S C VARMA Jaya Prakash J^arayan^s Politics THIS SCRUTINY of the nature of Jaya Prakash Narayan's politics is intended primarily to highlight the sad but irrefutable fact that it is the government which has itself provided work—and plenty of it—to him and his allies by its own acts of omission and commission flowing from its specific class character and secondly, to encourage an intelligent and informed discussion of Jaya Prakash's line through a conceptual analysis. Two things must however be stated at the outset. First, I am not concerned here with JP's personality, nor am I going to trace his political views to (his) character or personality traits, for that would land me in the Freudian swamp of psychologism. Second, I am also not concerned with JP's current movement as such though I will say a word on its significance towards the end of the article. The apologists of the existing economic-political system cite the Directive Principles of State Policy, 'democratic' elections, abolition of zamindari system, nationalization of (some) banks and insurance, abolition of privy purses, and 'garibi hatao^ as the 'revolutionary^ achievements of the government. But this only shows that the Establishmentwallas have failed to distinguish between form and content on the one hand, and have fallen into our rulers^ conceptual trap of confusing 'revolution^ with 'reformism9 on the other, totally missing the elementary fact that while