In news- Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan Jayanti was celebrated on 11th October.
About Jayaprakash Narayan-
- He was popularly referred to as JP or Lok Nayak and was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader.
- He was born on 11 October 1902 in Sitab Diara, Saran district, Bengal Presidency, British India.
- Jayaprakash got inspired by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s speech about the Non-co-operation movement launched by Gandhi against the passing of the Rowlatt Act of 1919.
- He joined the Bihar Vidyapeeth, a college founded by Rajendra Prasad and became among the first students of Gandhian Anugraha Narayan Sinha.
- He completed his higher studies in the USA.
- He returned from the US to India in late 1929 and joined the Indian National Congress on the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1929.
- Mahatma Gandhi became his mentor in the Congress.
- He was jailed in 1932 for civil disobedience against British rule and 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.
- He is also known as the “Hero of Quit India Movement“.
- Between 1947 and 1953, he was President of All India Railwaymen’s Federation, the largest labour union in the Indian Railways.
- He led the mid-1970s opposition against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, for whose overthrow he had called for a “total revolution” ( Sampoorna kranti).
- His biography, ‘Jayaprakash’, was written by his friend and the writer of Hindi literature, Rambriksh Benipuri.
- He was awarded the Magsaysay award for Public Service in 1965.
- He died in Patna, Bihar, on 8 October 1979, due to effects of diabetes and heart ailments.
- In 1999, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, in recognition of his social service.
Source: PIB
