Satyendra Narayan Sinha

Satyendra Narayan Sinha (12 July 1917 – 4 September 2006) was an Indian politician and statesman, participant in the Indian independence movement, a leading light of Jaya Prakash Narayan's ‘complete revolution’ movement during the Emergency and a former Chief Minister of Bihar. Affectionately called Chhote Saheb, he was also a seven-time Member of Parliament from the Aurangabad constituency, a three-term Member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly, and a Member of the Bihar Legislative Council once. Regarded to be one of India's most influential regional people of the time, his reputation was synonymous with being a strict disciplinarian and tough taskmaster.

Background Shri S. N. Sinha, Hon’ble Member of India's Provisional Parliament Sinha was born in an aristocratic political family in Poiwan, Aurangabad district, Bihar. He belonged to the Rajput caste. His father was a nationalist leader, Dr. Anugrah Narayan Sinha, who closely assisted Mahatma Gandhi along with Dr.Rajendra Prasad in the Champaran Satyagraha movement, the first satyagraha movement in the country and also served as the first Deputy Chief Minister cum Finance Minister of the Indian state of Bihar.

He spent his student years under the tutelage of Lal Bahadur Shastri at Allahabad. Brought up in a political environment, S. N. Sinha completed his bachelor's degree from Allahabad University and earned a degree in law from Lucknow University in 1940. He practised law at the Patna High Court, but left his job to join the Indian Independence movement and participated in the Quit India Movement in 1942. He organised Legal Aid Programmes for political prisoners during pre-Independence days.

Political career Provisional Parliament

After Independence he was elected to the provisional Parliament from Bihar in 1950. He was part of the young Turk brigade of the Indian National Congress party during the time of the first Prime Minister of India wanted him to become the next Chief Minister of Bihar and sent then External Affairs Minister Dinesh Singh to convey the proposal but he refused, since he did not wish to unseat incumbent CM K B Sahay but wanted to be elected by the people of the state.

Emergency era

He decided to side with the syndicate after the expulsion of Smt.Indira Gandhi from the Congress.The Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency on 25 June 1975 due to internal political disturbances. Accordingly, all fundamental rights enjoyed in the Indian Constitution were suspended. Political dissidents, newspaper reporters, opposition leaders who opposed emergency were jailed. Chhote Saheb, along with other prominent leaders, opposed this blatant misuse of state machinery. In 1977, during the emergency in India, he was made president of Bihar Janata Party and Chairman of State Election Committee.

He worked together with premier colleagues of Janata Party like Morarji Desai, Chandra Shekhar Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Madhu Limaye, H. D. Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Raj Narain, George Fernandes and Karpuri Thakur and the movement was a grand success in Bihar. He motivated the youth and students to take an active role in politics, and ensured their representation in political affairs. During, the Bihar legislative assembly election 1977, a massive crowd of youth leaders and activists used to converge at his residence.

Satyendra Narayan Sinha's political and the alliance came to power, headed by Morarji Desai, who became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India. In Bihar, the Janata Party won all Chandra Shekhar Singh and returned to the Congress fold in 1984. The then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi came down to Patna to formally admit him back to the Congress party.

Chief Ministership As the Chief Minister of Bihar, Chhote Saheb also held the portfolio of Education for the fourth term in his later years 1989–1990. In the same year, he conceived, the proposal to set up a NTPC's super thermal power project at Nabinagar in Bihar's Aurangabad district to then Prime Minister of India and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi; but the project went into limbo as the following state governments failed to follow it. In 2007, Manmohan Singh's government finally put a stamp of approval on it.

He is also credited for the establishment of the Indira Gandhi Planetarium cum Science Centre in Patna. Under his regime, Panchayati Raj system of governance was introduced in Bihar.

In his autobiography Meri Yaadein, Meri Bhoolein, released by the then Bihar Governor Buta Singh in the presence of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee (also former President of India), He accused his state colleagues of "fanning" the 1989 Bhagalpur violence to malign him, specifically mentioning his predecessor and former chief minister Bhagwat Jha Azad and the former speaker Shivchandra Jha. He didn't agree with the over-ruling of his order to transfer the then superintendent of police K S Dwivedi who had failed miserably to discharge his duties. The decision was not only an encroachment of the Constitutional right of the state government but also a step detrimental to ongoing efforts to ease tensions. When he stepped down from the post of Chief Minister of Bihar, Jagannath Mishra succeeded him. He recalled when he met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi later on, he informed him about the "role of some Congress leaders" in the riots. The Prime Minister expressed surprise and said "so, the riots were motivated!" record of maximum parliamentary election victories in Bihar, next only to the late Jagjivan Ram.

He served as the Chairman of Committee on Estimates from 1977 to 1979. He was also a Member of the Committee on Finance from 1950 to 1952; Committee on Estimates from 1956 to 1958 and thereafter during 1985–1986 and the Committee on Public Undertakings during 1982–83. He was a well-known social activist, and served as the Assistant Secretary to the Bihar Provincial Committee of the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Fund and Secretary to the Bihar Provincial Committee of the Gandhi National Memorial Fund. He was also associated with a number of educational and social institutions in different capacities. He was member, Senate and Syndicate of Patna University from 1946 to 1960 and Bihar University from 1958 to 1960. Governor of the Indian state of Nagaland and also as the Governor of Kerala.

S. N. Sinha wrote his autobiography Meri Yadein: Meri Bhoolein, which incorporates the experiences and perceptions of a leader of his eminence and stature.

His official residence in Delhi, 28 Akbar Road, had won awards for being one of the best kept bungalows in the national capital. Its grand the 1989 Bhagalpur violence. The N.N Singh Committee report tabled in the Bihar legislative assembly held the government responsible for taking no action and the police showing complete inactivity during one of the biggest instances of human rights violations in Bihar, which led to the displacement of over 50,000 people. The riots are said to have claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly poor weavers, while the police and Congress administration under Sinha took no action.

Commemoration The inaugural lecture of the annual Satyendra Narayan Sinha Memorial Lecture Series was delivered by Vice-President of India Shri Hamid Ansari in Patna. In 2014, the then Bihar CM announced to rename Magadh University of which Late Sinha was the founder as Satyendra Narayan Sinha Magadh University. The Children's Park in the capital Patna has now been rechristened as Satyendra Narayan Sinha Park and the foundation for installing a life-size statue of former Bihar CM was laid by Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar at a state function in 2015.