Profile

A veteran India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n Freedom Fighter, Communist leader, thinker and writer on social issues, Jagannath Sarkar was born on 25 September 1919 in Puri

Puri

Puri is district headquarter, a city situated about south of state capital Bhubaneswar, on the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal in the Indian state of Orissa. It is also known as Jagannath Puri after the Jagannath Temple . It is a holy city of the Hindus as a part of the Char Dham pilgrimages...

 (Orissa

Orissa

Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...

, India). He belonged to an illustrious family of Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

. His father, Dr Akhilnath Sarkar was a renowned Gynaecologist, one of the pioneering doctors of Prince of Wales Medical College (now, Patna Medical College and Hospital), and his uncle, the well-known historian, Sir Jadunath Sarkar

Jadunath Sarkar

Sir Jadunath Sarkar was a prominent Indian Bengali aristocrat and historian.-Background:Born in Singra, Natore. He was the son of Rajkumar Sarkar, the Zamindar of Karchamaria in Natore in Bengal.-Education:...

. He grew up in the atmosphere of Bengal Renaissance, his family being deeply inspired by Ram Mohun Roy, Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...

 and Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

.

Interestingly, one of the priests of Ramakrishna Mission

Ramakrishna Mission

Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are twin organizations which form the core of a worldwide spiritual movement known as Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement. The Ramakrishna Mission is a philanthropic, volunteer organization founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on...

 at Patna

Patna

Paṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...

, which young Jagannath frequently visited, introduced him to Marxist literature

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, then banned in British India. While studying Economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 at Patna University, he started closely associating himself with the Freedom Movement and the nascent Communist Party in Bihar. With a keen scientific bend of mind, he was a popular activist among students and the educated class. After joining the Communist Party, he moved to the working class areas of Bihar and now Jharkhand

Jharkhand

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India. It was carved out of the southern part of Bihar on 15 November 2000. Jharkhand shares its border with the states of Bihar to the north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the west, Orissa to the south, and West Bengal to the east...

. He fought many battles for the miner

Miner

A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....

s' and colliery workers' rights in the forties and fifties.

Dr Akhilnath (who was earlier conferred Rai Bahadur) was known to be not only sympathetic to the cause his son and his comrades were fighting for, he silently kept providing resources from his earnings for the revolutionary

Revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...

 activities till his death.

He took over the leadership role of Communist Party in Bihar State in the fifties and sixties when the Party came to power. His legendary leadership against the votaries of military dictatorship

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

 and ideology

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

-less rule made him a popular name across the country. Several land reform

Land reform

[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

s in favour of landless labourers were also achieved during this period. Cutting across party lines, he is widely respected for his integrity, honesty and transparency.

All along, he continued to read, analyse and write on several social issues. Secularism

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

, left-wing extremism, tribal development, socialist ideological issues in India, Indian science policy issues are a few of them. A voracious reader, a powerful writer and a sharp analyst, he was a constant source of support to the progressive Hindi daily Janashakti, of which he was the patron and Editor for a long time.

In the seventies, he became a member of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party and moved to Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

. But true to his
convictions, at the age of 65, he decided to cease participation in active politics. He was extremely keen that the younger generation should come forward and play a leadership role in progressive movements.

Unfortunately, many of his writings are not easily traceable. From the set of retrieved work, a selected compilation

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 has been
published in the form of a book, ‘Many Streams,’ in 2010.

Many Streams

In an attempt to reach the thoughts and ideology

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

 of the Jagannath sarkar to today's generation his friends and colleagues has brought out a collection of his essays.

The book titled 'Many streams' has a collection of selected essays of Jagannath Sarkar and some reminiscences of his friends and colleagues. It was released on May 14, 2010 in Patna by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik

Prabhat Patnaik

Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian Marxist economist and political commentator, who has achieved international acclaim with his incisive analysis of economics and politics. He was teaching at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in...

 of Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University, also known as JNU, is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. It is mainly a research oriented postgraduate University with approximately 5,500 students and a faculty strength of around 550.-History:...

. The final editing of the collection was done by Gautam Sarkar and Mitali Sarkar.

The preface to the book is by Shaibal Gupta

Shaibal Gupta

Dr. Shaibal Gupta is a prominent social scientist, founder member-secretary of Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, Bihar. Asian Development Research Institute is a non-government organization established in 1991. He is an economist by profession. He has spent many years studying Bihar...

, Member Secretary of Asian Development Research Institute

Asian Development Research Institute

-About the Institution:The Asian Development Research Institute was established and registered as a Society by a group of social scientists in 1991. It is a non-profit civil society organization, dedicated to social science research...

, Patna.
The Preface of the book book 'Many Streams' Shaibal Gupta provides an analysis of his life and his role in the Bihar CPI and politics. Below is the preface to the book.

This volume on Jagannath Sarkar should have indeed been brought out at least two decades ago, when he was in a relatively better physical condition. Then it would have been easier not only to retrieve the whole range of his encyclopedic academic and political contribution but also to record more substantively the opinions of his many distinguished contemporaries belonging to different ideological and political persuasions. It may not be known to many outside a select circle that he was extensively quoted and written about by national and international academics, from Bipan Chandra to Paul Brass. The references from those different writings could have been compiled in this volume, enriching its content. As a teacher of Marxist literature and other academic agenda, he must have groomed thousands, many of whom later became public figures,academics, party activists, littérateur, etc. These contributions of lasting nature could not be documented in this volume in the absence of a detailed research work on him. Over and above, not being a member of formal academics, documentation was not a professional necessity for him. In any case, most of the CPI documents prepared by him, either for the Bihar unit in earlier years or for the national party in the later period, could not be part of this historic volume. Even this modest volume would not have possibly seen the light of the day, if Jagannath Sarkar had his own ways. Being an intrinsically self effacing man, he would not have allowed a volume dedicated to him a couple of years ago. His present infirmity, due to cardiac dysfunction, possibly helped his family members to bring out the volume rather surreptitiously. Even though the present volume may not wholly reflect the total range of his enormous contributions, it is indeed a commendable effort.

What did Jagannath Sarkar symbolize in the context of the Communist Party of India, especially in the context of Bihar? Bihar was possibly the only state in the Hindi Heartland, which was not only relatively socially liberated but also a theatre of millions of ideologically driven mutinies.

The tradition of the mutiny in the contemporary Bihar could be traced to the peasant movement led by Swami Sahajanand Saraswati

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati , born in a Jijhoutia Brahminfamily of Ghazipur of Uttar Pradesh state of India, was an ascetic of Dashnami Order of Adi Shankara Sampradaya as well as a nationalist and peasant leader of India...

, who fought to permanently unsettle the land tenurial system of permanent settlement. This movement had a powerful impact in radicalizing the body polity of the state in no uncertain terms. In fact, the trajectory of most of the major political parties of the state was anchored around that peasant movement

Peasant movement

Peasant movement is a social movement involved with the agricultural policy.Peasants movement have a long history that can be traced to the numerous peasant uprisings that occurred in various regions of the world throughout human history. Early peasant movements were usually the result of stresses...

.

Both the socialist and the communist movements, which acquired a powerful space for themselves in the state, were the ideological progenies of the peasant movement. Even the Congress Party

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

 was not unaffected. Unlike in many other Hindi Heartland provinces, the state unit of the Congress Party in Bihar was relatively more radical. In the national politics, the state unit of the Congress Party in Bihar had generally sided with the left of the centre, represented by Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

, rather than with the right wing leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel. Over and above, the state unit of the Congress Party tried to steal the radical thunder of the left, by promoting the cause of the agricultural labour through Jagjivan Ram

Jagjivan Ram

Babu Jagjivan Ram , known popularly as Babuji, was a freedom fighter and a social reformer hailing from the scheduled castes of Bihar in India. He was from the Chamar caste and was a leader for his community...

, only of its kind in the country, way back in the 1930s. Thus the ideological polemics and debates were always part of the political discourse in the state.

In this backdrop, it was not sufficient for the political parties to promote only equity-based politics in the state; to create a niche for themselves, there was also a need to have leaders with strong academic and ideological foundations. Some of the torch bearers of the socialist movement in the state, like Jay Prakash Narayan and Karpoori Thakur

Karpoori Thakur

Karpoori Thakur was an Indian politician from the Bihar state. He was popularly known as Jan Nayak...

, were among the most respected in the country in terms of their ideological grounding and political orientation. Even in Congress olitics, leaders like Sri Krishna Sinha

Sri Krishna Sinha

Sri Krishna Sinha , known as Bihar Kesari, was the first Chief Minister of the Indian state of Bihar . Along with the nationalists Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Dr. Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Sinha is regarded among the Architects of Modern Bihar...

 and Krishna Ballabh Sahay, Nehruite clones in the state, could hold on to their views in any ideological polemics because of their academic base. In this phalanx of great political stalwarts, Jagannath Sarkar, along with his comrades Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha was a freedom fighter and veteran communist leader. He was born in a Bhumihar Brahmin family at Shakara village in Siwan District of Bihar, India, in July 1914. He had an academic career and secured a gold medal in post-graduation in Economics from Patna University in 1938. He...

, Sunil Mukherjee and Chandrasekhar Singh, iv not only created an identity for the Communist Party of India in the state, but sutured the organization as a well-oiled ideologically driven party. This was not without its dividend. In the words of Paul R Brass of the Washington University about Bihar in early seventies, the Communist Party of India (CPI) has steadily improved its political support and its strength in the legislative assembly.

Because of this strength, it could hold on to its own political stance even during the avalanche of the JP movement, the first organized elite revolt in the state, when most political parties, including SSP, got liquidated, abandoning their years of ideology-based party building effort. Whereas the ideological construct of the CPI in Bihar was built by Jagannath Sarkar and Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha was a freedom fighter and veteran communist leader. He was born in a Bhumihar Brahmin family at Shakara village in Siwan District of Bihar, India, in July 1914. He had an academic career and secured a gold medal in post-graduation in Economics from Patna University in 1938. He...

, its parliamentary front was built through the efforts of Sunil Mukherjee and Chandrasekhar Singh. This was an unprecedented team. Brass describes this group as members of elite caste from comfortable families…… belonged to the same age group, joined the communist party around the same time, they have remained leadership core of the party…. have a common intellectual orientation… 2 However, this core group which had scripted new annals in the communist movement in Bihar was broken later. First, Chandrasekhar Singh, one of the greatest mass leaders of post-independent Bihar died prematurely. Then, Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha

Indradeep Sinha was a freedom fighter and veteran communist leader. He was born in a Bhumihar Brahmin family at Shakara village in Siwan District of Bihar, India, in July 1914. He had an academic career and secured a gold medal in post-graduation in Economics from Patna University in 1938. He...

 earlier and Jagannath Sarkar later were brought to the Central Party, to strengthen its national core group. That left Sunil Mukherjee alone to lead the Party in the state. With the onset of eighties, ideology-based politics started being relegated to the background. JP movement in Bihar had already created the precondition for it. With the opening of the economy and liberalization

Liberalization

In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...

, the state centric politics was being slowly abandoned. The anchor of social and political mobilization in this period was either the agenda of positive discrimination or the ground of ethno-religious identity. The predominance of such social or communal agenda allowed the policy of liberalization in the country almost unencumbered.

In any case, for the communist ideologues in the state, economic deprivation got more prominence than the social deprivation

Social deprivation

Social deprivation is the reduction or prevention of culturally normal interaction between an individual and the rest of society. This social deprivation is included in a broad network of correlated factors that contribute to social exclusion; these factors include mental illness, poverty, poor...

, which was always highlighted by the socialist movement. Wherever the communist movement had acquired firm roots like in Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

 or West Bengal

West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

, the first phase of the social movement was complete there long before. The agenda of communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 got easy sustenance there, because there was no need for it to compete with the issues of social deprivation. In Bihar, communist movement fought valiantly for the economic deprivation for the poor, but its neglect of the issues of social deprivation possibly kept it marginal over the years. As the politics of ideology got relegated, the agenda of party building became a thing of the past. This also ushered a new phenomenon in Bihar politics, where criminals started calling the shots in the party affairs. In this v scenario, the left of all persuasions became irrelevant as a political factor,except in some limited areas. In Bihar also, CPI suffered in spite of its having one of the most powerful organization in the Hindi Heartland. However, the CPI as a party in Bihar had reached its plateau after Jagannath Sarkar suffered brain hemorrhage in 1985. The decline had started thereafter. But even after he started extricating himself from the active politics, he remained a sentinel to party functionaries for its day-to-day affairs, operating from home. For example, he would underline the relevant newspaper or magazine reports and literally keep himself abreast with the day-to-day national and international affairs. Over and above, he used to spend a fortune on buying books of all varieties, covering culture, economics,advanced science and what not. Even though an ideologue and a wholetime communist activist, he could find time to pursue his interest in all components of culture.

Being himself an accomplished Sitar

Sitar

The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...

ist, he would understand the intricate nuances of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, both Indian and Western. If his multifarious interests and knowledge base are analysed, he could well be designated as a renaissance man. Apart from his political, social and cultural interests, he re-invented himself later in his life as a doting grandfather. The bulk share of his affection must have been cornered by his eldest granddaughter, Asmita, apart from Gitanjali and Suzanna. In his younger days, in between his jail sojourn and political agenda, he may not have found sufficient time to teach any of his three offsprings. In contrast, he had all the attention for Asmita, even if it warranted skipping some important meetings. Once in early eighties, a senior correspondent of The Times of India

The Times of India

The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...

 rang me up in the morning to enquire, whether my daughter was ill. I expressed my surprise over his updated knowledge. On probing about the source of his knowledge, I found the answer to be unexpected and touching as well. I learned that the correspondent had gone to cover a coordination meeting of the opposition parties against the then ruling Congress Party, and there he was informed by Laloo Prasad, the then Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, that the meeting was cancelled because of Jagannath Sarkars inability to make it to the meeting due to his granddaughters indisposition. This sort of a stand would have been a blasphemy in the earlier part of Jagannath Sarkars career.

Even though he is not in the mainstream now and is leading a completely retired life, this volume indicates the fund of goodwill that exists for him in the country even now. Most of his contemporaries are no more. Even though he was only a phone call away from the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister in his earlier years, he never threw his weight around. The modesty
has been a hallmark throughout his eventful life. This volume does not necessarily give a complete set of his writings. They will, however, give glimpses of the contemporary debate in the realm of ideology, party organizations, and developmental issues of Bihar. The contributors from different backgrounds, who have sketched their reminiscences, indicate the deep admiration and respect that people have for him. In today's world, self-seeking behaviour seems to be the order of the day. Today's youth are neither taught nor are mindful of a life where societal goals need to be pursued by some individuals who are both widely informed and deeply committed. Jagannath Sarkar was one among them and his life and thoughts could certainly be inspirational for today's youth. Mitali, Abhijit and Gautam should, therefore, be profusely thanked for the production of this volume.