Satyendra Narayan Sinha

Satyendra Narayan Sinha (12 July 1917 – 4 September 2006) was an Indian politician and statesman, participant in the Indian independence movement, a leading light of Jaya Prakash Narayan's ‘complete revolution’ movement during the Emergency and a former Chief Minister of Bihar.

Affectionately called Chhote Saheb, he was also a seven-time Member of Parliament from the Aurangabad constituency, a three-term Member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly, and a Member of the Bihar Legislative Council once.

Regarded to be one of India's most influential regional people of the time, his reputation was synonymous with being a strict disciplinarian and tough taskmaster.

Sinha was born in an aristocratic political family in Poiwan, Aurangabad district, Bihar.

He belonged to the Rajput caste.

His father was a nationalist leader, Dr. Anugrah Narayan Sinha, who closely assisted Mahatma Gandhi along with Dr.Rajendra Prasad in the Champaran Satyagraha movement, the first satyagraha movement in the country and also served as the first Deputy Chief Minister cum Finance Minister of the Indian state of Bihar.

He spent his student years under the tutelage of Lal Bahadur Shastri at Allahabad.

Brought up in a political environment, S. N. Sinha completed his bachelor's degree from Allahabad University and earned a degree in law from Lucknow University.

He practised law at the Patna High Court, but left his job to join the Indian Independence movement and participated in the Quit India Movement in 1942.

He organised Legal Aid Programmes for political prisoners during pre-Independence days.

After Independence he was elected to the provisional Parliament from Bihar in 1950.

He was part of the young Turk brigade of the Indian National Congress party during the time of the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru.

Satyendra Narayan Sinha was a prominent educationist, and served as the Education Minister of unified Bihar in the government headed by Chief Minister Pandit Binodanand Jha from 1961 to 1963, and again for two consecutive terms in the Cabinet of K. B. Sahay from 1963 to 1967.

He also a held a range of portfolios including Local Self Government and Agriculture.

He is credited with streamlining the entire education system of the Bihar state.

He occupied the second position (second-in-command) in the Cabinet and played the role of a de facto Chief Minister during the period 1961–1967 under the Governments headed by K. B. Sahay and Pandit Binodanand Jha.

He had a unique political acumen to determine the electoral prospects of candidates in assembly election by just sitting at home in Patna.

S. N. Sinha also played a key role in the installations of Governments headed by chief ministers Krishana Ballabh Sahay, Satish Prasad Singh, B.P. Mandal, Sardar Harihar Singh, Bhola Paswan Shastri and Ram Sundar Das.

He never hankered after power even when it was well within his reach.

As the state education minister, he played an instrumental role in the establishment of Magadh University in Bodh Gaya, in the year 1962.

When Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India in 1966, she wanted him to become the next Chief Minister of Bihar and sent then External Affairs Minister Dinesh Singh to convey the proposal but he refused, since he did not wished to unseat incumbent CM K B Sahay but wanted to be elected by the people of state.

He decided to side with the syndicate after the expulsion of Indira Gandhi from the Congress.The Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency on 25 June 1975 due to internal political disturbances.

Accordingly, all fundamental rights enjoyed in the Indian Constitution were suspended.

Political dissidents, newspaper reporters, opposition leaders who opposed emergency were jailed.

Chhote Saheb, along with other prominent leaders, opposed this blatant misuse of state machinery.

In 1977, during the emergency in India, he was made president of Bihar Janata Party and Chairman of State Election Committee.

He worked together with premier colleagues of Janata Party like Morarji Desai, Chandra Shekhar Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Madhu Limaye, H. D. Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Raj Narain, George Fernandes and Karpuri Thakur and the movement was a grand success in Bihar.

He motivated the youth and students to take an active role in politics, and ensured their representation in political affairs.

During, the Bihar legislative assembly election 1977, a massive crowd of youth leaders and activists used to converge at his residence.

Satyendra Narayan Sinha's political encouragement to the youths led to the emergence of then youth leaders of Janata Party like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Subodh Kant Sahay, Kripanath Pathak, Ram Jatan Sinha, Jagdish Sharma, Thakur Muneshwar Nath Singh, Raghupati Singh and Narendra Singh.

After the emergency was lifted on 21 March 1977, fresh general elections were held in India.

The Congress Party, led by Indira Gandhi suffered a defeat at the hands of the Janata Party coalition of several small parties created in 1977 and the alliance came to power, headed by Morarji Desai, who became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India.

In Bihar, the Janata Party won all the fifty-four Lok Sabha seats in 1977 general elections under the mentorship of Jayaprakash Narayan and rose to power in Bihar assembly too.

He struck by the Janata Party and preferred to be in opposition although he would have been considered a prize catch by the Congress party.

He quit the party following differences with the then party president Chandra Shekhar Singh and returned to the Congress fold in 1984.

The then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi came down to Patna to formally admit him back to the Congress party.

As the Chief Minister of Bihar, Chhote Saheb also held the portfolio of Education for the fourth term in his later years 1989–1990.

In the same year, he conceived, the proposal to set up a NTPC's super thermal power project at Nabinagar in Bihar's Aurangabad district to then Prime Minister of India and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi; but the project went into limbo as the following state governments failed to follow it.

In 2007, Manmohan Singh's government finally put a stamp of approval on it.

He is also credited for the establishment of the Indira Gandhi Planetarium cum Science Centre in Patna.