Biography of Dr. Rajendra Prasad

Biography of Dr. Rajendra Prasad

Biography of Rajendra Prasad

Dr. Rajendra Prasad
Date of Birth: Dec 3, 1884
Date of Death: Feb 28, 1963


Place of Birth: Zeradei, Bihar
Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the first President
of India. Rajendra Prasad was a great
freedom-fighter, and the architect of the Indian
Constitution, having served as President of
the Constituent Assembly that drafted the
Constitution of the Republic from 1948 to 1950.
He had also served as a Cabinet Minister briefly
in the first Government of Independent India. Hew as a crucial leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Prasad was born in Jiradei, in the Siwan district of Bihar. His father, Mahadev Sahay was a Persian and Sanskrit language scholar; his mother, Kamleshwari Devi, was a devout lady who would tell stories from
the Ramayana to her son. At the age of 5, the
young Rajendra Prasad was sent to a Maulavi
for learning Persian. After that, he was sent to
Chapra Zilla School for further primary studies.

Freedom fighter Rajendra Prasad 

Rajendra Prasad

He was married at the age of 12 to Rajvanshi
Devi. He then went on to study at R.K. Ghosh's
Academy in Patna to be with his older brother
Mahendra Prasad. Soon afterward, however, he
rejoined the Chapra Zilla School, and it was from
there that he passed the entrance examination
of Calcutta University, at the age of 18. He stood
first in the first division of that examination.
He then joined the Presidency College, Calcutta.
He was initially a student of science and his
teachers included J.C.Bose and Prafulla Chandra
Roy. Later he decided to switch his focus to the
arts. Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy, who was
impressed by his intellect and dedication asked
him on the occasion “Why have you deserted
your class?." Prasad lived with his brother in the
Eden Hindu Hostel. A plaque still commemorates
his stay in that room. He had been initiated into
the Swadeshi movement by his brother. He then
joined the Dawn Society run by Satish Chandra
Mukherjee, and Sister Nivedita. In 1911, he
joined the A.I.C.C. However, his family estate
was in bad condition. He was looked upon as
the provider. But he sought permission from his
brother in a letter to join the Indian freedom
movement. He wrote, “Ambitions I have none,
except to be of some service to the Motherland”.
The shock of his brother, however, held him to
the family. In 1916, Rajendra Prasad joined the
High Court of Bihar, and Orissa. Such was his
intellect and his integrity, that often when his
adversary failed to cite a precedent, the judges
asked Rajendra Prasad to cite a precedent
against himself. After meeting Mahatma Gandhi,
he quit as a Senator of the University, much
to the regret of the British Vice-Chancellor.He
also responded to the call by the Mahatma to
boycott Western education by asking his son
Mrityunjaya Prasad, a brilliant student to drop
out of the University and enroll himself in Bihar
Vidyapeeth, an institution he had along with his
colleagues founded on the traditional Indian
model. He wrote articles for Searchlight and the
Desh and collected funds for these papers. He
toured a lot, explaining, lecturing, and exhorting. When the earthquake of Bihar occurred on January 15, 1934, Rajendra Prasad was in jail. He was released two days later. He set himself the task of raising funds. The Viceroy had also raised a fund. However, while Rajendra Prasad's fund collected over 38 Lakhs (Rs. 3,800,000), the Viceroy could only manage one-third of that amount. The way relief was organized left nothing to be desired. Nationalist India expressed its admiration by electing him to the President of the Bombay session of the  National Congress.

After India became independent he was
elected the President of India. As President, he
used his moderating influence so silently and
unobtrusively that he neither reigned nor ruled.
His sister Bhagwati Devi died on the night of
25 January 1960. She doted on her dearly-loved
younger brother. It must have taken Rajendra
Prasad all his will power to have taken the
Republic Day salute as usual, on the following
day. It was only on return from the parade that
he set about the task of cremation. In 1962,
after 12 years as President, he announced his
the decision to retire. He was subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation's highest civilian award. Within months of his retirement, early in September 1962, his wife Rajvanshi Devi
passed away. In a letter written a month before
his death to one devoted to him, he said, "I have
a feeling that the end is near, end of the energy
to do, end of my very existence”. He died on 28
February 1963 with ‘Ram Ram Ram' on his lips.
Because of the enormous public adulation he
enjoyed, he was referred to as Desh Ratna or
the Jewel of the country. His legacy is being ably
carried forward by his great-grandson Ashoka
Jahnavi-Prasad, a psychiatrist and a scientist of
international repute who introduced sodium
valproate as a safer alternative to lithium salts in the treatment of bipolar disorders.