Long
before the Gandhian era had set in, there was
born, on 3 December 1884, in an obscure village
in the Saran district of North Bihar, Rajendra
Prasad, whose life was to be an embodiment of
the Gandhian principles. He was to Gandhiji, to
quote Sarojini Naidu, what John was to Christ.
Jawaharlal called him the symbol of Bharat and
found "truth looking at you through those
eyes."
As early as 1922 C. R. Das, the President of
the Gaya session of the Indian National Congress,
remarked, "At the moment Rajendra Prasad
appears to be the sole excuse for a further
honest trial of Gandhism to solve a political
problem." When this view was reported to
Motilal Nehru in January 1923, his reaction
was almost identical: "Das is certainly
correct. We have given a fair trial to Gandhism
for over two years. It seems to me that the
only good result it has yielded - I do not say
it will not yield better or more results-is
Babu Rajendra Prasad."
Four years later Vithalbhai Patel remarked,
"The one argument against the discontinuance
of the Gandhian cult is Rajendra Prasad."
Gandhiji himself once said of him: "There
is at least one man who would not hesitate to
take the cup of poison from my hands."
No wonder Gunther called him the heart of the
Congress organisation.
Another publicist wrote that Mahatma Gandhi
with his uncanny insight picked out and groomed
three of his colleagues for important roles
in national life. In Jawaharlal he saw the dynamism
of youth that never ages and a soaring idealism
intent on a synthesis of ethical values and
socio-economic objectives of modern revolutions.
In Sardar he saw the great pragmatist and the
man of iron will who knew how to get things
done. In Rajendra Prasad he saw a great deal
of himself.
Rajendra Prasad's great uncle, Chaudhuri Lal,
built the fortunes of the family, a zamindari
income of Rs. 7,000/- per year and substantial
farm lands. He was the Dewan of the Hathwa Raj,
highly respected by all, honest, loyal and efficient.
Rajendra Prasad's father, Mahadev Sahay, was
a country gentleman, a scholar of Persian and
Sanskrit. His hobbies were wrestling and horticulture
and he took delight in providing free Ayurvedic
and Unani treatment to patients who flocked
to him.
Rajendra Prasad's mother, Kamleshwari Devi,
was a devout lady who would not give up her
evening bath and Pooja even though plagued by
a cough which eventually proved fatal. Every
day she would tell stories from the Ramayana
to young Rajendra, as he huddled close to her,
eager and receptive, waiting for the light of
dawn to peep into the windowless bedroom of
the old-fashioned house. No wonder the Ramayana
by Tulsidas became his constant companion, though
he loved to browse occasionally on the upanishads
and other scriptures also.
The family shunned ostentations, lived simply
and mixed freely with the co-villagers. Disparities
were not irritating. There was a sense of community,
fellow-feeling and kindliness. All shared in
the festivals and the Poojas. The flow of village
life was quiet and gentle. All this left a deep
impress on young Rajendra's mind. The village
came to symbolise peace and repose.
At the age of five young Rajendra was, according
to the practice in the community to which he
belonged, put under a Maulavi who taught him
Persian. Later, he was taught Hindi and arithmetic.
After the completion of this traditional education
he was put in the Chapra Zilla School, from
which he moved to R. K. Ghosh's Academy in Patna
in order to be with his only brother, Mahendra
Prasad, who was eight years older than him and
who had joined the Patna College. When Mahendra
Prasad moved to Calcutta in 1897, Rajendra was
admitted into the Hathwa High School.
Soon he rejoined the Chapra Zilla School, from
where he passed the Entrance examination of
the Calcutta University at the age of eighteen,
in 1902, standing first in the first division.
When it is remembered that the educational jurisdiction
of the Calcutta University extended from Sadiya,
the easternmost frontier of British India, to
a little beyond Peshawar on the north-west,
the feat appears truly remarkable. He had been
married for five years at that time. His wife
Rajbanshi Devi was a true-to-tradition Hindu
lady, merging her identity totally in that of
the husband.
After passing the entrance examination Rajendra
Prasad joined the Presidency College, Calcutta,
and both brothers lived together for a time
in a room of the Eden Hindu Hostel. A plaque
still commemorates his stay, for practically
the whole of his University career, he stayed
in that room. Not many from Bihar had joined
that metropolitan institution. But, before long,
Rajendra Prasad gained immense popularity. This
was demonstrated in a remarkable early moment
in 1904 when as a third year student he won
in the first annual election for the post of
Secretary of the College Union against a senior
student belonging to a rich aristocratic family
of Calcutta.
Those were days when junior students did not
speak to their seniors unless spoken to. Rajendra
Prasad had, moreover, neither sought nor worked
for the post. Dr. P. K. Roy, the Principal,
in whose presence the election had taken place
by show of hands, was astounded by the result,
more than a thousand against seven, and enquired
as to what made Rajendra Prasad so popular.
The great scientist Jagdish Chandra Bose and
the highly respected P. C. Ray wanted him to
offer Science, but he preferred Arts, for though
he had topped in I. A. he had not topped in
the science subjects. While his remarkably distinguished
academic career continued and he capped it with
a First in Master of Law,other ideas occupied
his mind and heart. He had been initiated into
the cult of `Swadeshi' by his elder brother
even before his arrival in Calcutta.
Now he joined, while in B. A. (Hons.) Class,
the Dawn Society run by Satish Chandra Mukherjee.
Sister Nivedita, Surendranath Banerjea and many
other luminaries gave discourses here. There
were debating and essay-writing competitions
and he bagged many of the prizes. A new awareness
was dawning on him. The anti-partition agitation
stirred him. The processions, the slogans, the
speeches touched new chords. He collected the
Bihari students in Calcutta and they conducted
activities similar to those conducted by the
dawn Society.
The formation of the Bihari Students' Conference
followed in 1908. It was the first organisation
of its kind in the whole of India. It not only
led to an awakening, it nurtured and produced
practically the entire political leadership
of the twenties in Bihar.
At the time he set himself up as a legal practitioner
in Calcutta in 1911, apprenticed to Khan Bahadur
Shamsul Huda, he also joined the Indian National
Congress and was elected to the A. I . C. C.
A year earlier, he impressed Sir Asutosh Mukherjee
so deeply that the latter offered him a Lectureship
in the Presidency Law College. Gopal Krishna
Gokhale, the greatest political leader of India
in those days, had met him in Calcutta a year
earlier and had exhorted him to join the Servants
of India Society in Poona.
Due to lack of good management, the family estate
was in bad shape and Rajendra Prasad was looked
upon as the retriever. But he had no doubts
about what he should do. Though he could not
bring himself to have a straight talk with Mahendra
Prasad, his elder brother, he sought his permission
and blessing to join Gokhale through a letter
in which he gave vent to his innermost thoughts.
"Ambitions I have none," he had concluded,
"except to be of some service to the Motherland."
The shock and the anguish of his brother, however,
held him to the family. About that time his
mother died and his only sister Bhagwati Devi,
fifteen years older than him, returned to her
parent's home, a window at nineteen, and in
a way, took the place of his mother.
In 1916 Rajendra Prasad shifted to Patna on
the establishment of the High Court of Bihar
and Orissa. Soon, he succeeded in gaining a
marked ascendancy, not only over the clients
and his colleagues at the Bar, but even more
so on the Judges. His incisive intellect and
phenomenal memory were no doubt great assets,
but what really established his supremacy, over
the minds of the judges in particular, was his
innate integrity and purity of character, his
inability to stoop to any tactics to score a
point, to win a case. Often enough when his
adversary failed to cite a precedent, the Judges
asked Rajendra Prasad to cite a precedent against
himself.
Rajendra Prasad had first seen Gandhiji at a
meeting held in Calcutta in 1915 to honour him.
He was called `Karmavir Gandhi' in those days.
In the December 1916 session of the Congress,
held at Lucknow, he again saw Gandhiji. He knew
that the champaran Kisan leader Rajkumar Shukla
and Braj Kishore Prasad had requested Gandhiji
to pay a visit to Champaran. The session had
also adopted a resolution on the Champaran situation.
In the April 1917 A.I.C.C. session, held in
Calcutta, Gandhiji and Rajendra Prasad sat very
close to each other but he did not know that
Gandhiji was to be taken to his residence in
Patna on his way to Champaran. He, therefore,
left for Puri when the session ended. When Gandhiji
reached Rajendra Prasad's residence in Patna
next morning, the servant took him to be a client
and a villager and showed him the servants'
bathroom and the well outside.
Barefooted, clad in half achkan, dhoti and Kathiawadi
pugree, carrying in a roll his bedding and a
few dhotis and some food in a tin box, Gandhiji
looked very much an illiterate villager. Gandhiji
did not know what to do next, when, hearing
of his arrival, Mazharul Haq came and took him
to his palatial residence, Sikander Manzil.
There was a similar situation at Muzaffarpur
Junction Station where Acharya Kripalani, a
Professor in the local college, had come to
receive Gandhiji with a large number of students.
None had seen Gandhiji. None recognised him.
On return to Patna Rajendra Babu learnt all
that had happened and hastened to Motihari.
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He regarded his meeting with Gandhiji as the
turning-point in his career. He stayed with
Gandhaji till his trial was over. Thereafter,
things in the country took a different course,
by reason of the Rowlatt Act and the Punjab
upheaval, and, in 1920 even before the civil
disobedience and non-cooperation resolution
of the special session of the Congress held
in Calcutta in September had been confirmed
by the regular session held in December at Nagpur,
he took the plunge.
He openly pledged himself to defy unrighteous
laws, and resort to civil disobedience and non-cooperation
and thus he constituted himself more or less
as an outlaw in the eyes of the British Government
in India.
The decades that followed were years of intense
activity and heavy suffering. He ceased to be
a Senator of the University to the regret of
the British Vice-Chancellor. He withdrew his
sons, Mrityunjaya and Dhananjaya, and his nephew,
Janardan, from the Benares Hindu University
and other schools. He wrote articles for the
Searchlight and the Desh and collected funds
for these papers. He toured a lot, explaining,
lecturing, exhorting. He was the life-breath
of the constructive programme and a great votary
of Khadi.
He was the first leading political figure in
the Eastern Provinces to join forces with Gandhiji
at a time when the latter was without a large
and effective following. Another such leader
from the West who joined Gandhiji was Vallabhbhai
Patel. During the Nagpur Flag Satyagraha Rajendra
Babu and Vallabhbhai came closer. Rajendra Babu
cherished Sardar's friendship as one of the
most pleasant memories of his life.
He often went to Sabarmati and toured the country
with Gandhiji. He suffered several terms of
rigorous imprisonment. He suffered privations
for want of a regular income of his own. All
the while he suffered for asthma. He would not
accept any financial assistance from the Congress
or from any other source and depended mostly
on his elder brother.
He was in jail when on 15 January 1934 the devastating
earthquake in Bihar occurred. He was released
two days later. Though ailing, he set himself
immediately to the task of raising funds and
organising relief. The Viceroy also raised a
fund for the purpose. While his fund swelled
to over 38 lakhs, the Viceroy's fund, despite
his great influence, resources and prestige,
remained at one third of the amount.
The way relief was organised left nothing to
be desired. Nationalist India expressed its
admiration by electing him to be the President
of the Bombay session of the Indian National
Congress. Mahendra Prasad, his elder brother,
had died. The Congress through a resolution
remembered his social services and his devotion
to the national cause.
When the Congress Ministries were formed in
1937, it was the Parliamentary Board consisting
of Sardar Patel, Rajendra Babu and Maulana Azad,
which really and effectively provided guidance
and control. In 1939 when Subhas Chandra Bose
had to be relieved of the office of the Congress
President, it was Rajendra Prasad who was persuaded
to face the crisis and overcome it. The Congress
faced another crisis when Acharya Kripalani
resigned and Rajendra Babu had to step into
the breach even though he happened to be India's
Food and Agriculture Minister and President
of the Constituent Assembly.
He realised that industrialism had disrupted
the web of village life woven and integrated
for centuries. It had to be re-woven into a
new pattern. He wanted that pattern to be inspired
by Gandhian values; human needs and acquisitiveness
to be regulated through self-discipline; agricultural
production to be maximised; village industries
to be resuscitated and their scope enlarged;
the old sense of community to be recaptured.
But he found that the country was unable to
resist the pull of industrialisation, even hurriedly
thought-out industrialisation, and he was not
happy at the development.
This was one reason why he declined to accept
the Chairmanship of the Planning Commision.
This was why, when Wavell informally enquired
what portfolio he would choose if he were to
choose it for himself, he said that he hardly
needed time to think about it. It had to be
Food and Agriculture. Wavell was amused and
there was an unspoken why. "Well,"
Rajendra Babu went on, "the subject is
familiar to me."
He knew all that the best farmer knows about
agricultural operations and practices. But he
also realised that certain improvements had
to be effected on those methods. The slogan
'Grow More Food' was given by him and the campaign
was initiated by the Food Ministry under his
guidance. He could not, however, continue for
long in that Ministry and ensure compliance
with the policies initiated by him. But, before
he relinquished charge, he did, as Gandhiji
wanted, effect decontrol of foodgrains, and
though officials and public men alike had prophesied
disaster, nothing untoward happened.
His stewardship of the Constituent Assembly
was exemplary. He guided, regulated, controlled,
but did so with such infinite patience, skill,
grace and firmness that not only none had a
sense of grievance but all felt that the discussions
were always full, free and frank and left nothing
to be desired. During the very first session
of the Constituent Assembly, he had announced
that though the Assembly was born under limitations
it would ourgrow those and function as a sovereign
body recognising no outside authority.
The proceedings of the last day of Constituent
Assembly read like pages from a book of tributes
and, in a way, indicate how loved and respected
he was by each section of the House. His elevation
to the Presidentship in 1950 came as a matter
of course. There were some doubts in some quarters.
Could a person who was temperamentally a peasant,
who lived and dressed like one, impress in an
office where ceremonials and gilded trappings
counted? But nothing else was possible. He was
the only choice and there could not be another.
As President, he exercised his moderating influence
and moulded policies or actions so silently
and unobtrusively that many were led to think
that, unlike any other Head of State, he neither
reigned nor ruled.
He never worried about what people said about
him. He never looked into the mirror of history.
There were occasions when he differed from the
Prime Minister. But that was nothing new. They
had differed for almost three decades and yet
worked together in the Congress. The differences
never embittered their personal relations. Perhaps,
both realised that they arose out of their differing
backgrounds, beliefs, approaches and attitudes.
It was in 1960 that he announced his intention
to retire, and though there were many regrets
and many tried to persuade him to continue for
a third term, his mind was made up. Jayaprakash
Narayan welcomed the decision, suggesting that
his direct guidance might to available after
retirement to the Sarvodaya Movement. But the
1961 illness, severe and protracted, shattered
Rajendra Prasad's health completely. Many, therefore,
worried at his decision to go back to the Sadaquat
Ashram. How could he guide any constructive
movement with that frail body of his? Would
not the inconveniences of the Ashram prove too
much for his health?
His elder sister Bhagwati Devi had passed away
in the night of 25 January 1960. She doted on
her dearly-loved younger brother, to whose house
she had returned within two years of her marriage,
a window at nineteen. It must have taken Rajendra
Babu all his will power to have taken the Republic
Day salute, as usual, on the following day,
seemingly unruffled. It was only on return from
the parade that he set about the task of cremation.
Within months of his retirement, early in September
1962, passed away his wife Rajbanshi Devi, whose
contribution to making him what he was, thought
indirect, was considerable. Frail and an invalid
for a long time, she was the very embodiment
of the spirit of renunciation, selflessness,
self-effacement and devotion. She had asked
for little and though she had been only partly
a companion to him, she had silently encouraged
him and never stood in the way. Her husband's
will was her will, his pleasure hers. Not many
words were exchanged between the two-they would
sit quietly together for hours-and yet their
silent communion filled the atmosphere with
distinct aura.
No wonder, his last days were days of agony.
The Chinese aggression had shaken him completely.
He had apprehended the danger. He had thought
of the dreaded possibility. But "perhaps
those who thought otherwise knew better."
This consolation was shaken away by the naked
aggression. His will to live was weakening.
In a letter to one devoted to him, he wrote
a month before his death: "I have a feeling
that the end is near, end of the energy to do,
end of my very existence. "And so, when
the end came suddenly on 28 February 1963, he
was not unprepared. He died, after a few hours'
illness, with 'Ram Ram' on his lips.
Ever since the present Contributor came near
him in 1933, the bond grew stronger as the years
passed. Rajendra Prasad had great affection
for him and valued his judgement.
Rajendra Babu and the present Contributor were
together in the Birla House when the Interim
Government was formed in September 1946. Rajendra
Babu said, "We must now move to our residences.
"The present Contributor had brought nothing
except his clothes, and wondered as to how to
go about setting up a home. When he reached
No. 3 Queen Victoria Road-now Dr. Rajendra Prasad
Road-in the evening, he was pleasantly surprised
to find that not only were all provisions and
utensils and crockeries there, but even the
statue of goddess Lakshmi had not been forgotten.
Rajendra Babu shared Gandhiji's great vision,
the making of a new man in a new society. His
mind was capable of broad sweeps. But it would
take in at the same time the smallest details.
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