Ram Sundar Das

Das was born on 9 January 1921 into Chamar caste in Gangajal near Sonpur, Saran District in Bihar.[1] He matriculated from a school in Sonpur and attended Vidyasagar College in Calcutta. He dropped out of college to join the Indian freedom movement. He married Savita Devi in 1956 and had three children - two sons and one daughter.[2]

Das served as a functionary in Congress Socialist Party in his native Sonpur. The Congress Socialist Party, through a series of mergers became a part of the Praja Socialist Party (PSP). Das served as member of PSP's Bihar Provincial Executive Council. In 1968, he was elected as a Member of Bihar's legislative council and continued in this role until 1977.[2]

In the 1977 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, that led to a decisive defeat of the ruling Indian National Congress at the hands of Janata party, Das was elected as the MLA for Sonpur. Janata Party was a recent amalgam of disparate groups including Indian National Congress (Organisation), Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), Socialists and Hindu Nationalists of Jana Sangh. The sole purpose of these groups joining together was to defeat Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had imposed a nationwide emergency and curtailed many freedoms. There were also social cleavages with Socialists and BLD representing backward castes and Congress(O) and Jana Sangh the upper castes. [2][3]

Infighting in the party broke over the question of Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur's decision to implement the Mungeri Lal Commission report, that recommended the institution of reservations for Backward Castes in government jobs. Upper caste members of Janata Party tried to water down the reservation policy by unseating Thakur as Chief Minister. To wean away Dalit MLAs, Das, a Dalit himself, was nominated as the candidate. Though both Das and Thakur were both Socialist, Das was considered more moderate and accommodative than the Chief Minister. Thakur resigned and Das became the Chief Minister of Bihar on 21 April 1979. The reservation law was weakened by allowing upper castes to obtain a greater percentage of government jobs.The internal tensions in Janata Party caused it to split into multiple factions which led to Congress to return to power in 1980. [3][4]

In the late 1980s, some of the remnants of Janata Party had come together to form Janata Dal, which formed a coalition government at the national level following the 1989 Indian general election. In 1990 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, Janata Dal won the largest number of seats and sought to form government with the outside support of BJP and Communists. Das was a contender for Chief Ministership pitted against Raghunath Jha and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yadav was supported by Devi Lal and Nitish Kumar, Jha by Chandra Shekhar and Das by Prime Minister VP Singh. Yadav had compaigned heavily in favour of implementing Mandal Commission, which sought to reserve government jobs for backward castes in Central Government jobs. Das was less keen on this. VP Singh's support of Das was interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm for this form of social engineering. Nitish Kumar rallied backward caste MLAs towards Yadav. In the election, Yadav won narrowly over Das by a vote of 59 to 56. Jha won 12, mostly upper caste MLAs.[3]

He was elected to the 10th Lok Sabha from Hajipur constituency in Bihar in 1991. He was re-elected to the 15th Lok Sabha from the same constituency in 2009. He served as the leader of the Janata Dal (United) Parliamentary Party. He contested from Hajipur again in 2014 general election when in his 90s, but Ram Vilas Paswan won the seat taking advantage of the Narendra Modi - BJP wave.[2]

He died on 6 March 2015 at the age of 94. He is survived by two sons and one daughter.[5]

• Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
• Chhote Saheb was a leader of the masses-former Bihar CM Ram Sundar Das