Word: bihar
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Critics see him as an irresponsible rabble-rouser out to destroy democratic government. To his admirers, he is the champion of the downtrodden, a political savior who has emerged from retirement to save them from what they see as despotic rule. The independent-minded son of a minor Bihar state official, Narayan at the age of 19 used a $600 wedding gift to set off alone to the U.S., where he studied at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin and became a convert to Communism. Returning to India, he became deeply involved with Gandhi and Nehru in the independence movement...
When rampaging students in Gujarat managed to bring down the state government, J.P. was impressed and decided to try to do the same thing in Bihar, his home state. The demonstrations led to riots, and Mrs. Gandhi appealed to J.P. to call them off. He refused. When Railways Minister Lalit Mishra was assassinated on a visit to Bihar last January, the Congress Party accused Narayan of unleashing a "cult of violence, intimidation and coercion...
Because of recent political agitation in India's Bihar state, a force of at least 1,000 security men was present last week when the Indian Minister for Railways, Lalit Narayan Mishra, 51, formally opened a new 36-mile-long rail line from Samastipur to Muzaffarpur. Mishra had just finished his remarks and was stepping down from the dais when a time bomb exploded, ripping the dais to pieces and wounding Mishra as well as 24 bystanders (four of whom later died). Mishra himself died the following day during emergency surgery...
...first ranking national politician assassinated in India since Mohandas Gandhi was shot in 1948, Mishra had recently been the target of corruption charges involving the issuance of import licenses during his term as Minister for Foreign Trade (1970-73). The agitation in Bihar has been aimed at unseating a state government that Mishra, himself a Bihari, had strongly backed. The movement has been led by one of India's most respected political leaders, Jayaprakash Narayan, 72, a founder of the Socialist Party and one of the last of Gandhi's immediate disciples. Narayan has been pressing...
Kissinger also discussed the question of food aid to India. Mrs. Gandhi refuses to acknowledge publicly that thousands of people have died of starvation in the states of Bihar and West Bengal (see SPECIAL SECTION). The Prime Minister, having proudly proclaimed her country's self-sufficiency after a record harvest in 1971, was reluctant to accept any aid that made India seem to be on the American dole again...