Manmohan Misra

Manmohan Misra was a twentieth century revolutionary poet and a freedom fighter. from Odisha. His poems bolstered the freedom struggle in Odisha . Much of of his writings were banned by the British. He spent years in jail under the British rule and many years under detention in free India for his protests on behalf of people. He is featured in the series Makers of Modern Indian Literature sponsored by the Sahitya Academy, New Delhi. Manmohan loved Odisha and was a staunch Odia. Along with Sachidananda Routray and Ananta Patnaik, he makes up the trio of progressive writer's movement in Odisha.
== Summary ==
Manmohan Misra was a brilliant student. He molded his life towards public service in the model of Pandit Gopabandhu Dash, a family relative. He tuned all his compositions for community expressions of call for freedom, human rights or protest against exploitation and inequity. He was the Founding President of the Ravenshaw College Students Union. His nationalistic leanings were guided by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose who was his high-school alumnus. He served as a member of the Communist Party of India from 1940 to 1956 and was a member of Indian National Congress from 1957 to 1964. He served as the Founding Editor of daily Kalinga from 1960 to 1963 and served as the Chairman of Cuttack Municipality 1959 to 1963. He was a tireless trade-union leader and was known for his prolonged hunger strikes to fight for gaining living wages for the daily laborers. He wanted to apply Marxism to uplift the poor and landless in Odisha.. He founded the grassroots People's Literature movement..
== Childhood ==
Manmohan Misra was born in a conservative temple village called Shasana Biranarasinghapur, a flourishing affluent community that traded on coconuts and grains. His father Nilakantha Misra worked as the Police Chief in a princely kingdom called Baudh,. a scenic area on the banks of River Mahanadi. The residents of the kingdom were of the primitive kandha tribe, known for their rebellion against the British on land rights. it would reveal that Manmohan was influenced by their utter simplicity and earthy patriotism. .
== Education ==
He had his primary education in Govt School at Angul.. Finishing with a scholarship he entered Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack.. Manmohan won prizes for poetry in school. He stood second in merit in School Final examination.
He studied English Literature in Ravenshaw College and was influenced by the liberal ideas of the English poets.. He encountered the biography of Valdimir Lenin of Russia and learned more about the Russian revolution. Meanwhile, he met the leftist block leaders in Indian National Congress who were envisioning a Marxist future for India. There was a call to demolish India's feudal structure and empower the farmer with land redistribution. Manmohan joined the movement.
== Leadership and freedom struggle ==
Manmohan topped the University and was enrolled as a student in the Master's degree. He was elected as the President of the newly formed Ravenshaw College Students Union. He led strikes in the local Medical College. He was rusticated for having hoisted the Indian tricolor in place the British flag in the College. The rustication reinforced his resolve. A speech in a protest rally at Puri commemorating the Jalianawala Massacre landed him as a criminal prisoner. He was jailed for eighteen months. During the bail period he met Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in Calcutta. Netaji instructed him to work for the people of Odisha.
Upon his release from jail in 1941, Manmohan joined Communist Party of India.. Quit India Movement landed him again in jail for three years. In jail, young Manmohan had the opportunity to meet and befriend many veteran freedom fighters in Odisha. The public execution of Laxman Nayak, the Gandhian Kondha rebel in the Berhampur jail sharpened his voice to fight for the oppressed. He composed freedom songs that were smuggled out of the jail. Though banned by the Government., they were used to organize protests. Manmohan developed skill drama and told the story of India in fictional form to fool the authorities. 
In 1945, he was married to Nirmala Kar from a progressive aristocratic family in Cuttack. The couple organized women choral groups and mobilized people in the freedom movement. Dramas and musicals of the period remain unpublished .Ladies of these groups assumed social leadership positions in later life including one becoming the Chief Minister of Odisha.
=== Communist Party ===
In 1948, Manmohan went underground along with many of the major leaders of Communist Party of India.. After a year of hiding, he was arrested and sent to jail for two years. He pleaded the Habeas Corpus on behalf all detainees and secured release. Manmohan was famous for his eloquence and oratory. He fought Puri Parliamentary Constituency in the first general elections of India in 1952, but was defeated. Manmohan did direct his efforts to establishing units of World Peace Council in Odisha and became the Founding Secretary. He became a prominent member of the Indian People's theater Association and participated in their cultural events.
In 1955, Manmohan attended the World Peace Council event at Helsinki, Finland as a poet delegate from India. He became the first Odia poet to broadcast from Radio Moscow in Soviet Union. He won prizes and gifts. His travel diary compiled in a set of four books enriched the Odia literature in relating to international customs and cultures. Manmohan was strongly supportive of peasants' liberation movement but was disturbed by the imperialistic designs of the Soviet Communist Party. With the Russian invasion of Hungary in the November 1956, Manmohan condemned the aggression and severed ties with the Communist Party..
=== Association with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian National Congress ===
Manmohan joined as the Odisha correspondent of the nationalist English daily Hindustan Standard published from Calcutta. in 1959, he was invited by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to attend the annual session of Indian National Congress at Nagpur, where he was assigned the role in drafting the charter of Democratic Socialism for the Congress party. Manmohan edited a weekly bulletin called The Congress and helped establish The Daily Kalinga from Cuttack. . Through the newspaper he championed the case against feudalism. His efforts succeeded in gaining a full legislative majority for the Congress in the Constituent Assembly. Biju Patnaik became the Chief Minister. Manmohan was elected as the Chairman of Cuttack Municipality. As Chairman, he opened night schools, public health facilities and vocational training schools for the youth.
Manmohan was critical of the style of Biju Patnaik in managing the State funds. He was removed from the Editorship of the newspaper by the Kalinga Trust Board. Biju Patnaik himself resigned in a Congress Party in an overhaul. The new Chief Minister Biren Mitra faced a massive state-wide students' unrest. Manmohan supported the students. He was eventually expelled from the offices of Congress Party after Nehru's death. Manmohan remained an Independent for the rest of his life.
== Literary life ==
Manmohan Misra's early literary compositions were protest songs against the British rule. They were used in marches, meetings and in stage shows to express protest. Most of these books were banned by the Government, clandestine copies sold to public to raise funds for agitation. Some of them are compiled in 
A magnificent translation of the collection of poems by Soviet poets has been a unique addition to Odia literature. ରୁଷୀୟ ସଂଗୀତାବଳୀ (Anthology of Poems from Russia) published in 1967 won the Soviet Land Nehru Award for the year. Twin other translations Maxim Gorky's "On Literature" and Thomas Mann's "The Transposed Heads" appeared the following year. They helped create the foundation of literature with real-life stories in Odia. Manmohan produced two research books on Odia linguistics (i) ଚଳନ୍ତି ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ caḻanti bhāṣāra prayoga, (The use and application of current language) and (ii) ଚଳନ୍ତି ଭାଷାର ବିଜ୍ଞାନ caḻanti bhāṣāra bijñāna (the science of the current language) . The first book analyzed the information content of expression in Odia language from the point of view of brevity and precision, the second book analyzed language expression for the masses, the process of creating encryption and metaphors to convey complex ideas.
The creation of an authoritative biography of Barrister Bishvanatha Misra, became an obsession to Manmohan. Humble Bishvanath walked ten miles each way to attend school, labored to complete Bar-at-law in London and worked in creating a political homeland for the Odia speaking people. The book created a new mode of biography research in Odisha .
In later life, Manmohan wrote topical essays for journals to mobilize public sentiment against the rise of Fascism in Indian political system. India did go through a brief period of political instability in the '70s. In the '80s, Manmohan edited a literary journal called "Abhijatri" and led training workshops for young poets and artists in teaching language art and techniques of expression.
== Work on the land rights for people ==
From childhood Manmohan was deeply committed to land rights of the villagers. Land gave food to people, any displacement under the promise of development was self-defeating. Displacement of indigenous people was rampant in the northern Odisha and the lower Jharkhand (earlier Bihar) because of mining activities. Manmohan camped in the area and mobilized people to do sit in strikes in protecting land and demanding adequate compensation.. The tribal people were agitated and resorted to violence. The government took the opportunity to accuse Manmohan of criminal offence and put him under solitary confinement at Hazaribag jail.. 
Manmohan joined similar agitation against land-grab when the government ordered to procure large tracts of fertile land in an area called Baliapal in coastal Baleswar to construct a Missile Test Center. The famers and villagers did pre-independence style boycott to let the Government rescind such decision. The Baliapal protection movement of 1985 has become a historical landmark against land-grab by the Government. 
=== Trade Union Movement ===
Manmohan was an early pioneer of trade union movement in Odisha. He founded the trade union in Orient Paper Mill in Brajarajanagar in 1942. The protests at the Glass production factory at Barang in 1955 was severe.
In later years, Manmohan was active in organizing labor in the western industrial belt of Odisha. His extended period hunger-strikes were legendary to press the labor's demands to the management. Many of the trade unions that he founded in Joda, Biramitrapur, Barbiil, Brajarajnagar, Rayagada, Sunabeda remain active.
=== Maoist teacher ===
Manmohan adored Lenin and the Bolshevik revolution. Mao Tse Tung's success with People's Liberation Army drew his attention. He visited China in 1979 as the leader of an Indian Cultural delegation. The new economic style of private innovation under the central Communist rule appealed to him. He ran teach-in sessions where farmers can assume leadership of land management and economy.. He wrote about the possible armed clash between the entrenched henchmen of feudalism against the farmers. 
== Dementia and death ==
Manmohan visited Cambridge, US to attend his granddaughter's graduation. His low energy and dementia were noted at that time. He attended the Convention of the The Odisha Society of the Americas|Orissa Society of the Americas and spoke there. He also spoke in a seminar on Sri Jagannatha at the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard University. After four months of stay, he returned to India. He remained active in literary circles for a few more years. He was detected to have been affected by Alzheimer's disease in 1999 and remained under treatment. He succeeded in publishing a poetry book purely dictated from memory. Manmohan died of a stroke on November 19, 2000 at Kalinga Hospital in Bhubaneswar. Tributes did pour in.
Category:Indian poets
Category:Indian people