Ram Vilas Paswan

Patna, June 3: The man who made the crusade against corruption his calling card continues to be a rallying point for his followers.

Long before Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev launched their own hunger-strikes, Jaiprakash Narayan had stirred an entire generation with his call for sampoorn kranti or total revolution.

His followers, who have ruled Bihar for the past two decades, continue to believe in the power of the man they called Loknayak.

No wonder then that Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan, part of the student agitation of the seventies, have decided to launch their re-entry into Bihar politics after the six-month hiatus following the electoral debacle, on June 5 — the birth anniversary of JP and the day the movement had begun in 1974.

Their barbs, predictably, will be aimed at two other followers of JP — chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi.

Hazare and Ramdev may be creating waves though their dharnas against corruption in Delhi, but the ageing “Total Revolutionists” (followers of JP) appear to be amused. “The sampoorn kranti call given by JP in the mid-1970s, in which eradication of corruption was the key demand, had evoked an even more frenzied response. But look at the state now. For over two decades the followers of JP have been at the helm of affairs (in Bihar). The situation on the corruption front has gone from bad to worse,” remarked a follower of JP.

The frenzied response to Hazare and Ramdev is like a replay of the 1970s for many of them. “The followers of Gandhi took over the country. But look at the country’s state now. The disparity among people is even greater than in the British regime. But it does not make Gandhi irrelevant. Similarly JP cannot be irrelevant as long as corruption is an issue,” said JD(U) MP Shivanand Tiwari, who was among the frontline student leaders of the JP movement. He, however, insisted that Nitish will be looked upon as a person who is honestly trying to implement the agenda of the late leader.

“JP was candid about his failure after removal of the Indira Gandhi government. He did say that the people had been fooled again and his struggle had been reduced to a vehicle of power change rather than change in the system,” said the secretary of Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Razi Ahmad, recalling how frustrated the late leader was.

Nitish, Lalu Prasad, Sushil Modi and several ministers and leaders are products of the JP agitation. In 1990, his followers went through the ritual of offering floral tributes to his statue. However, the state also witnessed some of the biggest corruption scandals — bitumen, fodder and talent scams have caught the headlines.

“Very few recall that the basis of sampoorn kranti was to fight corruption. It took place 37 years before Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev began to speak against corruption,” pointed out a former student leader of the JP agitation.

Like his crusade, dust is gathering at the memorial in his honour. Jai Prakash Ashram on Jagat Narayan Road in Kadamkuan was one of the famous addresses in the 1970s visited by the who’s who of India if they happened to be in Patna. Today it wears a deserted look.

“The total number of visitors last year was around 250. The number of persons coming to the JP Study Centre is about 10,” said Kiran Nath, the librarian. “The museum of JP is only visited by followers of JP and not the masses. Their numbers are getting smaller as many of them have become too old or have died,” said Usha Kiran Khan, writer and president of the Charkha Samiti, an organisation founded by JP.

The residence-turned-museum of the Loknayak is struggling to survive with government aid not coming in. Its expenses are met with the products made by the Charkha Samiti. “Sometimes a few MPs like Ravi Shankar Prasad give funds for the institution from their MPLAD funds,” said Khan. The last substantial help came in 2002 when the Centre funded a building inside the campus.