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Jay Prakash Narayan was
born in Sitabdiara a village in Ballia of Uttar Pradesh, where Ganga
and Sarayu meet. He did his High school from Sisabdiara and
thereafter was sent to Patna to do his college and with the
blessings of Gandhi he was married in Patna, but his wife was sent
to Sarbarmati Asharam. While JP did his studies and went to USA for
further studies where he did odd jobs in order to pay for his
education.
In 1929 he returned to
India and joined the Congress Party. In 1932 he was sentenced to a
year's imprisonment for his participation in the civil-disobedience
movement against British rule in India, thereafter he formed
Congress Socialist Party, a left-wing group within the Indian
National Congress
J P was imprisoned by
the British again in 1939 for his opposition to Indian participation
in World War II on the side of Britain, but escaped and for a short
time tried to organize violent resistance to the government before
his recapture in 1943. After his release in 1946 he tried to
persuade the Congress leaders to adopt a more militant policy
against British rule. In 1948 he, together with most of the Congress
Socialists, left the Congress Party and formed the Praja Socialist
Party in 1952. Soon fed up with the political atmosphere he
announced in 1954 that he would now concentrate and devote his life
exclusively to the Bhoodan Yajna movement founded by Vinoba Bhave.
In 1959 he floated a new agenda for a "reconstruction of Indian
polity" by means of a four-tier hierarchy of village, district,
state, and union councils.
In 1974 Narayan came
back to politics when he saw the rise of corruption in India and the
increasingly undemocratic government of Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi. He gained a following from students and opposition
politicians and from the masses. Narayan was one of the people who
wanted Mrs Gandhi to resign, and therefore in Emergency he was put
in Jail. In prison his health broke down. He was released after five
months but never regained his health. When Gandhi and her party were
defeated in elections in 1977, Narayan became the advisor of the
Janata party in its choice of leaders to head the new
administration. He too died a broken man dreaming to build India
where there was true freedom to all....
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