Recently, the Prime Minister has paid tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Birth Anniversary (11th November).
Context
Recently, the Prime Minister has paid tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Birth Anniversary (11th November).
Who was Acharya Kripalani?
- Born on 11th November 1888 in Hyderabad, Sindh, Acharya Kripalani was an independence activist, Indian politician and an Educationist.
- His original name was Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani but was popularly known as Acharya Kripalani.
- He was married to Sucheta Kripalani, India’s first woman Chief Minister, who led Uttar Pradesh from 1963 to 1967. She remained in Congress after Independence.
- He, along with Vinoba Bhave, was involved in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.
- He earned the moniker ‘Acharya’ around 1922 when he was teaching at the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by the Mahatma a couple of years before.
- Independence Activist:
- He was involved in the organization of the
- Non-Cooperation Movement
- Civil Disobedience movements
- Quit India Movement
- He was the President of the Indian National Congress (INC) at the time of independence.
- He served in the Interim Government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India.
- Political Career: Post-independent India
- Post-independence, he left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP). This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
- He remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967 as a member of the Praja Socialist Party.
- Kripalani moved the first-ever No-confidence motion in Lok Sabha in 1963, immediately after the India-China War.
- He remained a critic of Nehru's policies and Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. He was arrested during the Emergency.
- His autobiography ‘My Times’ was released 22 years after his death in 2004.
