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A new generation was churned out with the largest people’s movement in the independent India which shook Indira Gandhi’s government. It also tried to instill probity in the political life.

In the year 1974, “JP Movement was started by Jayaprakash Narayan, a charming and fiery leader, part of India’s struggle for Independence, against the authoritarian rule of the Congress, led by Indira Gandhi. He spearheaded this campaign at the fag end of his long political career and it represents a maturation of his political thinking and action.

He remembered and realized, during this movement, the power of the thought what Ram Manohar Lohia thought was his true potential—“JP can move the nation, provided the mover does not vacillate”. His role as the leader of the movement earned him the title of Loknayak—People’s Leader.

This movement provided the people an important channel through which they could express their resentment over many issues—rising prices, unemployment, food scarcity and corruption. Political dissent, public anger, the energy of the youth, and a vision for a society built on lokniti (peoples’ participation), rather than rajniti (political power) powered the movement.

The origins of the movement also lay in the Nav Nirman Movement of the youth in Gujarat in 1973-74, which was directed against corruption in the Congress government led by Chimanbhai Patel, with a demand for the government to be dismissed and the assembly dissolved.

Narayan brought together these diverse sentiments and differing political positions into a mass movement that was clearly anti-Congress, striving to establish the rule of law. The ideology of the movement developed while dealing with the Naxalites from 1969 onwards.

He felt that Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan Movement had failed to bring about change and had accepted the Congress misrule. The answer to this was a non-violent struggle, by the people, for a total revolution where Narayan would fight against the abuse of democratic institutions.