Jayaprakash Narayan Srivastava (listen^ⓘ; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), also known as JP and Lok Nayak (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian politician, theorist and independence activist. He is mainly remembered for leading the mid-1970s opposition against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and calling for her overthrow in a "total revolution". In 1999, Narayan was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social service. His other awards include the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service in 1965.

Jayaprakash Narayan Srivastava was born on 11 October 1902 in the village of Sitab Diara, Chhapra district, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh, India). His house was near the banks of the flood-prone Ghaghara river; every time the river swelled, the house would be slightly damaged, eventually forcing the family to move a few kilometres away to a settlement that is now known as Jayaprakash Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.^{[citation needed]}

Narayan came from a Kayastha family of Srivastava clan. He was the fourth child of Harsu Dayal and Phul Rani Devi. His father was a junior official in the canal department of the state government and often toured the region. When Narayan was nine years old, he left his village to enrol in the seventh class of the collegiate school at Patna. This was his first break from village life. Narayan stayed at Saraswati Bhawan, a student hostel where most of the boys were older than him and included some of Bihar's future leaders, such as its first chief minister Krishna Singh, his deputy Anugrah Narayan Sinha and several others who became politicians and academics.

In October 1918, Narayan married lawyer Brajkishore Prasad's elder daughter and independence activist Prabhavati Devi. After their wedding, because Narayan was working in Patna and it was difficult for his wife to stay with him, Mahatma Gandhi invited Prabhavati to become an inmate at Sabarmati Ashram (Ahmedabad). Jayaprakash, along with some friends, went to listen to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad speak about Gandhi's non-cooperation movement against the passing of the Rowlatt Act of 1919. Azad was a brilliant orator and his call to give up English education was "like leaves before a storm: Jayaprakash has swept away and momentarily lifted up to the skies. That brief experience of soaring up with the winds of a great idea left imprints on his inner being". Inspired by Azad's words, Jayaprakash left Bihar National College with just 20 days remaining to his examinations. Jayaprakash joined the Bihar Vidyapeeth, a college founded by Rajendra Prasad, and became among the first students of Gandhian Anugraha Narayan Sinha.^{[citation needed]}

After exhausting the courses at the Vidyapeeth, Narayan decided to continue his studies in the United States. At age 20, Jayaprakash sailed aboard the cargo ship Janus while Prabhavati remained at Sabarmati. Jayaprakash reached California on 8 October 1922, and was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in January 1923 as a chemistry undergraduate. To pay for his education, Narayan picked grapes, packed fruits at a canning factory, washed dishes, and worked as a garage mechanic. These jobs gave Narayan an insight into the difficulties of the working class. While at Berkeley, Narayan, then one of 45 students from India, joined the university's Hindustan Club. At the end of the semester, however, his fees doubled and he was forced to transfer to The University of Iowa, where he continued his studies in applied science and his activities with the Hindustan Association of America, a national association of Indian students studying in the United States. Narayan chaired the association's 1923 national convention, which was held at the university at the end of December 1923.

In Wisconsin, Narayan was introduced to Karl Marx's book Das Kapital. News of the success of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War made Narayan conclude Marxism was the way to alleviate the suffering of the masses. He studied books by Indian intellectuals and Communist theoreticians M. N. Roy. Narayan's paper on sociology Cultural Variation was declared the best of the year. Narayan graduated from University of Wisconsin with a MA in Sociology, and from Ohio State University with a BA in behavioural science. While in the United States, he met K. B. Menon, then teaching at Harvard, ultimately persuading him to return to India and join the independence movement there.

Having become a Marxist, Narayan returned from the US to India in late 1929. The same year, he joined the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress) on the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru; Mahatma Gandhi became Narayan's mentor in the Congress. Narayan shared a house at Kadam Kuan in Patna with his close friend and nationalist Ganga Sharan Singh (Sinha) with whom he shared a lasting friendship.

After being jailed in 1930 for civil disobedience against British rule, Narayan was imprisoned in Nasik Jail, where he met Rammanohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Basawon Singh, Yusuf Desai, C K Narayanaswami and other national leaders. After his release, the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), a left-wing group within the Congress, was formed with Acharya Narendra Deva as president and Narayan as general secretary.^{[citation needed]}