After reading the 512 page book titled “Rajnarayan is not a name but history” edited by my Lucknow friend Shahnawaz Ahmad Qadri, I am writing this article as a self-confession and to review the book. Although Shahnawaz ji had been urging me for a long time to write something on Rajnarayan ji. But whatever I had heard about Rajnarayan ji from the leaders of the Praja Socialist Party of Maharashtra since childhood, he was nothing more than a ridiculous person. But after reading this book, I have no hesitation in accepting that the image I had about Rajnarayan ji was wrong. And after Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, Rajnarayan ji was one of the people who truly lived up to his “prison, vote and shovel principle”.
Raj Narayan ji, born 30 years before independence (23 November 1917), lived a total of 69 years. (Died 31 December 1986) Born in a royal family of Kashi, Raj Narayan ji lived a life like a fakir. Although being the father of four sons and a daughter and being born in a feudal family himself, in the era of so-called political successors, none of his family members are in politics. All of them lived a normal life, that too on their own strength, educated and got jobs. Recently, the third son Mr. Jai Prakash, who retired from the job of Uttar Pradesh Government and lived in Allahabad, died. The eldest son Bhuvaneshwar Prakash died of illness in his youth. The second son Mohanji lives in the village and does farming. And the younger son Om Prakash, retired from the job of a bank and lives in Varanasi. And daughter Savitri Devi is married in Azamgarh. The reason for giving all this in detail is that what was the image of Raj Narayan ji in our own eyes? And what is the real situation? People should know this, so I am giving it.
Raj Narayan’s political career started when he was 13 years old (1930). He started his life as a student leader of Banaras University. And he was first arrested in 1939 for anti-war protests. So, he was imprisoned for five years before the age of 30, until independence was achieved as per Lohia’s jail, shovel and vote.
After independence, as per the slogan of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia “He who tills the land and sows it is its owner”, all the people who were Jyothidar (owners) of their ancestral land were declared owners of their share of the land.
The Satyagraha movement for Dalits’ entry into Vitthal temple of Pandharpur in Maharashtra was started in 1948 under the leadership of Saneguruji. And there is a lot of discussion about it. But in 1956, the Satyagraha movement for Dalits’ entry into Kashi Vishwanath temple was led by Rajnarayanji. And during that Satyagraha, police and army were deployed. But Rajnarayanji did Satyagraha without caring about the army and police. In which the police beat him till he was covered in blood. And he was imprisoned for six months in an injured state. But he took rest only after Dalits were allowed to enter the temple and digging out the plaque outside the temple that read “Entry of Dalits is prohibited”.
And in the same way, the British rule was removed, but in 1957, despite ten years of independence, the statues of the British were present everywhere. Rajnarayan ji was the first leader who, on this issue, regarding the statue of Queen Victoria in Benia Bagh of Banaras, first requested the government in a way that “now the native people have come in place of the British, so these statues, which are symbols of slavery, should be removed.” But when the government rejected the demand to remove the statue, how was Rajnarayan ji going to agree? So he started a movement in a hallabol style. And despite heavy police arrangements, he reached the statue with his companions and stopped only after demolishing it.
However, during his act, the police were continuously lathi-charging him. And after that, he was put in jail for 27 months. This means that Raj Narayan ji has been in jail for a longer period after independence than before independence. Apart from the 19 months of emergency.
And in that too, in the light of the 1971 Bangladesh war of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, no leader from all opposition parties, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was ready to contest the election against her. Raj Narayan ji alone accepted this challenge and contested the election from Rae Bareli. And even after losing, he did not give up. Because he filed a petition in Allahabad High Court against Indira Gandhi ji on the charge of rigging in the election. And despite everyone making fun of him (even the socialists), Raj Narayan ji did not give up. He said that “Mrs. Indira Gandhi has rigged the election.” And surprisingly, Raj Narayan ji won his case against Mrs. Indira Gandhi in Allahabad High Court.
And anyway, there was a student movement going on in India from Gujarat to Bihar. And it was being led by Jayaprakash Narayan. On 12 June 1975, a judge named Jagmohan Lal Sinha of Allahabad High Court said in his judgment that “Mrs. Indira Gandhi won the election because of using corrupt methods in her election. Therefore, she is disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha”. And there was an earthquake-like atmosphere in the whole world. And mainly after the independence of India, for the first time in the history of our court, a judge raised the prestige of the court by giving a judgment against the person sitting on the highest post in the country. And the people who considered Rajnarayan ji a clown suddenly started considering him a national level leader. And since then, the word Netaji in front of Rajnarayan ji’s name has continued even after his death.
Indira Gandhi, fed up with the movement of Jayaprakash Narayan and the defeat of Raj Narainji’s case and the strike of railway employees led by George Fernandes, declared emergency on 25 June 1975.
And after nineteen months, on the basis of reports of various agencies, the fifth Lok Sabha was dissolved in January 1977 and elections were announced. And Raj Narayan ji announced from jail itself, “that I will contest the elections against Mrs. Indira Gandhi.” Although he was released on the 8th of February, he remained firm on his decision. His well-wishers said “that you should contest elections from two places.” For this, he was asked to contest from Pratapgarh. (Because out of the five assembly seats from that parliamentary constituency, three were with the Socialists!). Therefore, all the comrades insisted that he should contest from both the places. But he did not agree. And he stood only from Rae Bareli. And won against Mrs. Indira Gandhi by 52 thousand votes.
And that is why Raj Narayan’s name was written in golden letters in the history of Indian democracy. He was given titles ranging from the Jimmy Carter of India to the Giant Killer. The media of India and the world have given him great respect. I mean, what all sentences did the same media not use about Raj Narayan as a clown a few days ago? And today the same media is praising him and building a pool of praise for him.
In 1977, as Health Minister in the Janata Government, he took the decision to give equal status to Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, and other traditional systems of medicine, which were neglected in India, with Allopathy for the first time.
I had tried a lot for this in my days in Homeopathy College as the college’s GS. I had gone to Delhi (1971-72) and met the then President Shri V.V. Giri at Rashtrapati Bhawan with a delegation. I had demanded that Homeopathy and Ayurvedic systems of medicine, Unani and some other traditional systems of medicine which have been in practice for more than thousands of years, should be given the same status as Allopathy, taking classical cognizance of them. And within five years of my demand, Raj Narayan ji took this decision immediately after taking charge of the Health Ministry, so I went to Delhi and handed over a special thank you memorandum to him.
For me, the most important thing is that, considering the relationship of Jansangh with RSS, I had told respected S.M. Joshi ji during the Emergency, “that we can form an alliance with Jansangh for the elections for the time being, but by merging Socialist Party with this party, the Socialists will suffer a great loss. Because Jansangh is the political unit of RSS. Therefore, it will be a very wrong decision for the Socialists to form a party with a party whose ideological commitment is Hindutva, which is against socialism and secularism and which supports the capitalist system. And in this process, the Socialists will suffer the most. Therefore, an electoral alliance for the time being is fine. But forming a party with Jansangh is absolutely wrong.” And that is why I personally was not on the side of Janata Party. And I was made the President of Maharashtra Janata Party for Amravati Lok Sabha on the insistence of JP. So, in that capacity, respected S. M. Joshi ji said that “In your election, I myself will bring JP, Jagjivan Ram and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to Amravati for campaigning with all my might.” But when I did not agree, he requested me to become the General Secretary as the President of Maharashtra Janata Party.. I refused that too. Because today there is no need to tell how wrong the experiment of Janata Party with Jansangh was.
This is why when, within a few days, Raj Narayan ji saw the people of the Sangh interfering with the ministers of the Jana Sangh, he became alert and raised this issue before the formal Prime Minister Morarji Desai. But Morarji Bhai, who had worked as a collector in the British Raj before independence and considered himself more Gandhian than Jawaharlal Nehru and Vinoba Jaiprakash, simply ignored it. As, just before the Gandhi assassination, a police officer named Nagarwala, who was the Home Minister of Mumbai state, had written to Morarji Desai on 30 January 1948, a few days before, “I find the activities of barrister Vinayak Damodar Savarkar suspicious and this man is conspiring to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Therefore, please allow me to arrest him”. So Murarji Desai got angry at Nagarwala and scolded him saying “Beware if you touch Savarkar, riots will start in Maharashtra.” To bring out how old is Murarji Desai’s sympathy for Hindutvaists, I am quoting from Manohar Mulgaonkar’s book ‘The men who killed Gandhi’. Anyway, since the Congress was an old religious party, it had an affinity towards RSS. Rajnarayan ji was the first to raise the issue of dual membership within the party. But some people, in their greed for power, did not like what Rajnarayan ji said. So Rajnarayan ji resigned from his ministerial post. And came into the role of opposition against the government of his own party. And was trying to create public awareness on the issue of dual membership in the entire country. But since the media was full of RSS people from the very beginning, a special, fast-paced campaign was launched to tarnish the image of Rajnarayan ji. And seeing all this, he raised the flag of rebellion in July 1979 and broke the Janata Party and formed Janata Party Secular. And brought down the government of Morarji Desai. However, Madhu Limaye was fighting the battle intellectually regarding RSS in this work. And in the initial days, George Fernandes was supporting him. Who later went on to play the role of Hanumanji of RSS. And he has supported the Gujarat riots in the Lok Sabha. And he has given a clean chit to the incident of burning of Father Graham Staines and his two children, who had come from Australia and was serving the lepers of Manoharpukur of Kandhamal district of Orissa 25 years ago. I am shocked to see this phase of political downfall of George Fernandes in the last political innings of his life. Because I have seen with my own eyes the dissolution of the party of secular, socialist and more famous than Rajnarayan ji, socialist party in the presence of the last president of Samajwadi Party, George, in the lawn of Vitthalbhai Patel in Delhi with Acharya Kelkarji. And I myself was present in Gandhinagar from 27 February 2002 to 2 March, right from becoming the president of NDA in the new century to the state sponsored riots in Gujarat. And Narendra Modi, despite George being the defense minister, did not allow the army to come out of Ahmedabad airport for 24 hours. What responsibility was our country’s defense minister discharging in Gujarat when he told this to three thousand soldiers and their commander, Lieutenant General Zameeruddin Shah? And George Fernandes, who saw the Gujarat program with his own eyes, giving a speech in support of the Gujarat riots in the Lok Sabha, I felt that this was the beginning of George Fernandes’ political suicide. Therefore, in the fight against dual membership, Raj Narayan and Madhu Limaye both put their political careers at stake and fought against the Sangh. And the media wing of the Sangh has tried to tarnish the image of these two socialist leaders by running a program to destroy their idols. Therefore, our dear friend Shahnawaz Qadri sahab has spent money from his own pocket on Raj Narayan ji, which is a sign of his loyalty and commitment towards Raj Narayan ji. In this 512 page book, apart from memoirs, ideological articles, interviews given by Raj Narayan ji, articles written by Raj Narayan ji himself, and 144 pages of information have been given on the issues raised on 31 important issues about his parliamentary work from the Parliamentary Library. He has played a historic role in his parliamentary life on very important and important issues of the country. Any amount of praise for Shahnawaz Qadri sahab for providing very important information in the form of documents is less. Special heartfelt thanks to our friend Shahnawazi for doing the important work of highlighting the neglected swan of Indian politics.
I myself was present with Acharya Kelkar in the conference organized at Vithalbhai Patel Lawn, Delhi, for the merger of Socialist Party into Janata Party. The party was dissolved under the chairmanship of George Fernandes. Perhaps Acharya Kelkar would have been there at the time of the formation of the party (in 1934 in Nasik). I came into this world nineteen years later (in 1953) and hence I did not get a chance to be present at the time of its establishment. But I want to say that it is the irony of time that since the childhood of my heart, due to Rashtra Seva Dal, I was watching with my own eyes the conference of the merger of a party close to me. And I and Acharya Kelkar were forced to see that immersion in a very sad state of mind, as if seeing the dearest person of our life being burnt in fire.
Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal
