Jayaprakash Narayan's Worldmaking: Revisiting Indian Internationalism in the 1950s

Abstract: This article probes the inventive internationalism of postcolonial Indian politician Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) in a heady age—the 1950s. JP is frequently presented as an oppositional nationalist who challenged Prime Ministers Nehru and, more prominently, Indira Gandhi for primacy in the country's politics between the 1950s and 1970s. This article provides insights into his lesser-known global engagements. It demonstrates how JP took decolonization as a brief to engineer new social and political orders in southern Asia and beyond, catalyzing socialist conversations around the region before engaging in practical experiments in the middle of the decade. JP revised his internationalism on facing challenges, flitting from country to country to advocate for'direct democracy' by the end of the decade. The article illustrates that JP's internationalism was much richer than existing accounts—focusing narrowly on anti-communism—suggest, and that its study provides insights into nonstate dimensions of Indian internationalism.