India@75 Freedom Fighters: Dr Rajendra Prasad, independent India's first President

By Team Newsable | First Published Mar 24, 2022, 1:52 PM IST

Prasad was India's President from 1950 to 1962, the country's longest-serving President to date. Prasad played a crucial role in shaping India post Independence.

Born in a landowning family, Rajendra Prasad received a law degree from Calcutta Law College and started practicing at the Calcutta High Court. Later, he was transferred to the Patna High Court and founded the Bihar Law Weekly.

Before becoming the President of India, Rajendra Prasad had many profiles as a teacher, a lawyer, and an activist. In India's freedom movement, Gandhi recruited Prasad to help in a campaign to improve the conditions of the peasants exploited by the British indigo planters in Bihar.

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To continue with the noncooperative movement, he gave up his law practice in 1920 and became a full-time journalist. He authored Searchlight in English and founded and edited the Hindi weekly Desh. Prasad started to campaign to establish Hindi as the national language of India.

Prasad was imprisoned many times by the Britishers for noncooperative activities, from August 1942 to June 1945, he served three years in jail with the Congress Party's Working Committee. From 1946 to 1949, Prasad headed the Indian Constituent Assembly and assisted in shaping the Indian Constitution. In 1950, post-independence, Prasad was unanimously elected as the first president of India. Prasad was India's President from 1950 to 1962, the country's longest-serving President to date. Prasad played a crucial role in shaping India post Independence.

In 1962, Prasad retired from public life reason being his deteriorating health. Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, was bestowed to him. Prasad was the author of many books, including Mahatma Gandhi and Bihar, Some Reminiscences (1949), India Divided (1946). He also wrote his autobiography named, Atmakatha, published in 1946.

Prasad died at the age of 78, on 28 February 1963. The most exciting part about Prasad is that a Maulvi taught him in his childhood because his father wished him to learn Persian as his father, Mahadev Sahai Srivastava, was a Persian Scholar.

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