted and ignored by the very people whom he loved so intensely and passionately.
Those who were closely associated with JP during the post-independence period consider him as the “sentinel and custodian of the Indian conscience” who never sought power. Dada Darmadhikari, a compatriot and close associate of JP says: “Two qualities were unique to Jayaprakash Narayan. This man was never a ‘candidate’ for any office. Democracy allows a legitimate space for ‘candidature’. But this man was never a candidate for office is indeed exceptional. In our country at least, with the exception of Gandhi, there is no other such example”.
Calling him ‘an inconvenient prophet’, JP’s chronicler, Sunanda K Datta-Ray, has written: “The faithful regard him as the best Prime Minister India never had. Like Mohandas Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia, he declined to seek or hold public office”. JP was an iconoclast with compassion and Mr Datta-Ray explains why: “He was heir to an ancient and formidable legacy. Bihar’s Magadha heartland, where JP was born, not only produced relentless fighters and exterminators of kings” but “harkened at the same time to the devout teachings of Vardhamana Mahavira and Gautama Buddha”.
JP who had spurned high offices of Prime Minister and President of India, returned to active politics in 1974 at the advanced age of 73 when student unrest against corruption, unemployment and high inflation was spreading like wild fire, threatening to turn violent and go beyond control. In the face of terror and repression unleashed on the students by the governments of Bihar and Gujarat, JP took charge and thus was born the ‘JP Movement’ that shook corrupt and authoritarian governments at their very foundation. Describing the core of the movement, JP declared: “After 27 years of freedom, people of this country are wracked by hunger, rising prices, corruption... oppressed by every kind of injustice... it is a Total Revolution we want, nothing less!”
Indira Gandhi took the extreme step of imposing Emergency in June 1975 thereby extinguishing freedom and democracy, indeed the very air patriots like Jayaprakash Narayan breathed. Acting fast she and her minions incarcerated JP and all frontline leaders of the opposition including rebels in her own party. But true to his words, JP fought back, put together a disparate coalition of political parties in the form of Janata Party, defeated Indira’s Congress and restored freedom to India within 21 months of the imposition of Emergency.
Among the tributes paid to JP, the most moving came from Atal Behari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister ~ “JP was not merely the name of one person; it symbolised humanity. When one remembered Mr Narayan, two pictures came to one’s mind. One was reminded of Bhishmapitamah lying on a bed of arrows. The second picture was one of Christ on the Cross and Mr Narayan’s life reminded one of Christ’s sacrifices”.
Ailing as JP was and wedded to a dialysis machine, he did not live long to consolidate the forces of democracy. The Janata government that he crafted to counter Congress hegemony in early 1977 collapsed in mid-1979 due to egos, intrigues and betrayals. JP passed away in October 1979 and the Congress returned to power in January 1980. Despite being a crucial chapter of India’s post-Independence history, the JP Movement and the Emergency were blacked out from school-texts, books, forums, media and other avenues by successive Congress governments.
The BJP and its Governments that came to power later also failed to remember this legacy and legend and did not propagate even a semblance of the values for which JP stood, fought and died. None of his political and economic ideals ~ freedom, corruption-free government, decentralized and participatory democracy, people-centric growth ~ are being adhered to by the rulers. Electoral corruption, which JP abhorred, has reached its zenith leading to “incestuous coupling of wealth and power”, posing a deadly threat to India’s democracy. Shortly after the fall of the Janata government in 1979, I visited JP in his Kadam Kuan residence in Patna. He was undergoing dialysis and yet received me with great affection. That he had taken Janata’s collapse to heart was evident when he said with tears welling in his eyes, “Devasahayam, I have failed yet again”. When JP died it was with a heavy heart that he could not succeed in his mission of making India a truly free and democratic nation.
A fickle-minded nation that celebrates fakes and freaks has ignored and discarded this genuine patriot, who fought for India’s First Freedom as a footsoldier and won its ‘Second Freedom’ leading a massive movement against corruption and autocracy. This was evident from the outcome of the online and market research poll by a leading TV Channel in 2012 to select ten ‘Greatest Indians’ after Mahatma Gandhi. JP was nowhere in the list.
This is what the famous Tamil classic Thirukural has to say about ingratitude: Ennandri Kondraarkkum Uyvundaam Uyvillai Seynnandri Kondra Makarku meaning “He who has killed every virtue may yet escape; but there is no escape for one who is ungrateful”. Yet, this is what India has done to JP. For her billion-plus people, the question is ~ Did India ever deserve JP?
http://www.thestatesman.net/AcrchivePage.aspx