ACHARYA KRIPLANI

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Context: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Jayanti.

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He earned the moniker ‘Acharya’ around 1922 when he was teaching at the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by the Mahatma a couple of years before.

Independence Activist

He was involved in the organization of Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience movements and Quit India Movement.
He was the President of Indian National Congress (INC) at the time of independence.
He served in the Interim government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India.

Political Career in post-independent India

Post-independence, he left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP).
This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
He remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967 as a member of Praja Socialist Party.
Kripalani moved the first-ever No confidence motion in Lok Sabha in 1963, immediately after the India-China War.
He remained a critic of Nehru’s policies and Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. He was arrested during Emergency.

Environmentalist

He along with Vinoba Bhave, was involved in in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.
His autobiography‘My Times’ was released 22 years after his death in 2004.