January 24 marks the birth anniversary of this legendary leader
Law Kumar Mishra
My first meeting with Karpoori Thakur took place in 1969 at the Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Hall in Chhajubagh.
Kishore Bharti, a monthly magazine for students, had organized an all-Bihar inter-school debate competition on whether students should participate in politics. The event was chaired by the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court, Satish Chandra Mishra, and Karpoori Thakur, then Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister, was the chief guest. He was the one who distributed the prizes. It was during his 1967 tenure in the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal government that the “Pass Without English” category was implemented for Matriculation results.
He provided active leadership during the JP Movement, even resigning from his MLA post. He remained underground throughout the Emergency. When JP held his first massive public meeting at Gandhi Maidan after the Emergency ended, Thakur suddenly appeared there despite an active MISA warrant against him. He walked among the crowds returning through Exhibition Road and finally went “overground” at the Mahila Charkha Samiti in Kadamkuan. In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, he was elected as an MP and was later appointed the Chief Minister of Bihar based on Assembly election results.
After being declared the leader, I interviewed him for the Searchlight newspaper while he sat on a simple wooden chair at the residence of socialist leader Pranav Chatterjee. I witnessed DIG Badri Narayan Sinha salute him as they discussed the oath-taking ceremony. After becoming CM, he resigned from the Lok Sabha and won the assembly seat from Phulparas. Under his leadership, the Mungeri Lal Commission report was implemented, introducing reservations for 26 backward classes for the first time, and he also nationalized sugar mills in the state.
Karpoori Thakur’s integrity extended to his dealings with the press. He would visit the Searchlight office on the eve of cabinet meetings to brief the editor and request editorials. However, the editor was eventually let go with a three-month severance check because the owners of the sugar mills he nationalized were the same as the newspaper’s owners. His personal life was defined by extreme simplicity.
Once, arriving home late to find supporters sleeping on his bed, the Chief Minister simply spread a blanket on the floor and slept there. Brahmadev Ram, secretary to then Home Minister Ramanand Tiwari, recalls visiting the CM for an urgent file only to find him sitting on a wooden chauki wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by common people. He never reprimanded officials, choosing instead to discuss matters while sitting with them in the back of his Ambassador car without any security fanfare.
He owned no personal vehicle and had no special privileges as an ex-CM. Once, he waited two hours for a vehicle arranged by Bindeshwar Pathak for a trip to Chapra. In 1980, he famously took a lift on a Vespa scooter from his former Minister of State, Mithilesh Kumar Singh, to visit wedding ceremonies in Patna. Gautam Sagar Rana recalls returning from Jehanabad late at night when they ate for free at a small, unhygienic dhaba near Patna Junction owned by a former JP movement activist.
The most striking example of his principles occurred when Mahavir Prasad, a party member in the Rajya Sabha, resigned his seat to help an industrialist enter the Upper House. Prasad called it a “sacrifice,” but Karpoori Thakur called him a “Paaji” (scoundrel) to his face. He had received reports that the seat had been sold for money. His commitment to political purity was so absolute that he never hesitated to call out corruption, even within his own inner circle.
(The author is a senior journalist based at Patna in Bihar)
