Acharya Kripalani

Acharya Kripalani

Part of: Mains GS-I: India’s freedom struggle and its fighters

• An Indian politician, noted particularly for holding the presidency of the Indian National Congress during the transfer of power in 1947
• Was long a Gandhian socialist, before joining the economically right wing Swatantra Party later in life
• He grew close to Gandhi and at one point, he was one of Gandhi’s most ardent disciples. He had served as the General Secretary of the INC for almost a decade, and was involved in the organisation of the Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement.
• In 1972-3, he agitated against the increasingly authoritarian rule of Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India. Kripalani and Jayaprakash Narayan felt that Gandhi’s rule had become dictatorial and anti-democratic.
• When the Emergency was declared as a result of the vocal dissent he helped stir up, the octogenarian Kripalani was among the first of the Opposition leaders to be arrested on the night of 26 June 1975. He lived long enough to survive the Emergency and see the first non-Congress government since Independence following the Janata Party victory in the 1977 polls.