Lalbahadur Shastri: Disciple Of Mahatma Gandhi And Most Trusted Man Of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Lalbahadur Shastri: Disciple Of Mahatma Gandhi And Most Trusted Man Of Jawaharlal Nehru.

“While I am Hindu, Mir Mushtaq who is presiding over this meeting is a Muslim. Mr. Frank Anthony who has addressed you is a Christian. There are also Sikhs and Parsis here. The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring all this into politics. This is the difference between India and Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan proclaims herself to be an Islamic State and uses religion as a political factor, we Indians have the freedom to follow whatever religion we may choose, and worship in any way we please. So far as politics is concerned, each of us is as much an Indian as the other”.  These are the words of a man who was secularist and possessed the remarkable qualities of humility, modesty, sincerity and honesty and that man was India’s second Prime Minister, Lalbahadur Shastri. He said this in the public meeting held at the Ramlila ground a few days after the ceasefire in 1965. Lalbahadur Shastri was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and most trusted man of Jawaharlal Nehru. He had been selected unanimously for the Prime Minister’s post.  Even though his tenure as Prime minister for nineteen months, he left an indelible impression on our collective life.

From Yogesh Gogwekar

Lalbahadur Shastri was born on 2^nd October 1904 in Kayastha Hindu Family at his maternal grandparents place. His father Sharada Prasad Srivastava was teaching English in the school. Later he became the clerk in the revenue office at Allahabad. His mother was a housewife. When he was one and half years old his father died because of bubonic plague. That time his mother Kailashi Devi was pregnant with her third child came to her father’s place in Mughalsarai and settled there. In Mughalsarai, she gave birth to a daughter known as Sundari Devi.  As per the tradition of his family, Lalbahadur Shastri started his education in the Urdu language in the beginning and later on shifted to English education. In 1925, he completed his graduation in Philosophy from Kashi Vidyapith which was an internal part of Banaras Hindu University. He received financial help for his education from patriotic and highly respected teacher Mr. Nishkameshwar Prasad Mishra. Shastri was also inspired by his patriotism and started taking deep interest in the freedom struggle. He became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and started reading the books on Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and Annie Besant and joined the local branch of Congress. In January 1921, he participated in the Non-cooperation movement in Benares. At the time of doing anti-government demonstration, he was arrested; but released immediately because he was a minor.

In 1928, he became an active member of Indian national Congress. He was jailed many times for conducting Satyagraha in United Provinces (Today’s Uttar Pradesh). He participated in quit India movement and got arrested at the time of going to Allahabad from Mumbai. After Independence, Shastri became a Minister of Police and Transport in UP. As a transport minister, he was the first person to appoint women conductors.  As a minister of Police, he instructed police not to use lathis but to use water jets to disperse the crowd. His tenure in the ministry of police was very much useful for restraining the communal riots and resettlement of refugees.

Shastri became General Secretary of Indian National Congress in 1951 where he got an opportunity to work with his hero Jawaharlal Nehru. As a General Secretary, he was directly responsible for appointing candidates and also responsible for publicity direction and electioneering activities. Due to his hard work in this area, Congress did well in the elections of 1952, 1957 and in 1962. He became the first Railway Minister of republic of India on 13^th May 1952. He also served as Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1959, Minister of Home Affairs in 1961 and Minister without portfolio in 1964. On 9^th June 1964, he was elected as a Prime Minister of India after the death of his hero Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

After becoming Prime Minister of India, within some days, Shastri had a mild heart attack. It was his second heart attack. His doctors advised him to take rest; but the situation in India was such rest would not be possible for him. There was shortage of food; a virulent anti-Hindi agitation in the south; our neighbour Pakistan was giving trouble; accompanied by China’s threatening gestures and issues of Kashmir and Nagaland. On 11^th June 1964, in his speech he said that,” There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the cross-roads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us, there need be no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to the right or left. Our way is straight and clear—the building up of a socialist democracy at home with freedom and prosperity for all, and the maintenance of world peace and friendship with all nations”. He did not make any changes in ministry levels and retained the same ministers who were working under first PM Jawaharlal Nehru but appointed Indira Gandhi under his ministry as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

Shastri followed Nehru's socialist economic policies. During his tenure, he promoted While revolution to increase the production of milk and also its supply. For that purpose, he formed Amul Milks Co-operative and created the National Dairy Development Board in Anand, Gujarat with the help of Varghese Kurien. For resolving the food shortages, he insisted the Members of Parliament to pass the National Agricultural Products board Act and helped to set up Food Corporation of India under Food corporation Act of 1964. For this he formed Indian Council for Agricultural Research and appointed professional persons like C Subramanian as a Minister of Food and Agriculture and allowed C Subramanian to appoint further two intellectuals B Sivaraman and M S Swaminathan for resolving the issue of food shortages. This is nothing but a promotion of the Green revolution. He continued the Non-alignment policies of Nehru and developed close relationships with Soviet Union. He gave permission to increase the budget for Defence.

In October 1965, war broke out between India and Pakistan. It was not only a matter of pride for the Indian Army but also for every Indian Citizen. Shastri coined the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan which means salute to ordinary soldiers and farmers of India. The war of 1965 was won by our defence forces with admirable skill and brought us back our self-respect and our national prestige which was lost in 1962 and the whole nation remains obligated to Lalbahadur Shastri. In this case, I am giving you the details of what Life magazine said that,” What Shastri gave India was mainly a mood-new steeliness and sense of National unity. The Chinese war brought India to the state near to collapse, but this time, when war came everything worked-the trains ran, army held fast, there was no communal rioting. The old morale pretentiousness, the disillusion and draft, the fear and dismay were gone”.

There is one more issue which challenged the unity of India on 26^th January 1965. In 1949, the constituent Assembly had chosen Hindi as a national language but the same was refused to accept by South India and East India. Therefore, the Constitution of India ratified this by extending the grace period for fifteen years and continued English with Hindi in the communication between the center and state. And this period was ending on 26^th January 1965. Shastri believed that Hindi should be the official language of union but the intensity of the anti-Hindi protest was such which alarmed unity of India.  For that purpose, people from non-Hindi speaking India were ready to offer their lives. Therefore, the Prime minister has to reconsider and allow the state to continue to transact its own business in the language of its own choice, which may be in regional language or in English and also assured that the examination of All India Civil Services would continue to be conducted in English rather than in Hindi alone.

Shastri was a very simple person. He did not make any property in his name. He had only one Fiat car which was purchased by him by taking a loan and the same had been settled by his wife Lalita Shastri after his death. Kuldip Nayar, a journalist and Shastri’s media adviser wrote in his book Beyond The Lines that,” during the Quit India Movement, his daughter was ill and he was released on parole from jail. However, he could not save her life because doctors had prescribed costly drugs. Later on in 1963, on the day when he was dropped from the cabinet, he was sitting in his home in the dark, without a light. When asked about the reason, he said as he no longer is a minister, all expenses will have to be paid by him and that as an MP and minister he didn't earn enough to save for time of need ”. Mr. Nayar further said that Shastri was not a moralist but he was a traditionalist. He gave one incidence in his book Beyond The Lines, he became more uncomfortable at the time of watching Swan Lake performance played by Bolshoi Ballet in Leningrad because the legs of dancers were bare because he was watching such a show with his wife.

Such a remarkable personality died on 11^th January 1966 after signing the Tashkent Agreement for ending the war with Pakistan. Lalbahadur Shastri will be remembered for all times to come for his large heartedness and public service.

Mumbai

03/10/2020

References

A.     India After Gandhi : Ramchandra Guha

B.      Beyond The Lines : Kuldeep Nayar

C. Lalbahadur Shastri: Politics and Beyond : Sandeep Shastri

D.     Lalbahadur Shastri : A Life of Truth in Politics :C P Srivastava