BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 134 of 144

Correct — B, Shri Krishna Singh. Shri Krishna Sinha (21 October 1887 – 31 January 1961), universally called Shri Babu, carried the title Bihar Kesari — the Lion of Bihar — earned for the lion-like roar of his platform oratory at the mass meetings he addressed through the 1920s and 1930s. He was born at Maur near Barbigha, then in Munger district and now in Sheikhpura, took a master's degree at the University of Calcutta and a doctorate in law at Patna University, and was practising at Munger from 1915 when he first met Gandhi at Benares in 1916. He gave up the bar in 1921 for the Non-Cooperation Movement and was first arrested in 1922. His record after that is a near-continuous alternation of agitation and jail: the salt satyagraha at Garhpura in 1930, where he was badly scalded on the hands and chest while being arrested, six months' imprisonment and then two years more during Civil Disobedience; a fresh sentence of two years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of one thousand rupees on 9 January 1932, from which he came out of Hazaribagh jail in October 1933; relief work after the Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934; and about eight years behind bars in British India in all. In 1940, when the Individual Satyagraha was launched, Gandhi named him the first satyagrahi of Bihar, with Anugrah Narayan Sinha as the second, and he served nine months for it between 22 November 1940 and 26 August 1941. On Quit India the record is precise. The AICC adopted the resolution at Gowalia Tank on 8 August 1942; Sinha was arrested on 10 August 1942, and he was released only in 1944, from Hazaribagh jail, when he had become seriously ill. Bihar then produced the most violent provincial rising of the whole movement, and its emblem is the firing at the Patna Secretariat on 11 August 1942, when seven schoolboys and college students were shot dead trying to hoist the national flag over the building — Umakant Prasad Sinha, Ramanand Singh, Satish Prasad Jha, Jagatpati Kumar, Devipada Chaudhury, Rajendra Singh and Ramgovind Singh, whose bronze figures stand today at the Shaheed Smarak. Sinha's own political career resumed on the same track after the war: Premier of Bihar province from 20 July 1937 to 31 October 1939, head of the ministry again from 2 April 1946, a member of the Constituent Assembly from 9 December 1946, and Bihar's first Chief Minister from 15 August 1947 until his death on 31 January 1961 — the first head of any State government in India to abolish the zamindari system.

• (a)Dr. Rajendra Prasad — Everything in the stem except the title fits him, which is exactly why he is the first name a candidate reaches for. Rajendra Prasad was Bihar's foremost Congressman, Gandhi's chief organiser in Champaran in 1917, Congress President in 1934 and again in 1939 and 1947, President of the Constituent Assembly and the first President of India, and he was indeed imprisoned during the Quit India Movement of 1942 as he had been during the Salt Satyagraha of 1930. But his honorifics were Desh Ratna and Ajatshatru. Bihar Kesari was never one of them, and the stem is decided by the title alone.
• (c)Anugrah Narayan Sinha — The sharpest trap on the question, because the two men are inseparable in Bihar's political history and are almost always named together. Anugrah Narayan Sinha was a Champaran satyagrahi, Sri Krishna Sinha's Deputy Premier from 1937, the colleague who resigned with him over the Governor's refusal to release political prisoners and resumed office with him when the Governor gave way, and independent Bihar's first Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister from 1946 to 1957. But his honorific is Bihar Vibhuti, not Bihar Kesari — and Gandhi's 1940 ranking puts the distinction plainly: Sinha the first satyagrahi of Bihar, Anugrah Babu the second.
• (d)Ram Manohar Lohia — Wrong on the geography before you even reach the title. Lohia was born at Akbarpur in Uttar Pradesh and belongs to the history of Indian socialism rather than of Bihar's Congress leadership — he was a founder-figure of the Congress Socialist Party and prominent in the underground network that kept the 1942 movement running after the entire Congress leadership had been jailed, which is the association that puts him on this list. He carried no Bihar honorific, and the state title he might be confused with, Loknayak, belongs to Jayaprakash Narayan.

Bihar's national movement produced a small group of leaders whose honorifics function almost as surnames in the state's memory, and BPSC treats them as examinable vocabulary: Desh Ratna and Ajatshatru for Rajendra Prasad, Bihar Kesari for Sri Krishna Sinha, Bihar Vibhuti for Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Loknayak for Jayaprakash Narayan. The two Sinhas ran Bihar as a pair for a generation. Under the Government of India Act, 1935 the Congress took office in the provinces after the 1937 elections, and the head of a provincial ministry was styled Premier, not Chief Minister — Sri Krishna Sinha formed his cabinet at Patna on 20 July 1937 as Premier of Bihar, succeeding Mohammad Yunus, with Anugrah Narayan Sinha as his deputy. That ministry resigned in late 1939 along with all the Congress ministries, over the Viceroy's declaration that India was at war without any consultation of Indian opinion, and Bihar passed under Governor's rule. The vacuum those resignations left is part of the background to 1942: three years later, when the Quit India resolution was passed and the leadership arrested within forty-eight hours, there was no elected Indian ministry anywhere in the province to mediate between an unled crowd and an armed administration.

The stem contains two tests and only one of them can separate the options, which is the whole lesson of the question. Test one is participation in the Quit India Movement — and three of the four names pass it, since Rajendra Prasad was jailed for it, Anugrah Narayan Sinha supported it openly, and Lohia was a central figure of its underground. Test two is the honorific, and only one name passes that. So do not read the long first sentence about Bihar's contribution as the question; the question is the two words in quotation marks. The etymology is itself a useful check: Bihar Kesari means the Lion of Bihar and was given for the roar of the man's public speaking, which points to Sinha the mass-meeting orator rather than to Rajendra Prasad the lawyer-conciliator or Anugrah Babu the administrator and finance man. The most efficient preparation for this whole family of BPSC questions is to memorise the four titles as a block with their offices attached — Desh Ratna, first President of India; Bihar Kesari, first Chief Minister of Bihar; Bihar Vibhuti, first Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister of Bihar; Loknayak, leader of the 1974 movement — because the Commission recycles the same four names in different combinations year after year.

• Shri Krishna Sinha (21 October 1887 – 31 January 1961), 'Shri Babu', born at Maur near Barbigha in Munger district (now Sheikhpura); known as Bihar Kesari for the lion-like roar of his public speaking; imprisoned for roughly eight years in British India in all
• Quit India: the AICC adopted the resolution at Gowalia Tank, Bombay on 8 August 1942; Sinha was arrested on 10 August 1942 and released only in 1944, from Hazaribagh jail, after falling seriously ill
• Bihar saw the greatest level of violence of any province in 1942. At the Patna Secretariat on 11 August 1942 seven students were shot dead attempting to hoist the national flag; the State's own official history records the firing at 4.57 p.m. The Shaheed Smarak, a life-size bronze by Deviprasad Roychoudhury cast in Italy, commemorates them, its foundation stone laid on 15 August 1947 by Bihar's first Governor Jairamdas Daulatram
• Under the Government of India Act, 1935 the head of a provincial ministry was styled Premier: Sinha formed his cabinet at Patna on 20 July 1937, succeeding Mohammad Yunus, and served to 31 October 1939, when the Congress ministries resigned over India's entry into the Second World War
• In the Individual Satyagraha of 1940 Gandhi named Sinha the first satyagrahi of Bihar and Anugrah Narayan Sinha the second; Sinha served nine months for it, from 22 November 1940 to 26 August 1941
• He was Bihar's first Chief Minister from 15 August 1947 until his death on 31 January 1961 and the first head of a State government in India to abolish the zamindari system; he also led the entry of Dalits into the Baidyanath Dham temple at Deoghar
• The honorifics as a set: Desh Ratna and Ajatshatru for Rajendra Prasad, Bihar Kesari for Sri Krishna Sinha, Bihar Vibhuti for Anugrah Narayan Sinha, Loknayak for Jayaprakash Narayan

• Answering 'Dr. Rajendra Prasad' because he is Bihar's most famous leader and was genuinely jailed in 1942 — his titles are Desh Ratna and Ajatshatru
• Swapping the two Sinhas. Sri Krishna Sinha is Bihar Kesari; Anugrah Narayan Sinha is Bihar Vibhuti
• Calling Sri Krishna Sinha 'Chief Minister' for the 1937-39 ministry. Under the 1935 Act the office was Premier; he became Chief Minister only in 1947

BPSC asks Bihar's freedom-struggle leaders by honorific, office and exact date, and Sri Krishna Sinha is one of its most heavily worked names — who was Bihar Kesari, who was Bihar's first Chief Minister, who headed the 1937 ministry, who abolished zamindari first. UPSC never asks a state honorific. It asks the anatomy of the movement instead: what triggered Quit India (2013, the Cripps proposals), what exactly happened on 8 August 1942 (2021), what an individual's specific role was (2011, Usha Mehta and the secret Congress Radio), and whether a description of the movement is true. The Bihar detail is BPSC's; the national frame is UPSC's.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which leader of Bihar was known by the honorific 'Bihar Vibhuti'?

  • (a)Dr. Rajendra Prasad
  • (b)Anugrah Narayan Sinha
  • (c)Jayaprakash Narayan
  • (d)Sahajanand Saraswati

  Answer(b) Anugrah Narayan Sinha — a Champaran satyagrahi, Deputy Premier of Bihar from 1937 and independent Bihar's first Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister. Rajendra Prasad was Desh Ratna and Jayaprakash Narayan was Loknayak.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Government of India Act, 1935, what was the designation of the head of the provincial ministry that Sri Krishna Sinha formed at Patna on 20 July 1937?

  • (a)Chief Minister
  • (b)Premier
  • (c)Diwan
  • (d)President of the Executive Council

  Answer(b) Premier — the office of Chief Minister came only after independence, and Sinha became Bihar's first Chief Minister on 15 August 1947. His 1937 ministry ran to 31 October 1939.