Pandit Dwarka Prasad Mishra was a titanic figure who served as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from 1963 to 1967. Born in 1901 he joined the freedom movement as a student and served a jail term in 1920 during the Non Cooperation Movement. He was a very gifted man of letters and at a very young age edited a monthly called ‘Sri Sarada.’ Later he edited the daily ‘Dainik Lokmat’. When Lala Lajpat Rai passed away during the Simon Commission agitations, young DP as he was popularly called, wrote a scathing editorial which was praised by Motilal Nehru with the words that not even the country’s best criminal lawyer could have written a chargesheet to match this.
In the provincial elections he was elected a Member of Legislative Assembly of Central Provinces and Berar, the capital of which was Nagpur. He was chosen as a minister under N.B. Khare, but then dismissed along with a few other ministers including Ravishankar Shukla. In a changed political configuration Shukla became the CM and Mishra again got a ministerial berth. Nagpur then was also the gateway to Sevagram in Wardha where Gandhi had set up his base after relocating from Sabarmati. National leaders often crisscrossed Nagpur. While in Nagpur Mishra also hosted Subhaschandra Bose during latter’s visit to the region.
DP used his time in jail during the ‘Quit India Movement’ to write his magnum opus ‘Krishnayan’, a grand poetic work in eight volumes. Greats like Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ had praised it profusely as a work of very high standards. DP was deeply interested in Sanskrit and Urdu poetry and fond of translating and reciting them.
At a time when Nehru was at the peak of his powers in 1951, DP, then a minister in the government of Central Province and Berar resigned and openly criticised Nehru’s Foreign Policy, particularly his stand on China, leading to his exit from the Party. For a brief period he formed a party called Bharatiya Lok Congress but soon joined the Praja Socialist Party. It was around this time that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founding President of Jan Sangh passed away in Kashmir and it is said that DP was approached to take up that mantle. DP in his memoirs wrote that he declined the offer as he felt that capitalist class had a lot of influence in that Party. He often expressed the view that industrialists and business class should not be allowed to have any sway in the political arena. He also felt the same about dynasts of erstwhile princely states viewing them as essentially undemocratic. During this time of political exile he served as the Vice Chancellor of the prestigious Sagar University founded by another MP titan, legendary jurist, Hari Singh Gaur.
In the early sixties DP returned to the Congress fold and soon became the Chief Minister of the state. He was known to give freedom and authority to his bureaucrats and not unnecessarily interfere in their functioning.
In 1967 DP got ousted from power as many of his MLAs crossed the floor in a move by Vijayraje Scindia and Govind Narain Singh. The meeting of the scheming MLAs took place at the garden of the Birla temple in Bhopal – so different from the present day scenario of remote expensive resorts which now serve as such plots. DP was then with some ministers and secretaries in the hill-station of Pachmarhi which acted as the summer capital of the state. When the Chief Secretary Mr Noronha, a much regarded bureaucrat and London School of Economics alumnus, informed the CM about this, he is said to have coolly remarked : ‘Noronha, you take care of administration. Leave politics to me.’
DP lost the position of CM but remained politically important and was a close advisor of Mrs Indira Gandhi during her battles with the Syndicate group of Nijlingappa and Morarji Desai. He was said to have a key role in the Presidential election of 1969 when the official Congress candidate N. Sanjeeva Reddy lost to V.V. Giri with Mrs Gandhi calling for ‘conscience voting.’ But with the rise of Sanjay Gandhi, DP withdrew from politics. He later wrote that it was too much for him who had once worked with Motilal Nehru to now engage with a scion three generations younger.
DP, however, never occupied any political office thereafter. But his wide interests in literature and history kept him busy. He wrote several books which documented the political currents of his time. He wrote his memoirs in three volumes – ‘Living an Era : India’s March to Freedom’, ‘The Nehru Epoch : From Democracy to Monocracy’, and ‘The Post-Nehru Era : Political Memoirs.’ He also wrote some works like ‘Search for Lanka’ where he advanced a thesis that Ravana’s Lanka was not geographically located in Ceylon but in central India, and ‘Studies in Proto-History of India.’ Evening gatherings at his house in Jabalpur with friends from literary circle was a common affair.
DP Mishra was a simple man and Mr Noronha wrote in his memoirs ‘A Tale Told by an Idiot’ (a title inspired by Macbeth’s famous lines) that after relinquishing the CM office DP used auto-rikshaws during his visits to the state capital.
DP Mishra passed away in 1988. During his last illness there were some reports on the costs borne by the state government during his illness. He naturally felt very sad at this and offered to reimburse the whole amount through his pension.
Among DP Mishra’s sons was Brijesh Mishra who joined the Indian Foreign Service and served as the Principal Secretary and the National Security Advisor (it was then that this office was established) during the Vajpayee Government. Another son D.N. Mishra, was a professor in Mathematics, whose son Sudhir Mishra is a well-known filmmaker having made some films like ‘Dharavi’, ‘Is raat ki subah nahi’ and ‘Chameli’ and also co-written (with Kundan Shah) the screenplay of the cult comedy ‘Jaane bh do yaron.’
These generations in Madhya Pradesh would not know of such stalwarts that had led the state in the past. For men like DP Mishra and Dr Katju before him, politics was a mission. It was the office they held that stood honoured by such occupants.