Anugrah Narayan Sinha

Anugrah Narayan Sinha (18 June 1887 – 5 July 1957), known as Bihar Vibhuti, was an Indian nationalist politician, participant in Champaran Satyagraha, Gandhian, and one of the architects of modern Bihar. He served as the first Deputy Chief Minister and the Finance Minister of the Indian state of Bihar from 1946 to 1957. He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly of India, which was elected to write the Constitution of India and served in its first Parliament as an independent nation. He also held a range of portfolios including Labour, Local Self Government, Public Works, Supply & Price Control, Health and Agriculture. A.N. Sinha, affectionately called Anugrah Babu, was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom movement and worked with Bihar Kesari Sri Krishna Sinha to lead the Gandhian movement in Bihar. One of the leading nationalists in the Indian independence movement from Bihar after Dr Rajendra Prasad, he was elected as the Congress Party deputy leader in the state assembly to assume office as the first Deputy Chief Minister cum Finance Minister of independent Bihar, and re-elected when the Congress Party won Bihar's first general election with a massive mandate in 1952.

Early life

He was born to Visveshwar Dayal Singh on 18 June 1887 in a family of Poiwan village of the former Gaya district (later Aurangabad) in Bihar in the Rajput caste. His younger son Satyendra Narayan Sinha became chief minister of Bihar.

He became the Secretary

Freedom movement

In 1917, heeding the call of Mahatma Gandhi to the nation, he left his flourishing law practice to join the Champaran Satyagraha movement. Almost all the development projects needed for the state of Bihar were done by the leadership pair of Shri Krishna Sinha and Anugrah Narayan Sinha. It included several river valley projects right from Koshi, Aghaur and Sakri to other such river projects. The first five-year plan period was given to the development in rural development works mainly in the agricultural sector. In fact, Bihar became the top state in the country's first five-year plan and it was announced by Sinha in the assembly. The then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru sent Paul H. Appleby to assess the administration in states and in his famous report, he described Bihar as the best governed state in India mostly due to the excellent leadership of Shri Krishna Sinha and Anugrah Narayan Sinha. His younger son Satyendra Narayan Singh (who was affectionately called "Chhote Saheb") also became a prominent freedom fighter and later became Chief Minister of Bihar. Sinha served the state continuously, barring war years (Second World War 1939–1945), as the Deputy Chief Minister cum Finance Minister from the time of the first Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan served as the Chairman of Anugraha Smarak Nidhi (Anugrah Memorial Fund). The Department of Posts released a commemorative stamp in his memory. The 125th birth anniversary of Anugrah Babu was also celebrated by a state level committee headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. In 2013, various programmes were organised throughout the year in Bihar and biographies of Shri babu and Anugrah Babu were included in the school syllabus.