ACHARYA KRIPALANI

In News

• The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Jayanti.
• He earned the moniker ‘Acharya’ around 1922 when he was teaching at the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by the Mahatma a couple of years before.

Independence Activist

• He was involved in the organization of Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience movements and Quit India Movement.
• He was the President of Indian National Congress (INC) at the time of independence.
• He served in the Interim government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India.

Political Career in post-independent India

• Post-independence, he left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP).
• This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
• He remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967 as a member of Praja Socialist Party.
• Kripalani moved the first-ever No confidence motion in Lok Sabha in 1963, immediately after the India-China War.
• He remained a critic of Nehru’s policies and Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. He was arrested during Emergency.

Environmentalist

• He along with Vinoba Bhave, was involved in in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.
• His autobiography ‘My Times’ was released 22 years after his death in 2004.

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