Bihar Quiz: Famous Personalities of Bihar

Rajendra Prasad was born there on 3 December 1884, worked with Gandhi during the Champaran inquiry of 1917, presided over the Constituent Assembly from December 1946 and became the first President of India in January 1950.

Called Bihar Kesari, he headed the provincial government from 1946 and continued as the first Chief Minister of Bihar until 1961.

Born on 11 October 1902 at Sitabdiara on the border of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he escaped from Hazaribagh jail during the Quit India movement, built the socialist movement after independence and in 1974 gave the call for Sampoorna Kranti, or Total Revolution, which became the centre of the agitation…

The zamindar of Jagdishpur in the Shahabad tract, now Bhojpur district, took command of the sepoys at Arrah when he was nearly eighty, fought the British through 1857 and died in 1858 soon after recovering his estate.

An indigo cultivator of Champaran, he followed Gandhi from one meeting to another, including the Lucknow session of the Congress in 1916, until Gandhi agreed to come and see the condition of the tenants for himself.

Bismillah Khan was born there on 21 March 1916, moved to Varanasi as a boy and turned the shehnai, until then an instrument of ceremonies, into a concert instrument.

Dinkar, born on 23 September 1908 at Simaria in Begusarai district, was given the Jnanpith Award in 1972 for Urvashi, a long poem on love and renunciation.

Born at Aurahi Hingna in Araria district, Renu published Maila Anchal in 1954, and the novel, set in a village of the Purnia region, began the anchalik or regional school of Hindi fiction.

Born on 24 January 1924 at Pitaunjhia in Samastipur district, a village now named Karpoori Gram, he was called Jannayak, served as Chief Minister of Bihar and as a leader of the backward classes, and the Bharat Ratna was conferred on him in 2024, long after his death in 1988.

Bhikhari Thakur of Kutubpur in Saran district wrote and performed plays and songs in Bhojpuri, and his Bidesia, the story of a woman left behind by a husband who migrates for work, is still staged today; the title given to him recognises that he wrote for the stage as much…

She took office in 1997 and was the first woman to head the government of Bihar. The question is usually set alongside the other state firsts, so the three names that follow are worth keeping apart from hers.