Buxar village claims to be JP's birthplace

Darpan Singh
Patna, October 13
WHILE THE State Government has been spending a lot of money to renovate places and buildings associated with Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan whose 105th birth anniversary fell on October 11, the rundown village of Saikraul Lakh in Buxar district of Bihar where JP spent part of his childhood continues to remain in obscurity.
What is much more significant about this village, situated some 7 km from the Dumraon-Bikramganj road, is that it claims to be the actual place where JP was born.
Sitabdiara in Balia district of Uttar Pradesh is commonly acknowledged as JP’s place of birth but residents of Saikraul Lakh vehemently beg to differ. Seventy-year-old Prabhawati Devi told Hindustan Times, "Sitabdiara was part of Bihar till 1972 when the border between Bihar and Uttar Pradesh was demarcated afresh. Sitabdiara is, no doubt, the native village of JP’s family but that is not where JP was born. He was born here, in Sikraul Lakh, on October 11, 1902, when his father happened to be posted in this village."
She lamented that nothing was being done to preserve JP’s memory and demanded that the collapsed structure which housed the office for which JP’s father worked should immediately be renovated as a historic building.
According to sources in the district administration, JP’s father, Harshu Dayal, was a ‘Jiledar’ at an Irrigation Department office located in the village. In the early years of the 20th Century, it was the ‘Jiledar’ who collected ‘water rent’, something that is done by circle officers today.
Sadly, Dayal’s office-cum-residence, where JP spent some of his childhood days, has almost ceased to exist. Though the office for which JP’s father worked still functions from another building close by, all that remain of the original building are collapsed walls and a roofless structure completely covered by bush and creepers. The place is now used by some villagers to stack cattle fodder.
Another villager, Krishnaji, said JP’s early schooling had also taken place in the village. He regretted that all records pertaining to JP’s schooling in the village had been lost during the floods of 1987.
Shedding more light on JP’s association with the region, an elderly villager, Gobardhan Mishra, said, “JP’s grandfather, Devakinandan Lal, who did not have a child, had sought the blessings of a saint, Harshu Bramha of Nasriganj. Nasriganj was then part of erstwhile Shahabad district which now falls in Rohtas district. No wonder, he named his son Harshu Dayal." He said JP’s father is remembered as a simple man and no one could have predicted that his son would become such a major political figure in the years to come.
Senior NCP leader and resident of the village, Ram Bihari Singh, said the State Government must take steps to give the village its due status as JP’s ‘birthplace’.