He was born on 3 December 1884 and he was an Indian politician who became the first President of India. He was one of the architects of the Indian Republic, having served as the president of the Constituent Assembly and later as the first president of independent India. Prasad is the only president to have been elected twice for the office. During the independence movement, he left his practice of law and joined the Congress Party, playing a prominent role in the Indian Independence Movement. Before serving as the president of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the constitution, he had served as Minister of Food and Agriculture in the year 1946 in the Interim national Government. Prasad had formally joined the Indian National Congress way back in the year 1911. During the Lucknow Session of Indian National Congress held in 1916, he met Mahatma Gandhi. During one of the fact-finding missions at Champaran, Mahatma Gandhi asked him to come with his volunteers. He was so greatly moved by the dedication, courage, and conviction of Mahatma Gandhi that as soon as the motion of Non-Cooperation was passed by Indian National Congress in 1920, he retired his lucrative career of lawyer as well as his duties in the university to aid the movement.
He also responded to the call by Gandhi to boycott Western educational establishments by asking his son, Mrityunjaya Prasad, to drop out of his studies and enroll himself in Bihar Vidyapeeth, an institution he along with his colleagues founded on the traditional Indian model. During the course of the independent movement, he interacted with Dr Rahul Sankrityayan, a writer, and polymath. Rahul Sankrityayan was greatly influenced by Prasad's intellectual prowess, finding him to be a guide and guru. In many of his articles he mentioned about his meeting with Sankrityayan and narrated about their him. He wrote articles for the revolutionary publications Searchlight and the Desh and collected funds for these papers. He toured widely, explaining, lecturing, and exhorting the principles of the independence movement. He took an active role in helping the affected people during the 1914 floods that struck Bihar and Bengal. When an earthquake affected Bihar on 15 January 1934, Prasad was in jail. During that period, he passed on the relief work to his close colleague Anugrah Narayan Sinha. He was released two days later and set up Bihar Central Relief Committee on 17 January 1934, and took the task of raising funds to help the people himself. During the May 31, 1935 Quetta earthquake, when he was forbidden to leave the country due to government's order he set up Quetta Central Relief Committee in Sindh and Punjab under his own presidentship.
He was elected as the President of the Indian National Congress during the Bombay session in October 1934. He again became the president when Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose resigned in 1939. On 8 August 1942, Congress passed the Quit India Resolution in Bombay which led to the arrest of many Indian leaders. He was arrested from Sadaqat Ashram, Patna and sent to Bankipur Jail. After remaining incarcerated for nearly three years, he was released on 15 June 1945. After the formation of Interim Government of 12 nominated ministers under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru on Sep 2 1946, he got the Food and Agriculture department. Later, he was elected the President of Constituent Assembly on 11 December 1946. Again on 17 November 1947 he became Congress President for a third time after Jivatram Kripalani submitted resignation. Two and a half years after independence, on January 26, 1950, the Constitution of independent India was ratified and Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected the nation's first President. He served as the President of constituent assembly. Prasad acted independently of politics, following the expected role of the president as per the constitution. Following the tussle over the enactment of the Hindu Code Bill, he took a more active role in state affairs. In 1962, after serving twelve years as the president, he announced his decision to retire. After relinquishing the office of the President of India on May 1962, he returned to Patna on 14 May 1962 and preferred to stay in the campus of Bihar Vidyapeeth. He was subsequently awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation's highest civilian award. He died on 28 February 1963.
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