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Prime Minister pays tribute to Acharya J B Kripalani on his birth anniversary
History of Acharya J B Kripalani (1888-1982)
- He was born on 11th November 1888 in Hyderabad(presently in Sindh province of Pakistan) and was brought up in the Sindh and Gujarat regions in a middle-class Hindu family
- Kripalani did his master’s degree in history and economics from Fergusson College in Pune and started teaching in 1912
- It was during his time as a teacher that he first encountered Gandhi
- He joined Gandhi in 1917, after Gandhi had taken up the cause of indigo workers in Gujarat.
- After meeting Gandhi Kripalani joined congress party and worked on Gandhi’s ashrams (religious retreats) in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bihar
- During 1922 to 1927 he served as the principal of Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad, a school founded by Gandhi and earned the title Acharya
- He also participated in Civil Disobedience movement
- He also served as general secretary of congress party in between 1934-1935. Later in 1946 he was elected president of the party
- He also served as a member (1946–47) of India’s interim government and (1946–51) of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the country’s new constitution
- In the year 1951 he resigned from Congress Party and became part of Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party(a core part of Praja Socilist Party) in 1952 later resigned from that too
- He was elected to Lok Sabha in 1951, 1957, 1963 and 1967
- Acharya criticised both Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira(her authoritarian rule) Gandhi which he thought went against the Gandhian ideal of village republics
- Along with JP Narayan, Kripalani toured India urging nonviolent protest and civil disobedience against Indira Gandhi’s government in 1972-73 and got arrested in 1975
- Kripalani was the author of several books, including Gandhi: His Life and Thought (1970).
- In his autobiography, ‘My Times’ which was published posthumously in 2004 strongly criticised(except Gandhi) Congress party for Partition of India
Source: PIB & Britannica
