Dr. Rajendra Prasad

Context: Prime Minister of India pays tributes to Rajendra Prasad on his birth anniversary on 3rd December 2022.

About Dr. Rajendra Prasad:

Personal Life:

• Birth: He was born on 3rd December 1884 in the Siwan district of Bihar.
• Education: He joined the famed Calcutta Presidency College in 1902. After completing his Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Calcutta in 1907, he went on to study law at the Calcutta Law College and practised at the Calcutta High Court.
• He completed his Doctorate in Law from Allahabad University in 1937.
• In the early 1920s, he became the editor of a Hindi weekly Desh and an English biweekly, Searchlight.

Indian National Movement:

• Prasad attended the 1906 Calcutta session of Indian National Congress.
• He joined the party in 1911 and later elected to the All India Congress Committee after which he met Mahatma Gandhi.
• He was highly impressed by Mahatma Gandhi and he supported Gandhi during the Satyagraha Movement against Indigo Planters in Champaran, Bihar.
• He later quit his lucrative career as a lawyer in 1920 and jumped into Freedom Struggle Movement and participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• He led the Non-Cooperation Movement in Bihar holding meetings, touring state and making speeches. He urged people to boycott government schools, colleges, jobs.
• He started the National College in Patna in 1921 to promote Swadeshi asking people to boycott foreign goods.
• He set up the Quetta Central Relief Committee in Sindh and Punjab under his own presidency after 1935 Quetta Earthquake.
• Prasad was elected as the President of the Bombay Session of the Indian National Congress in October 1934.
• He was also elected as the President for second time in 1939 after Subhash Chandra Bose resigned from his post and third time President of INC in 1947 when J.B.Kripalani resigned from his post.
• Prasad was arrested several times during the national struggle and imprisoned by British authorities during the Salt Satyagraha of 1931 and the Quit India Movement of 1942.

Contribution to Constitution Making:

• In 1946, Rajendra Prasad joined the Interim Government of India as the Minister of Food and Agriculture.
• As a firm believer in the maximization of agricultural production, he crafted the slogan “Grow More Food.”
• He was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly from the Bihar Province where he served as the president of the Constituent Assembly from 1946 to 1950.
• On 24th January 1950, at the last session of the Constituent Assembly, Prasad was elected as the President of India and has the distinction of being the only President to have been re-elected for a second term.
• Committees of Constituent Assembly under the chairmanship of Dr. Prasad includes:
  • Ad hoc Committee on the National flag
  • Committee on the Rules of Procedure
  • Finance and Staff Committee
  • Steering Committee

Literary Works:

• Satyagraha at Champaran (1922)
• India Divided (1946)
• Atmakatha (1946) his autobiography written during his 3 year prison term in Bankipur Jail
• Mahatma Gandhi and Bihar, Some Reminiscences (1949)
• Bapu Ke Kadmon Mein (1954)
• Since Independence (1960)

Source:  The Hindu

Previous Year Questions

Q.1) Who among the following was associated as Secretary with Hindu Female School which later came to be known as Bethune Female School? (2022)

1. Annie Besant
2. Debandranath Tagore
3. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
4. Sarojini Naidu

Q.2) He wrote biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Shivaji and Shrikrishna; stayed in America for some time; and was also elected to the Central Assembly. He was                  (2018)

1. Aurobindo Ghosh
2. Bipin Chandra Pal
3. Lala Lajpat Rai
4. Motilal Nehru