Jayaprakash Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan Srivastava (11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), who is popularly referred to as JP or Lok Nayak (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader.

Jayprakash Narayan Srivastava was born on 11 October 1902 in the village of Sitabdiara, Saran district, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh, India).

His house was near the banks of the flood-prone Ghaghara river; every time the river swelled, the house would be slightly damaged, eventually forcing the family to move a few kilometres away to a settlement that is now known as Jay Prakash Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.

Narayan came from a Srivastava Kayastha family.

He was the fourth child of Harsu Dayal and Phul Rani Devi.

His father Harsu Dayal was a junior official in the canal department of the state government and often toured the region.

When Narayan was nine years old, he left his village to enroll in the seventh class of the collegiate school at Patna.

This was his first break from village life.

Narayan stayed at Saraswati Bhawan, a student hostel in which most of the boys were older than him and included some of Bihar's future leaders, such as its first chief minister Krishna Singh, his deputy Anugrah Narayan Sinha and several others who became politicians and academics.

In October 1918, Narayan married Braj Kishore Prasad's elder daughter and freedom fighter Prabhavati Devi.

After their wedding, because Narayan was working in Patna and it was difficult for his wife to stay with him, Mahatma Gandhi invited Prabhavati to become an inmate at Sabarmati Ashram (Ahmedabad).

Jayaprakash, along with some friends, went to listen to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad speak about Gandhi's non-cooperation movement against the passing of the Rowlatt Act of 1919.

Azad was a brilliant orator and his call to give up English education was "like leaves before a storm: Jayaprakash was swept away and momentarily lifted up to the skies. That brief experience of soaring up with the winds of a great idea left imprints on his inner being".

Inspired by Azad's words, Jayaprakash left Bihar National College with just 20 days remaining to his examinations.

Jayaprakash joined the Bihar Vidyapeeth, a college founded by Rajendra Prasad, and became among the first students of Gandhian Anugraha Narayan Sinha.

After exhausting the courses at the Vidyapeeth, Narayan decided to continue his studies in the United States.

At age 20, Jayaprakash sailed aboard the cargo ship Janus while Prabhavati remained at Sabarmati.

Jayaprakash reached California on 8 October 1922 and was admitted to University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in January 1923.

To pay for his education, Narayan picked grapes, packed fruits at a canning factory, washed dishes, and worked as a garage mechanic and at a slaughterhouse, sold lotions and taught.

These jobs gave Narayan an insight into the difficulties of the working class.

After a semester studying chemistry at UC Berkeley, his fees doubled and Narayan was forced to transfer to The University of Iowa and later to other universities.

He pursued his favourite subject, sociology, and received much help from Professor Edward A. Ross.

In Wisconsin, Narayan was introduced to Karl Marx's book Das Kapital.

News of the success of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War made Narayan conclude Marxism was the way to alleviate the suffering of the masses.

He studied books by Indian intellectual and Communist theoretician M. N. Roy.

Narayan's paper on sociology Cultural Variation was declared the best of the year.

Narayan graduated from University of Wisconsin with a MA in Sociology, and from Ohio State University with a BA in behavioural science.

While in the United States, he met K. B. Menon, then teaching at Harvard, ultimately persuading him to return to India and join the independence movement there.

Having become a Marxist, Narayan returned from the US to India in late 1929.

The same year, he joined the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress) on the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru; Mahatma Gandhi became Narayan's mentor in the Congress.

Narayan shared a house at Kadam Kuan in Patna with his close friend and nationalist Ganga Sharan Singh (Sinha) with whom he shared a lasting friendship.

After being jailed in 1930 for civil disobedience against British rule, Narayan was imprisoned in Nasik Jail, where he met Rammanohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Basawon Singh, Yusuf Desai, C K Narayanaswami and other national leaders.

After his release, the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), a left-wing group within the Congress, was formed with Acharya Narendra Deva as president and Narayan as general secretary.

When Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942, Narayan, along with Yogendra Shukla, Suraj Narayan Singh, Gulab Chand Gupta, Pandit Ramnandan Mishra, Shaligram Singh and Shyam Barthwar, scaled the wall of Hazaribagh Central Jail with a goal of starting an underground movement for freedom.

Many young socialist leaders like Rammanohar Lohia, Chhotubhai Puranik and Aruna Asaf Ali took part in the movement.

Because Narayan was ill, Yogendra Shukla walked to Gaya with Narayan on his shoulders, a distance of about 124 km. Narayan also served as the chairman of Anugrah Smarak Nidhi (Anugrah Narayan Memorial Fund).

Between 1947 and 1953, Jayaprakash Narayan was President of All India Railwaymen's Federation, the largest labour union in Indian Railways.

His other awards include the Magsaysay award for public service in 1965.

He is largely remembered for leading the mid-1970s opposition against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and called for her overthrow in a "total revolution".

In 1999, Narayan was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social service.