LOKNAYAK JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

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Context: Prime Minister of India bowed to Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan on his Jayanti.

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He was influenced by Marxist ideas in the USA and Gandhian ideology.
In 1929, he joined the Indian National Congress.
In 1932 imprisoned for a year for participation in the civil disobedience movement.
He played a key role in the formation of the Congress Socialist Party (1934), a left-wing group within the Congress Party.
In 1948, he left the Congress Party and initiated an anti-Congress Campaign.
In 1952, he formed the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
In 1954, he devoted his life exclusively to the Bhoodan Yajna Movement, of Vinoba Bhave, which demanded land redistribution to the landless.
In 1959 he argued for a “reconstruction of Indian polity” by means of a four-tier hierarchy of village, district, state, and union councils (Chaukhamba Raj).
He advocated a program of social transformation which he termed ‘Sampoorna Kranti' in 1974 against corruption in public life.
Jayaprakash Narayan was posthumously conferred with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna (1999), for his "invaluable contribution to the freedom struggle and upliftment of the poor and downtrodden".