13th October 2021
Jayaprakash Narayan (popularly called ‘JP’) was one of the most charismatic leaders of India. He represented a rare confluence of selflessness and courage of conviction. In his Marxist years, the followers saw JP as ‘Lenin of India’ after the Quit India movement of 1942. In the evening of his life, students and youth conveyed their admiration by calling him ‘Loknayak’. It is due to his unparalleled roles in Indian politics and society for five decades from 1930s to 1979 that the life-journey of JP continues to provide a fascinating narrative across generations of activists and scholars.
At the same time, it has been a perplexing fact that Jayaprakash was always perceived in contradictory ways. For example, Acharya Vinoba Bhave and other Sarvodaya associates called him a saint , while DK Barooah, the president of Congress (Indira) characterised him a fascist with corrupt supporters.
‘The Dream of Revolution - A biography of Jayaprakash Narayan’ by Bimal Prasad and Sujata Prasad (2021, Gurgaon, Penguin Random House) is an outstanding book about a worshipper of freedom and revolution for at least four reasons. First of all, the father (an eminent academician) — daughter (a distinguished senior bureaucrat) team, representing two different generations and two different orientations, knew JP intimately for decades.
Secondly, it contains distillation of several volumes of works about the ideas and initiatives of JP in a readable book of just ten short chapters. Thirdly, it addresses some of the most controversial aspects of JP’s ideas and initiatives with several authentic texts and letters. Finally, it signifies the inter-play between a) the teachings of Gandhi and Vinoba; b) politics of Jawaharlal Nehru, the socialists and Indira Gandhi; and c) changing imperatives of democratic nation-building in shaping the lives of Jayaprakash and Prabhavati.
The book is worth reading because the two authors have set an admirable example of objectivity and self-restraint. They have not shied away from a critical assessment but remained quite moderate when it comes to discuss the qualities of JP in comparison with other historians.
Reading ‘Dream of Revolution’ was an illuminating experience for an activist of the JP movement days like me as it is not a hagiography of ‘Bharatratna Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan’. It is a well-documented life-story of JP — the rebel-extraordinarily written in a unique style where often just a single sentence evokes a few hundred images. Let me present a few examples of the power of prose from this book. Here are three such lines from three separate chapters about his socialist politics days: 1) ‘One of the most trenchant critiques of Jayaprakash Narayan’s politics came from his wife Prabhavati.’ (Ch. 4, p. 53); 2) ‘Jayaprakash viewed the transition to socialism not a straight road, but a tangle of conflicting paths.’ (Ch. 5, p. 83); and 3) ‘The recriminatory atmosphere in party meetings singed Jayaprakash.’(Ch. 6, p. 113).