Lesson 4 of 4 · 8 min
Kisan Sabha, Quit India and the Leaders of Bihar
Swami Sahajanand Saraswati and the bakasht struggles, the Triveni Sangh, the seven martyrs of the Patna Secretariat, JP's escape from Hazaribagh jail, and the leaders Bihar gave India.
Audio explainerabout 2 min · listen while you revise
The peasant movement
Even after Champaran, most of Bihar's peasants lived under powerful zamindars. In the 1920s and 30s they organised themselves.
- Swami Sahajanand Saraswati founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha at the Sonpur fair in 1929. He became the first president of the All India Kisan Sabha (Lucknow, 1936).
- Bakasht struggles (1937–39): bakasht was land that zamindars claimed as their "own cultivation", evicting tenants who had farmed it for generations. The Kisan Sabha resisted the evictions.
- Karyanand Sharma led the struggle at Barahiya Tal (Lakhisarai).
- The scholar-traveller Rahul Sankrityayan was jailed after leading it at Amwari (Saran).
- The Triveni Sangh (1933–34) united Yadav, Kurmi and Koeri cultivators of Shahabad against upper-caste landlord dominance: an early sign of the backward-class politics of later Bihar.
Quit India, 1942
After the Congress passed the Quit India resolution on 8 August 1942, its leaders were arrested. In Bihar the movement turned into a mass rising.
- 11 August 1942: students marched to the Patna Secretariat to hoist the national flag. Police fired and seven students were killed. The Shaheed Smarak (martyrs' memorial) stands at the spot.
- Railway lines, stations and telegraph wires were attacked across north and central Bihar. For several weeks British rule broke down in many areas, and Bihar was among the most intense centres of the movement in India.
- Jayaprakash Narayan escaped from Hazaribagh Central Jail on Diwali night, 9 November 1942, with Yogendra Shukla, Suraj Narayan Singh and others. From bases in Nepal he organised the Azad Dasta guerrilla squads.
Leaders Bihar gave India
| Leader | Remember for |
|---|---|
| Dr Rajendra Prasad | Champaran; President of the Constituent Assembly; first President of India |
| Shri Krishna Sinha | "Bihar Kesari"; first Chief Minister; zamindari abolition; Dalit temple entry at Deoghar (1953) |
| Anugrah Narayan Sinha | "Bihar Vibhuti"; Champaran; first Deputy CM and Finance Minister |
| Sachchidananda Sinha | Campaign for Bihar; interim (first) President of the Constituent Assembly |
| Mazharul Haque | Gave the land for Sadaqat Ashram; Home Rule leader |
| Hasan Imam | Presided over the special Bombay Congress (1918) |
| Swami Sahajanand Saraswati | Kisan Sabha |
| Jayaprakash Narayan | Congress Socialist Party (1934); Quit India; "Total Revolution" (1974) |
| Jagjivan Ram | Dalit leader; Union minister; Deputy Prime Minister (1977–79) |
| Karpoori Thakur | "Jan Nayak"; CM; Karpoori formula of reservation (1978); Bharat Ratna 2024 |
Exam tip: Three "firsts" from Bihar: first President of India (Rajendra Prasad), first (interim) President of the Constituent Assembly (Sachchidananda Sinha), first CM of Bihar (Shri Krishna Sinha).