Remembering Jayaprakash Narayan and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

It was a lazy Saturday some 25 years back. That time, I was studying in St. Michael’s high school in Patna. My mother was a teacher in a government school, Sir Ganesh Dutta Patliputra High School on Jagat Narayan road, Kadam kuan.

I used to have both days of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) off while my mother would have to go to her school for half a day on Saturdays. This particular Saturday, my mother wanted to take a casual leave. The procedure for this was to write a formal leave application (in Hindi) to the principal of the school and submit at his office before start of the classes. My mother tore off a page from my notebook and scribbled her leave application. She read through, made some corrections and crushed the page into a ball and threw it. One by one she wasted 5 pages from my notebook before she prepared the final leave application and handed it to me to submit at her head master’s office. I liked making fun of my mother.

I took the application and read it aloud. It was written in chaste Hindi.

श्रीमान,

सेवा मे सविनय निवेदन है कि व्यक्तिगत कारण से आज मैं विद्यालय आने मे असमर्थ हूँ| अतः मैं प्रार्थना करती हूँ कि श्रीमान मेरे आक्स्मिक अवकाश के आवेदन को स्वीकार करके मुझे अनुग्रहित करें| आपकी इस अनुकंपा के लिए मैं सर्वदा श्रीमान की आभारी रहूंगी|

भवदीय

After spending sufficient time, laughing at my mother’s application, I took on my bicycle and rode to my mother’s school. I knocked at the door of the headmaster’s cabin and entered the room with best of my etiquette. The headmaster stared at me with his probing eyes. On realizing that I was son of one of his staff, he took interest in knowing a lot of things about me. Finally I was able to get off the hook and started my journey back.

I had gone just a short distance from the school in the narrow lane that I saw some people, sitting in a jeep waiving at me and asking to stop. My eyes went on the number plate of the jeep. The vehicle was from West Bengal. It was not long ago that I had learnt how to interpret the number plates of vehicles.

“Where is JP House?” An elderly Bengali man demanded of me from the jeep. “I don’t know.” Pat came my reply. My answer seemingly annoyed the elderly man. “You do not know Jayaprakash Narayan’s house? Do you know who was JP?”

“I do not know where his house is. Do not waste your time and ask someone else.” I replied wryly and moved on.

Of course I was aware of Jayaprakash. I have heard tits and bits about him. Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and Jayaprakash Narayan apparently were my two celebrity neighbors, a stone throw distance from each other. One was called Loknayak, leader of the masses, for some reason and the other was a rastrakavi, a national poet. The names were ubiquitous. JP Golambar, JP Narayan Aerodrome, JP Murti, Dinkar chauraha...

I must confess, I was more aware of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar than this JP guy. There was a nondescript statue of Dinkar on our school bus route. For years, our school bus would stop there to pick up students.
One day, suddenly we saw the statue getting some face-lift. They painted the statue with bright colours. A barricade was built around the statue and some plants were planted and a small manicured garden was built around.

Some of Dinkar’s poems were included in our Hindi text book. I loved to quote him in my Hindi essay assignments.

“क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को जिसके पास गरल हो; उसे क्या जो दंतहीन विष हीन विनीत सरल हो|”  

Forgiveness looks good on a snake with venom, not on those who are toothless, venom less and simple.

Coming back to Jayaprakash, I was vaguely aware of him being a national leader who was a freedom fighter and also opposed Indira Gandhi and started a popular agitation, JP Movement, against her corrupt government around 1975. Many of the non-Congress national leaders came out of JP movement.

Shambhu Sharan Lal, or just “Lal sir”, our history teacher was a staunch supporter of Congress party. We enjoyed his classes because he always talked as if he was giving first person account of incidents. Jayaprakash Narayan had inspired people to join hands against the corrupt government of Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi had a humiliating defeat and was sent to jail in 1977 on corruption charges.  - This was one of the most painful pieces of information that Lal Sir had to pass on to us as part of his teaching duties.

He would be quick to complement this with what happened after the Janta Party came to power.  They did not have leadership qualities. Morarji Desai and Chaudhry Charan Singh messed it all in internal tussle and JP went and told to Indira, “Daughter, you were better!”

“JP was a great visionary however his movement generated leaders with dubious records.” Lal sir would smile ear to ear telling us.

I stumbled upon this TV report on Jayaprakash Narayan recently.

http://aajtak.intoday.in/video/aandolan-on-aaj-tak-jp-movement-emergency-and-indias-second-freedom-1-753139.html

This helped me close my gaps in understanding about JP whose house I passed umpteen times. A man of vision, fearlessness and great grit. A man who brought the power blind Indira Gandhi to her toes with his vow of non-violent principled means.
I also came to understand why everyone from Anna Hazare to Baba Ramdev to Arvind Kejriwal prefer to have their protests at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi. It is this place that JP delivered his famous speech reciting his friend and neighbor, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar.

दो राह, समय के रथ का घर्घर नाद सुनो, सिंघासन खाली करो की जनता आती हैं ।

Hope this country has more Jayaprakash and Dinkar. It was very unfortunate of India that JP died of ill health soon after Janta Pary came to power. (some say he was poisioned while in jail in Chandhigarh during emergency)

When I see Lalu Prasad, one of the prodigy of JP movement, Sushil Modi, Ravishankar Prasad et al; I also understand what Lal sir meant by JP having unworthy inheritors. Nitish Kumar, the current CM of Bihar also came out of JP movement and he still gives lots of hope.