The JP template and Opposition’s 2024 plans: The Lok Nayak’s continuing relevance

“Jayaprakash ji’s movement started from Bihar,” Banerjee said after the meeting. “If we hold an all-party meeting in Bihar, we can then decide where we have to go next. We have to give a message that we are all united. I want BJP to become zero.” Ironically, Mamata, who started her political career as a Youth Congress worker, is said to have once jumped on the bonnet of JP’s car in Kolkata to prevent him from advancing to an event.

After the discussions with Mamata, Nitish flew to Lucknow to meet Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav the same evening. Addressing a joint press conference with Akhilesh, Nitish said efforts would continue to bring together as many Opposition parties as possible in order to “oust the BJP from power” in 2024. Asked if he was following in the footsteps of JP in uniting the Opposition, Nitish said they were all JP’s disciples.

Given the parallels between the dominance of the Congress back then — it had 352 MPs in the Lok Sabha — and the BJP now (302 MPs), it is not surprising that the Opposition, facing an electoral behemoth, is invoking JP.

A committed socialist, Jayaprakash Narayan first came into contact with the ideas of Karl Marx while studying in the USA and the writings left an indelible impression on him. Back in India, he joined the Congress and in 1934 he became the founding general secretary of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), an outfit formed within the ambit of the Congress.

Between 1947 and 1953 JP headed the All India Railwaymen’s Federation. In 1950, he met Vinoba Bhave in Pavnar Ashram near Wardha in Maharashtra and became associated with the Bhoodan movement as well as the Sarvodaya movement. After the first Lok Sabha polls in 1951–’52, the Socialist Party merged with Acharya J B Kripalani’s Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP) and the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) was born. JP was a part of the party at the time. But he had his share of detractors too and was criticised for his proximity to Jawaharlal Nehru who offered him to join his government. But he had his supporters too and during a discussion in the Lok Sabha on March 2, 1959, Rajendra Singh of the PSP, the MP from Chhapra in Bihar, referred to him as a “prince among men” for responding to the call for uniting two railways unions “in the interest of the workers (and) in the interests of the nation” and ending disunity in the railways.

But there were major differences between JP and the other socialist stalwart, Rammanohar Lohia. Over subsequent years, JP gradually withdrew from politics, not joining forces with Lohia even at the height of his anti-Congress campaign in 1967. Whether the two stalwarts could have dealt the Congress a body blow in 1967 itself, had they united, remains a big what-if in Indian politics.

The anti-Congress movement gathered pace in December 1973 with the Navnirman Andolan students’ movement in Gujarat. In Bihar, the Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti (BCSS) was constituted with Lalu Prasad as its president. The entire scenario changed a few months later as JP entered the scene. On March 18, 1974, there were incidents of arson during a gherao of the Bihar assembly by the students. Student leaders met JP, who was not yet at the forefront of the movement, the following day and according to activist K N Govindacharya the veteran leader was angry with them. He calmed down when told that the miscreants were not from among the protesters. The student leaders, realising the movement required to have a leader, tried to convince JP to take on the responsibility. Govindacharya recalled that on April 8, the socialist icon addressed a meeting of students in Patna and placed a few conditions to be associated with the movement. The students agreed and JP came to lead the movement.

By then, Indira Gandhi had already sensed the danger. At a public meeting in Bhubaneswar on April 1, she labelled JP a “fascist” and accused him of walking on the path of “violence”.

Christened “Lok Nayak (people’s hero)” by his supporters, JP addressed a rally of students in Patna on June 5, 1974, and issued a call for “Sampoorna Kranti (Total revolution)”. He then travelled across the country campaigning. The following year,  on June 12, the Allahabad High Court revoked Indira Gandhi’s 1971 election from Rae Bareilly and on June 25, JP addressed a rally at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi where he reiterated the demand for Gandhi’s resignation. The same night, the prime minister declared Emergency and cracked down on the Opposition. JP himself was arrested the following day.

In the elections held after the Emergency was lifted in March 1977, the Janata Party trounced the Congress, winning 295 of the 543 seats. This was the first such setback for the Congress. This Janata Party victory was unique given that no other non-Congress party emulated it and got majority till 2014 when the BJP stormed to power on the back of the Narendra Modi wave.

JP was not just a figurehead of the anti-Congress movement. Among the hardest workers of all those who were part of the andolan, he addressed rallies every other day despite requiring dialysis. Though part of the legacy of his movement was the next generation of leaders his movement created — from Lalu Prasad and George Fernandes to Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar — the Janata experiment faltered soon afterwards and the lessons of his Total Revolution call were forgotten, even by several of his protégés and followers. Now, it is up to those in charge of charting a path for the Opposition to remember those lessons.