Dr.
Rajendra Prasad
Date of Birth : Dec 3, 1884 Date of
Death : Feb 28, 1963 Place of Birth : Zeradei, Bihar Tenure Order : 1st
President Took Office : Jan 26, 1950 Left Office : May 13, 1962 Successor :
Dr.S Radhakrishnan
Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the first
President of India. Rajendra Prasad was a great freedom-fighter, and the
architect of the Indian Constitution, having served as President of the Constituent
Assembly that drafted the Constitution of the Republic from 1948 to 1950. He
had also served as a Cabinet Minister briefly in the first Government of
Independent India. He was a crucial leader of the Indian Independence Movement.
Prasad was born in Jiradei, in the Siwan district of Bihar. His father, Mahadev
Sahay, was a Persian and Sanskrit language scholar; his mother, Kamleshwari
Devi, was a devout lady who would tell stories from the Ramayana to her son. At
the age of 5, the young Rajendra Prasad was sent to a Maulavi for learning
Persian. After that he was sent to Chapra Zilla School for further primary
studies.
He was married at the age of 12 to
Rajvanshi Devi. He then went on to study at R.K. Ghosh’s Academy in Patna to be
with his older brother Mahendra Prasad. Soon afterward, however, he rejoined
the Chapra Zilla School, and it was from there that he passed the entrance
examination of Calcutta University, at the age of 18. He stood first in the
first division of that examination. He then joined the Presidency College,
Calcutta. He was initially a student of science and his teachers included
J.C.Bose and Prafulla Chandra Roy. Later he decided to switch his focus to the
arts. Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy, who was impressed by his intellect and
dedication asked him on the occasion “Why have you deserted your class?.”
Prasad lived with his brother in the Eden Hindu Hostel. A plaque still
commemorates his stay in that room. He had been initiated into the Swadeshi
movement by his brother. He then joined the Dawn Society run by Satish Chandra
Mukherjee, and Sister Nivedita. In 1911, he joined the A.I.C.C. However, his
family estate was in bad condition. He was looked upon as the provider. But he
sought permission from his brother in a letter to join the Indian freedom
movement. He wrote, “Ambitions I have none, except to be of some service to the
Motherland”. The shock of his brother, however, held him to the family. In
1916, Rajendra Prasad joined the High Court of Bihar, and Orissa. Such was his
intellect and his integrity, that often when his adversary failed to cite a
precedent, the judges asked Rajendra Prasad to cite a precedent against
himself. After meeting Mahatma Gandhi, he quit as a Senator of the University,
much to the regret of the British Vice-Chancellor.He also responded to the call
by the Mahatma to boycott Western education by asking his son Mrityunjaya
Prasad, a brilliant student to drop out of the University and enroll himself in
Bihar Vidyapeeth, an institution he had along with his colleagues founded on
the traditional Indian model. He wrote articles for Searchlight and the Desh
and collected funds for these papers. He toured a lot, explaining, lecturing
and exhorting. When the earthquake of Bihar occurred on January 15, 1934, Rajendra
Prasad was in jail. He was released two days later. He set himself for the task
of raising funds. The Viceroy had also raised a fund. However, while Rajendra
Prasad’s fund collected over 38 Lakhs (Rs. 3,800,000), the Viceroy could only
manage one-third of that amount. The way relief was organized left nothing to
be desired. Nationalist India expressed its admiration by electing him to the
President of the Bombay session of the Indian National Congress.
After India became independent he
was elected the President of India. As President, he used his moderating
influence so silently and unobtrusively that he neither reigned nor ruled. His
sister Bhagwati Devi died on the night of 25 January 1960. She doted on her
dearly-loved younger brother. It must have taken Rajendra Prasad all his will
power to have taken the Republic Day salute as usual, on the following day. It
was only on return from the parade that he set about the task of cremation. In
1962, after 12 years as President, he announced his decision to retire. He was
subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation’s highest civilian award.
Within months of his retirement, early in September 1962, his wife Rajvanshi
Devi passed away. In a letter written a month before his death to one devoted
to him, he said, “I have a feeling that the end is near, end of the energy to
do, end of my very existence”. He died on 28 February 1963 with ‘Ram Ram Ram’
on his lips. Because of the enormous public adulation he enjoyed, he was
referred to as Desh Ratna or the Jewel of the country. His legacy is being ably
carried forward by his great grandson Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad, a psychiatrist and
a scientist of international repute who introduced sodium valproate as a safer
alternative to lithium salts in the treatment of bipolar disorders.
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