BIOGRAPHY
Balanced view
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`It is to the credit of Ajit Bhattacharjea that he has broken the cycle of hagiography and demonology by producing an excellent and balanced biography of JP... '
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JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN, better known as JP, was an outstanding son of India and one of the country's distinguished leaders in the 20th Century. His popularity as a freedom fighter and hero of the 1942 Quit India movement was at one time second only to that of Jawaharlal Nehru whose "natural successor" he was generally perceived to be then. Nehru's own estimate of JP was very high, as is underscored by the first Prime Minister's more than one invitation to him to join the Government so that the two could build together the socialist India of their shared dreams. These invitations the younger man declined on the grounds that, in retrospect at least, do not appear weighty. To speculate on what if his response had been positive would be pointless.
Endless polarisation
As it happened, JP, a confirmed Marxist at the start of his political career, later became the chief promoter of democratic socialism in India conspicuously without success. And then, following a "zigzag and tortuous" course — to use his own words — he opted for partyless democracy and Sarvodaya requiring retirement from active politics. From this self-exile he emerged in the last years of his life to wage his famous struggle against Indira Gandhi and her "corrupt" and "authoritarian" rule that eventually led to her humiliating defeat in the post-Emergency General Election in 1977.
Strangely enough, this triumph, pyrrhic though it turned out to be, has had a distorting effect on his life story, as indeed that of Indira Gandhi, thanks to a combination of the apparently endless polarisation of Indian politics and society and utterly partisan approach of most Indians to history, recent or remote. What a quirk of irony it is that both JP and IG are deified by their ardent supporters and demonised by their inveterate critics.
It is to the credit of Ajit Bhattacharjea that he has broken the cycle of hagiography and demonology by producing an excellent and balanced biography of JP who, during the mid-1970s, did appear to be the country's conscience. Having said this let me hasten to declare interest. Ajit and I have been friends for more than 50 years and have worked together on two newspapers with remarkable lack of friction. But this has nothing to do with my assessment of his book.
We were together in The Times of India in Bombay (now Mumbai) when, a short few months before the imposition of the Emergency, Ajit suddenly left the paper to edit JP's weekly publication, Everyman, later incorporated with the Indian Express. His sympathy for and admiration of his subject are thus obvious, including in his narrative. But, far from being uncritical, he has used the wealth if information close association with JP gave him to shed light as much on the Gandhian leader's fine qualities as on his flaws and foibles.
Of particular interest is the chapter, appropriately titled "Betrayal", that gives a candid account of usually ambiguous and often strained relations between JP and the Prime Minister of the Janata Government, Morarji Desai, whose opinion of JP was at times only a little less unflattering than that of Indira Gandhi. JP had developed a habit of sending letters of recommendations to the Prime Minister (an important one he withdrew within six days, and some were incoherent because of the "disorienting" effect of heavy medication after his "suspicious illness" in prison) and these "reinforced the underlying disdain that Morarji had for JP and his views". Equally revealing are the lurid details of the manner in which the "elderly trio" of the Janata — Desai, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram — with their oversized egos and overweening ambitions destroyed the Janata.
Inevitably, this caused JP great pain and disappointment and perhaps hastened his end that the author describes most touchingly. Of course, Indira Gandhi was spectacularly back in power within 30 months flat. JP had foreseen this and said so to not only the smug Janata leaders but also to her when she called on him at Patna on the way back from her celebrated elephant ride to Belchi.
As the title of Bhattacharjea's book — an updated version of his first biography of JP, published in 1975 just before the hammer-blow of the Emergency — Unfinished Revolution, suggests, his emphasis, too, is on JP's massive struggle against Indira Gandhi and the subsequent "betrayal" of him by those he had brought to power. But the earlier years of JP's life, and his yeomen services to the country, are not overlooked. He reminds the reader that despite his self-exile from politics JP had done a lot to bring back peace to the insurgency-ravaged Nagaland, to get Sheikh Abdullah released from prolonged imprisonment, and to promote an understanding with Pakistan. More remarkably, in 1971 he strove hard to rouse the world's conscience against Pakistan's brutal atrocities on the Bangladeshi people before the liberation of their land.
A welcome part of the book delineates the history of this country's Socialist movement that was condemned never to succeed largely because of clashes and disputes among its leading lights.
Overstretched parallels
Bhattacharjea does concede that JP could be "utopian and impractical" but the recognition is inadequate, just as the parallels between Mahatma Gandhi and JP are a tad overstretched. The truth is that JP could be naοve, indecisive, confused and confusing. For instance, he not only endorsed Field-Marshal Ayub Khan's system of "Basic Democracy" but also commended it to India. Ditto the Nepali panchayati system through which King Mahendra transformed the Parliament in Kathmandu into a rubber stamp. Once he made the stunning statement that a brief spell of Army rule would "do the country good". All these ought to have been mentioned adequately in what is close to being JP's definitive biography.
These, however, are relatively minor omissions and cannot detract from Bhattacharjea's contribution to the writing of modern Indian history through his account of JP's life and times. A few photographs would have added to the quality of this well-written and eminently readable book.
INDER MALHOTRA
Unfinished Revolution: A Political Biography of Jayaprakash Narayan, Ajit Bhattacharjea, Rupa, p.467+ xxxiv, price Rs. 795.
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