Pandit Jamuna Karzee :

Pandit Jamuna Karjee was born in a small village name Deopar near Pusa in Darbhanga District of Bihar in 1898. His father Anu Karjee was a marginal farmer who died when Jamuna Karjee was just 6 months old. He grew up under the loving care and guardianship of his mother.

For attending his primary and middle school classes, he had to walk daily to a nearby village Digrah about 6 km. from his home. He was a brilliant student and won a scholarship for his education in North Brooke Jila School at Darbhanga.

From his school days itself, he was drawn towards India’s freedom struggle and the Kisan Movement and Peasant movement under Swami Sehganandji Saraswati’s leadership. For higher studies he went to the Presidency College, Calcutta, and also obtained a degree in Law.

In Calcutta he came in contact with several freedom fighters and Congress leaders like Dr. B.C. Roy, Dr. Shri Krishan Sinha, Rahul Sankritayan etc. Spurning the offers of several government jobs, he became a Hindi journalist of repute.

He joined the editorial wing of Hindi weekly Bharat Mirtra published in Calcutta. He also took part in Gandhiji’s non cooperation movement from 1920-21 and was jailed in 1929-30 for taking part in civil disobedience movement and Namak Satyagrah.

He won the first election for Bihar and Orissa Assembly in 1937 as a Congress candidate. He was one of the strongest pillars of the peasant movement in Bihar under the leadership of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.

He along with Rahul Sankritayan and other Hindi literaries started publishing a Hindi weekly Humkar from Bihar, in 1940. Humkar later became the mouthpiece of the peasant movement and the agrarian movement in Bihar. He was elected to the post of President Bihar Journalist association in 1947-48.

He died of cancer in October 1953 at an early age of 55. After his untimely demise the peasant movement lost momentum in Bihar and became rudderless.

As remembered by Mahesh Kumar Karjee Son of Jamuna Karjee Retired Dy. G.M., Public Enterprise, presently a free lance writer. (There is also a reference of Jamuna Karjee in Bipan Chandra’s Book. India’s struggle for Independence . Chapter 27, ‘Peasant Movement in the 1930s and 40’s’.)