पुण्य तिथि पर विशेष : काँग्रेस को कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू का योगदान और अब अस्तित्व की जद्दोजहद (04/06/2025)

 

पिछले दिनों हजारीबाग जाना हुआ। उद्देश्य था काँग्रेस मैदान एवं कार्यालय, जिसे अब कृष्ण बल्लभ आश्रम कहते हैं, में कृष्ण बल्लभ सहाय के संबंध में जानकारी एकत्रित करना। इस स्थान का अधिग्रहण और यहाँ अवस्थित कार्यालय की स्थापना कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू ने किया था। 1966 में इस परिसर का उदघाटन श्रीमती इन्दिरा गांधी के हाथों हुआ था। अपने मुख्यमंत्रित्व काल में ही कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू ने सदाकत आश्रम का भी पुनरुद्धार करवाया था। यह कहा जा सकता है कि दक्षिण बिहार विशेष कर छोटानागपुर क्षेत्र, जो अब झारखंड राज्य है, में स्वतन्त्रता संग्राम के दौरान काँग्रेस के संगठन को ईंट दर ईंट जोड़ने और खड़ा करने वाले कृष्ण बल्लभ सहाय ही थे। 

1921 में असहयोग आंदोलन से लेकर 1947 तक कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू ने काँग्रेस को गाँव-गाँव तक पहुंचा दिया। वे दक्षिण बिहार के प्रत्येक ज़िला, अनुमंडल एवं प्रखण्ड स्तर तक काँग्रेस कार्यालय स्थापित करने को कृत-संकल्प थे।   उनका ध्येय था कि हर गाँव में कम से कम एक परिवार ऐसा हो जो काँग्रेस की ध्वजा अपने घर के परकोटे पर फहराने का हिम्मत जुटाये। इन परिवारों का भरण-पोषण का जिम्मा काँग्रेस का होता। इन्हें प्रत्येक माह एक छोटी रकम बतौर वजीफा मिलता जिसे कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू डॉ राजेंद्र प्रसाद की सहमति से काँग्रेस के फ़ंड से भुगतान करते थे। ये वो दौर था जब देश और काँग्रेस एक दूसरे के पर्याय थे।

1921 में अँग्रेजी विषय में स्नातक करने एवं पूरे कलकत्ता विश्वविद्यालय में अव्वल आने के बाद कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू चाहते तो सरलता से आई.सी.एस. बन अंग्रेजों का पिट्ठू बन अपनी ही प्रजा से हुकुम-हुज़ूरी करवा सकते थे। किन्तु उन्हें यह गवारा नहीं था। उन्होंने दर-दर भटकना स्वीकार किया और अवाम को स्वतन्त्रता संग्राम में सहयोग को प्रेरित करते रहे। उनकी कमाई यही रही कि उन्हें अवाम का विश्वास हासिल हुआ। ऐसे कई प्रसंग हैं जब आमजन से उन्हें काँग्रेस कार्यालय स्थापित करने क लिए भूमि दान में मिले। वर्ष बयालीस के एक पत्र का संदर्भ है जिसमें डोमचांच का एक किसान काँग्रेस कार्यालय के लिए आवश्यक जमीन सिर्फ इस शर्त पर मुहैया करवाया कि इसे डॉ राजेंद्र प्रसाद स्वीकार करें। कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू ने डॉ प्रसाद को पत्र लिख कर उस किसान की मंशा से उन्हें अवगत कराया। फिर डॉ प्रसाद की सहमति से वो भूमि का टुकड़ा प्राप्त हुआ जिस पर आज भी काँग्रेस कार्यालय स्थापित है। इसी प्रकार दक्षिण बिहार के विभिन्न जिलों में यथा सिंहभूम (कदमा एवं चक्रधरपुर), गिरिडीह (राजधनवार), दुमका (उद्योगपति रामजीवन हिम्मत सिंघका द्वारा डॉ राजेंद्र प्रसाद को गिफ्ट डीड से हस्तांतरित), देवघर (उद्योगपति द्वारका प्रसाद गुरगुटिया द्वारा डॉ राजेंद्र प्रसाद को गिफ्ट डीड से हस्तांतरित), धनबाद, डाल्टनगंज (पलामू), पाकुड़, लोहरदग्गा (प्रसिद्ध उद्योगपति शिव प्रसाद साहू द्वारा दान दिया गया जहां काँग्रेस कार्यालय का उदघाटन कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू ने किया), कोडरमा (डोमचांच), गोड्डा (पोरियाहाट), चतरा (चतरा एवं हंटरगंज)आदि स्थानों पर आज जो काँग्रेस कार्यालय विधमान हैं वे सभी उसी दौर के हैं जब कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू छोटानागपुर क्षेत्र में काँग्रेस एवं स्वतन्त्रता संग्राम को खड़ा कर रहे थे। आज इनमें से बहुतों के कागजात उपलब्ध नहीं हैं। नतीजतन इनमें से कई पर विवाद चल रहे हैं क्योंकि इन पर अवैध कब्जा हो रखा है। यह भी विधि की विडम्बना है कि आज उन्हीं कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू का पौत्र (मनोज सहाय) इन काँग्रेस कार्यालयों पुनर्स्थापित करने का प्रयास कर रहा है।

इतिहास पर नज़र डालें तो यह विदित होगा कि ये संपत्ति तो किसानों, स्थानीय लोगों और उद्योगपतियों ने महात्मा गांधी एवं डॉ राजेंद्र प्रसाद के नाम काँग्रेस को सौंपा था। इस पर आज की इन्दिरा काँग्रेस का दावा कितना सही है यह विवाद का विषय है, क्योंकि जिस काँग्रेस की स्थापना 1885 में हुई थी उसे भारतीय राष्ट्रीय काँग्रेस कहा गया। इसी काँग्रेस ने स्वतन्त्रता संग्राम की लड़ाई लड़ी। कृष्ण बल्लभ बाबू इसी अविभाजित काँग्रेस के नेता थे। मृत्युपर्यंत वे एकीकृत काँग्रेस के सदस्य बने रहे। इसी मूल काँग्रेस में बने रहने और इन्दिरा काँग्रेस की मातहति ना करने के कारण ही वे राजनीतिक षड्यंत्र के शिकार हुए।    

आज जो काँग्रेस है वो दरअसल इन्दिरा काँग्रेस है जिसकी स्थापना ही 1979-80 में इन्दिरा गांधी द्वारा किया गया। 1969 के बाद यह दूसरा अवसर था जब इडिरा गांधी ने खुद ही इस ऐतिहासिक पार्टी को तोड़ उसे कमजोर किया। किन्तु 1980 के बाद तो काँग्रेस पारिवारिक संपत्ति ही बन गयी। अतः विचार करने वाली बात है कि इन्दिरा काँग्रेस कैसे मूल काँग्रेस के विरासत की हकदार हो गयी? क्या इसका निर्णय निर्वाचन आयोग के जिम्मे छोड़ा जा सकता है? जिस विभाजित काँग्रेस का जन्म ही 45 वर्ष पूर्व हुआ वो 2025 में अपना 84वां अधिवेशन कैसे मना सकती है, जैसा पिछले दिनों प्रचारित किया गया। दूसरी ओर यदि ऐसा है तो काँग्रेस को इस मुद्दे पर विचार करना चाहिए कि वो पारिवारिक काँग्रेस तक सीमित रहना चाहती है अथवा अपनी पुरानी पहचान पर वापस जाना चाहती है। उस स्थिति में में उसे अपने नाम से इन्दिरा शब्द हटा लेना चाहिए।  साथ ही उसे मूल काँग्रेस के सिद्धांतों पर चलने का संकल्प लेना चाहिए। 

THE PHASE OF POLITICAL ASSASSINATION IN BIHAR: REMEMBERING K.B. SAHAY ON HIS 52ND DEATH ANNIVERSARY (03/06/2025)

 

On May 23, 2024, Himanta Biswa Sarma challenged Rahul Gandhi to address several unsolved historical incidents involving senior Congress leaders. (News Courtesy India Today, NE)

Sarma's list included the unnatural deaths of two prominent political leaders of Bihar. They included the fatal accident of K.B. Sahay and the mysterious bomb blast which claimed the life of L.N. Mishra.

K. B. Sahay's Fatal Accident: The Chief Minister, Sarma, raised concerns about the unexplained car accident that claimed the life of Bihar’s former Chief Minister K. B. Sahay, known for abolishing the Zamindari System, after falling out with Indira Gandhi. "Why wasn’t his death investigated?" Sarma probed.

Lalit Narayan Mishra's Death: Sarma questioned the mysterious bomb blast that killed former Union Railway Minister Lalit Narayan Mishra, who had differences with then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. "Who was behind the blast?" he asked.

On June 2, 2025, ‘The Indian Express’ published an article, ‘Why L.N. Mishra’s killing is being discussed 50 years later?

The unnatural and untimely demise of K.B. Sahay on June 3, 1974 and of L.N. Mishra just six months later on January 5, 1975, began a dark chapter of political assassination of political rivals. Both K.B. Sahay and L.N. Mishra were unparalleled in their political stature. The third leader who survived the brutality was Loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan, who launched the ‘Sampurna Kranti’ to dislodge Mrs Indira Gandhi. However, we are all aware of Jai Prakash Narayan’s sufferings in jail during the emergency, which took a heavy toll on his health.

WHY K. B. SAHAY’S CASE IS A COLD-BLOODED MURDER AND NOT A FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

The brutality with which K.B. was eliminated opened the shady chapter of violence in politics in post-independence India. The car accident was a Machiavellian ploy to eliminate K.B. Sahay, which was carried out with criminal precision to make it appear an accident.

On that fateful day, K.B. Sahay left Patna for his native Hazaribagh at 5.00 a.m., which was quite usual for him. He was seated in the front seat of the ambassador car (BRM-101) along with his grandson, while his wife and daughter-in-law, with three children, were seated in the rear seat. As soon as their car reached the highway, a truck followed the car. This truck kept speeding, overtaking, and abruptly stopping on the pretext of disturbances on the road ahead. But the car driver successfully manoeuvred these disruptions and safely reached Jhumri-Telaiya, even crossing the Rajauli valley in the Koderma Reserve Forest without any harm. K.B. Sahay halted at Jhumri-Telaiya at his son’s place for an hour. The said truck stopped over at the petrol pump just a short distance away, as people who had seen that particular truck confirmed later. From here K.B. Sahay proceeded to Hazaribagh.

As K.B. Sahay left Jhumri-Telaiya, the cat-and-mouse chase between the truck and the car began once again. The family was just 5 kilometres away from Hazaribagh when the truck struck the car at a place near Sindur village on a sloppy stretch of the highway. The driver of the truck screeched the vehicle to a sudden halt, expecting the car to ram head-on into it from behind on the slope. But the driver was fairly experienced, and he managed to stop the car swiftly enough, just short of ramming into the truck. However, the worst happened thereafter. The truck went into reverse and steered to the left to ram the car forcefully on its left side, i.e. the side of the front seat where K. B. Sahay was seated. The act proves beyond doubt that it wasn’t an accident but a cold-blooded attempt at assassinating K.B. Sahay. K.B. Sahay was quite agile even at this advanced age, and just as the truck was about to hit the car, he swiftly lifted his grandson to push him behind, saving his life just in time. But the hit proved fatal for this veteran of many a struggle. Face smeared with blood, K.B. Sahay was gasping for breath when he and his family members were picked up by a private car and admitted to the Hazaribagh hospital. Doctors tried their best to save him by giving mouth-to-mouth respiration, but they failed to bring him back to life. (K.B. Sahay dies in car mishap near Hazaribagh, ‘The Searchlight’, June 4, 1974, (Courtesy- Sachchidanand Sinha Library, Patna-1)

The manner the hit-and-run incident was made to appear like an accident left no scope for doubt that K.B. Sahay was eliminated by his political rivals. Another Gandhian was silenced for taking up the cause of the poor and the downtrodden. Thus, unfortunately, the decision ‘to be’ to live a meaningful political life was made null by unknown forces that must not have wanted his resurgence, which led to his life’s end in a ‘hit-and-run’ case. The story of the life of K. B. Sahay lives on through the words of his numerous speeches, his revolutionary political initiatives and the mark of stamp he left in the administration of Bihar.

 

KRISHNA BALLABH SAHAY- AS AN EMINENT PATRIOT -DR S.M. ISA, STATE MINISTER, P.H.E.D. (BIHAR)

 

KRISHNA BALLABH SAHAY 
(31.12.1898-03.06.1974)

Bihar has produced several political leaders of All India fame and even of international image. Shri K.B. Sahay was one of those stalwarts and distinguished political leaders of whom the entire state of Bihar can always be proud.

The varied events, the various activities, and the hectic political phases of his eventful life read like the pages of a memorable saga. In fact, these myriad events mirror the entire gamut of the freedom movement launched in India. His personality is multi-dimensional. It had varied facets. In this brief article, the role of K.B. Sahay as a restless freedom fighter is assessed.

After winning laurels and the coveted ‘Gold Medal’ by standing first in the first class in English literature, he joined Patna College for M.A. He was agog with post-graduate studies and would have come out with flying colours. But destiny willed it otherwise. The clarion call of freedom for our motherland was more strident, more sacred than the mere addition of another golden feather in his academic cap. The Non-Cooperation Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi beckoned him. He enthusiastically responded to his call in 1921. Even as an undergraduate college student, he was anxiously watching the momentous visit of Mahatma Gandhi to the soil of Champaran in 1917 to probe into the atrocities of the British indigo planters on the poor, defenceless raiyats of that district. He also joined the Bihar Congress movement led by Dr Rajendra Prasad in condemning and castigating the repressive Rowlett Act promulgated by the British rulers to gag the spirit of the freedom fighters.

When Maulana Abul Kalam Azad appealed as the Congress President on the 8^th December 1920 to the people of Bihar to enrol more satyagrahis to impart greater momentum to the freedom movement, K.B. Sahay gave full-fledged support. Even when Dr Sri Krishna Sinha and K.B. Sahay were in prison during this period, they gave vent to their resentment when they refused to meet their relatives in the presence of C.I.D. officers. The 35^th session of the Indian National Congress held in Nagpur in December 1920 under the Presidentship of Shri C. Vijaya Raghavacharya ratified the famous resolution on Non-Cooperation Movement passed by the stormy Calcutta Congress session. K.B. Sahay got about organising committees throughout the villages of Bihar to invoke the patriotic spirit of the entire Indian masses to join this movement in overwhelming numbers and enrolling a band of devoted and dedicated national workers for the cause of freedom.

The Boycott of government offices and institutions followed. Government colleges were abandoned. The control of education in the national educational institutions was now vested by the ardent freedom fighters with the National Council of Education, monitored by Congress leaders of Bihar. When the Bihar National College was started in Patna in 1920, K.B. Sahay voluntarily placed his services as a lecturer in English. Dr Rajendra Prasad was the Principal. A host of other freedom fighters like Badrinath Verma, Abdul Bari, Phuldev Sahay Verma, Ram Chariter Singh, Qazi Munemi, etc, joined this institution as its staff.

Apart from his instinctive and emotional attachment to the Congress creed, K.B. Sahay was a cool, incisive thinker, a gifted intellectual. He agreed with the views of Pandit Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das and Yusuf Imam of Mirzapur that constitutional methods should also be tapped to cause another dent against the British Raj by taking recourse to wrecking the British Government from within. K.B. Sahay, along with Narayan Prasad of Chatra and Prof. Abdul Bari of the National College, Patna, supported the Council entry policy spearheaded by Pandit Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das and Yusuf Imam as referred to above.

On the 20^th February, 1923, K.B. Sahay and others met at Patna. They formed a provincial branch of the Swaraj Party. They again met at Gaya on the 9^th May, 1923, and set up a new Executive Committee. The Swaraj Party made considerable headway in Bihar. K.B. Sahay was one of the elected members. He was elected from the Hazaribagh constituency. K.B. Sahay was a very vocal and spirited member of the Legislative Council. One example would illustrate. On the 12^th March 1924, a motion was tabled in the Legislative Council by Jimat Vahan Sen, castigating the Board of Revenue, Bihar Government for miserably failing to control the affairs of the Wards Estates, particularly the bungling in the Bettiah Raj affairs. K.B. Sahay boldly and fearlessly condemned the British Raj English Manager.

Dr Rajendra Prasad took up constructive schemes of development of Bihar on the national pattern, particularly in the realm of national education and the spread of Khadi. On the 19^th February 1924, a definite resolution was moved in the Bihar and Orissa Legislative Council to the effect that in all public schools, arrangements be made for teaching boys and girls above the age of ten regarding the art of spinning by Charkha. K.B. Sahay, along with Jimat Vahan Sen, strongly supported this resolution. On account of his ceaseless propaganda about the Khadi programme as laid down by the Indian National Congress, he, along with Ram Narayan Singh, was arrested under Section 108 of the Cr. P.C. They were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for refusing to furnish the sureties. The British Government in Bihar could not allow such anti-British activities. District Magistrate, Patna, declared the Sadaqat Ashram as unlawful. He seized the Sadaqat Ashram, and Dr Rajendra Prasad, K.B. Sahay, Braj Kishore Prasad, and Jagat Narayan Lal were arrested. They were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months each. A mighty challenge to the British was thrown by the Indian National Congress led by Mahatma Gandhi in August 1942. On the 5^th August, 1942, the ‘Quit India Movement’ was started by Mahatma Gandhi, supported by all prominent leaders of the Indian National Congress. K.B. Sahay, always a dedicated and devoted soldier in the freedom movement in India, supported this movement.

On 12 April 1942, Dr Sri Krishna Sinha, the leader of the Congress Party in Bihar, presided over the District Political Conference in Hazaribagh. K.B. Sahay, Jagjivan Ram and Basavan Singh also addressed the crowded meeting where thousands of adivasis (Khervars) assembled.

A sensational incident took place on the 9^th November, 1942, in the Hazaribagh Central Jail. Six prominent political leaders, viz. Jai Prakash Narayan, Ram Narayan Mishra, Jogender Shukla, Suraj Narayan Singh, etc, dramatically escaped from the Hazaribagh Central Jail. The British rulers of Bihar of those days suspected the hand of K.B. Sahay and Sukhlal Singh in this sensational event. Consequently, K.B. Sahay, along with Ram Narayan Singh, Sukhlal Singh, etc, were secretly transferred overnight from the Hazaribagh Central Jail to the Bhagalpur Central Jail. The British had no doubt read the writing on the wall. They got ready to pack up. Freedom, which had eluded the Indian people since 1857, at last dawned. The British handed over complete independence to the freedom fighters of India on the 15^th August, 1947.