Jayaprakash Narayana

When Indira Gandhi was found guilty of violating electoral laws by the Allahabad High Court, Narayan called for Indira to resign, and advocated a program of social transformation which he termed Sampoorna kraanti [Total Revolution]. Instead she proclaimed a national Emergency on the midnight of June 25, 1975, immediately after Narayan had called for the PM’s resignation and had asked the military and the police to disregard unconstitutional and immoral orders; JP, opposition leaders, and dissenting members of her own party (the ‘Young Turks’) were arrested on that day.

Narayan was kept as detenu at Chandigarh even after he had asked for a month’s parole for mobilising relief in areas of Bihar gravely affected by flood.
After Indira revoked the emergency on January 18, 1977 and announced elections, it was under JP’s guidance that the Janata Party (a vehicle for the broad spectrum of the anti-Indira Gandhi opposition) was formed. The Janata Party was voted into power, and became the first non-Congress party to form a government at the Centre.
Narayan spent the first 25 years of independence as the patron saint of lost causes: the Praja Socialist Party and the Sarvodaya movement, His most enduring contribution to the life of the Republic was the movement he led to unseat Mrs Gandhi, which provoked the Emergency.