A pictorial book on the Jayaprakash Narayan-led total revolution of 1974 was released here to mark the 40th anniversary of the movement that ousted the Congress Government at the Centre. The 455 pictures in black and white had been clicked by Satyanarain Dusre and picturise the details of the students’ movement which was converted into a mass movement by JP.

Though many luminaries, including lK Advani, Sharad Yadav and Kuldip Nayar, besides top leaders of that movement like Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief lalu Prasad, were supposed to attend the programme, they failed to turn up for different reasons. Former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Ashwini Kumar Chaube and Ravindra Kishore Sinha, both MPs, Shivanand Tiwary and Abdul Bari Siddiqui, all JP movement products were present at the function.

Modi said there were many contributions of the JP movement and it proved that changes could be made through peaceful manners. The fall of the Congress Government at the Centre was first instance in the Independent India which was made possible because of the non-violent movement.

This total revolution was not meant just to change the Government but to change the system, said Modi.

The BJP leader, who then was a member of ABVP, said, “The biggest achievement of the JP movement was that it succeeded in eliminating the political untouchability as leaders and cadres of warring parties join hands and moved ahead together which was a new experiment in the polity.”

BJP MP Ashwini Kumar Choube said he felt guilty for not doping anything for a n umber of movement activists who were still struggling and could not find a space. Recalling the police firing during the movement, he alleged that a particular student leader tried his own marketing and projection by spreading wrong reports of being hit with a bullet. Though he did not name, he was referring to lalu Prasad.

Shivanand Tiwary recalled the frustration of JP after the formation of non-Congress Governments at Centre and in Bihar and had been lamenting for being ignored by them. He also lamented that many products of the movement lost direction and forgotten the spirit of the movement R K Sinha MP, who presided over the function suggested the State Government to honour and provide pension to all the activists of the JP movement even if there was no jail records of their incarceration.    

The lenseman Dusre who faced a lot of odds and difficulties in capturing the turbulent times of the movement, recalled the days when police fired on agitators and how their bodies were dragged away by police in civvies. He also recalled the tragedy in the life of JP when his Prabhawati Devi passed away and he clicked the scenes of an emotional JP liting the pyre.