Rajendra Prasad

Rajendra Prasad (born December 3, 1884, Zeradei, India—died February 28, 1963, Patna) was an Indian politician, lawyer, and journalist who was the first president of the Republic of India (1950–62). He also was a comrade of Mahatma Gandhi early in the noncooperation movement for independence and was president of the Indian National Congress (1934, 1939, and 1947).

Education

Prasad was an exceptional student. He secured the first position in the entrance examination to the University of Calcutta and received a monthly scholarship. He completed his M.A. in economics with a first division (60 percent or higher; indicative of academic excellence) from the University of Calcutta in 1907. He pursued law at the Calcutta Law College and passed the Masters of Law examination in 1915. He practiced at the Calcutta High Court and in 1916 transferred to the Patna High Court and founded the Bihar Law Weekly.

Political involvement

In 1917 he was recruited by Gandhi to help in a campaign to improve conditions for peasants exploited by British indigo planters in Bihar. In the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917, Prasad worked alongside Gandhi to organize the farmers and document their grievances against the system that forced them to grow indigo on 3/20ths of each landholding without fair compensation. His involvement included coordinating efforts to gather information about the injustices faced by the farmers. He gave up his law practice in 1920 to join the noncooperation movement. As an active journalist in the nationalist interest, he wrote for Searchlight in English, founded and edited the Hindi weekly Desh (“Country”), and started his lifelong campaign to establish Hindi as the national language. Imprisoned several times by the British for noncooperation activities, he served nearly three years (August 1942–June 1945) in jail with the Congress Party’s Working Committee.

In September 1946 Prasad was sworn in as minister for food and agriculture in the interim government preceding full independence. From 1946 to 1949 he presided over the Indian Constituent Assembly and helped to shape the constitution. He was unanimously elected provisional president of India in 1950 and, after the first general election (1952), was chosen by an overwhelming majority of the new electoral college; in 1957 he was elected to a second term.

Later life

Prasad retired from public life in 1962 because of his deteriorating health. That same year he was honored with the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award. His autobiography, Atmakatha, was published in 1946. He is also the author of India Divided (1946), Mahatma Gandhi and Bihar, Some Reminiscences (1949), and other books.