Pandit Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma

Pandit Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma (1896-1975) was a great nationalist and peasant leader from the Indian state of Bihar. He had started a movement for the rights of tillers against the zamindars and Britishers at Reora celebrated as the Reora Satyagraha.

Biography

Pandit Yadunandan Sharma was born in Majhiawa villaga in Gaya district in 1896. The village was part of the Tekari zamindari. When Sharma was only three, his father died and, as the family was economically very bad off, Pandit Yadunandan had to start working, when very young, as a cowherd. Hence, he missed schooling in the early part of his life and it was only in 1914 that, impelled by the desire to become literate, he ran away to Benaras where he learnt the alphabet. He matriculated in 1919 from Tekari high school and became a teacher for one year in a village school. He even worked as a manager in a zamindari getting a first hand knowledge of the system. Not happy with it, he again went off to Benaras and joined Benaras Hindu University and studied until 1929 when he graduated. After his B.A. degree, he left education and joined Civil Disobedience Movement. He was arrested and sentenced for 16 months in 1930. After being released from jail, he joined the Kisan movement in 1933 and started the famous Sandako and Reora Satyagraha in the 1930s. He became the undisputed leader of peasants in the Gaya district and second in command to the legendary freedom fighter and peasant leader Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. He died in 1975.

Books authored

* Sharma, Yadunandan, 1947, Bakasht Mahamari Aur Uska Achook Ilaaz (Bakasht Epidemic and its Infalliable Remedy) in Hindi, Allahabad.