THE LAL BHADUR SHASTRI

INTRODUCTION:
Lal Bahadur Shastri was an Indian political leader who served as the second
Prime Minister of the Republic of India. Influenced by prominent Indian
national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he plunged into
the Indian independence movement in early 1920s. Before becoming the
Prime Minister of India, he served in a number of other departments like the
railway ministry and the home ministry. With his policies of non alignment
and socialism and influences of Nehruvian socialism in his political thinking,
Shastri became one of the most loved political leaders of all times. He coined
the famous slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.
His death is still considered as a mystery for nobody knows under what
circumstances he died. He died while he was in the process of signing the
Tashkent Agreement on 10 January 1966 - the formal declaration of the end
of Indo-Pak war. He is the only Indian Prime Minister to have died in office
overseas. He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the India's
highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna.
Childhood & Early Life

Shastri was born in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh to Sharada Prasad and

Ramdulari Devi. His father was a clerk in the Revenue Office of
Allahbad but died when Shastri was only a year old. He was raised
along with his two sisters by his mother.

He studied at the East Central Railway Inter College in Varanasi and

later graduated from Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. Soon after, he
joined the Servants of the People Society which was founded by a
prominent nationalist leader of that time - Lala Lajpath Rai.

Career

Shastri became a part of Indian independence movement in 1920s

and was driven by the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. He joined
Gandhis famous Salt Satyagraha in 1930, for which he was sent to
the prison for two and a half years.

That did not deter him from working as the Organizing Secretary of
the Parliamentary Board of U.P. in 1937. He was again sent to
prison for a year for being a part of the nationalist Satyagraha
movement.

He was again imprisoned in 1942 for joining Mahatma Gandhis Quit

India Movement and instructing freedom fighters from Jawaharlal
Nehrus house. He was imprisoned this time for 4 years.

In 1947, Shastri was appointed as the Police and Transport minister

of Uttar Pradesh.

He was made the General Secretary of the All-India Congress

Committee in 1951. Later next year, he was elected to Rajya Sabha
and was made the Minister of Railways and Transport.

Although the Railways and Transport of India flourished under him

but he resigned from the post in 1952, taking responsibility for a
railway accident in Tamil Nadu in which approximately 112 people
died.

In 1957, he was again elected to the cabinet as the Commerce and

Industry minister and within 4 years he was chosen for the
prestigious post of Home Minister.

When Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, died in
office in 1964, the Congress Party President K. Kamaraj put
Shastris name forward for the post of the Prime Minister. He was
elected the Prime Minister of India the same year.

Under his tenure as the Prime Minister, Shastri lead the country
during India-Pakistan war in 1965 and it was during this war that he
coined the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kishan. It soon began the national
slogan.

After the ceasefire with Pakistan was declared in 1965, he attended

a summit in Tashkent with the Pakistani President Muhammad Ayub
Khan. Later next year, both the leaders signed the Tashkent
Declaration.

Major Works

Shastri dealt with many basic problems during his tenure in various
ministries - food shortage, unemployment and poverty. To
overcome the acute food shortage, he devised a long-term strategy
- "Green Revolution". Apart from the Green Revolution, he also
helped in promoting the White Revolution.

Awards & Achievements

2

Shastri was the first person to be posthumously awarded India's

highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna.

Lal Bahadurs small town schooling was not remarkable in any way but
he had a happy enough childhood despite the poverty that dogged
him.

He was sent to live with an uncle in Varanasi so that he could go to

high school. Nanhe, or little one as he was called at home, walked
many miles to school without shoes, even when the streets burned in
the summers heat.

As he grew up, Lal Bahadur Shastri became more and more interested
in the countrys struggle for freedom from foreign yoke. He was greatly
impressed by Mahatma Gandhis denunciation of Indian Princes for
their support of British rule in India. Lal Bahadur Sashtri was only
eleven at the time, but the process that was end day to catapult him to
the national stage had already begun in his mind.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was sixteen when Gandhiji called upon his
countrymen to join the Non-Cooperation Movement. He decided at
once to give up his studies in response to the Mahatmas call. The
decision shattered his mothers hopes. The family could not dissuade
him from what they thought was a disastrous course of action. But Lal
Bahadur had made up his mind. All those who were close to him knew
that he would never change his mind once it was made up, for behind
his soft exterior was the firmness of a rock.

Lal Bahadur Shastri joined the Kashi Vidya Peeth in Varanasi, one of the
many national institutions set up in defiance of the British rule. There,
he came under the influence of the greatest intellectuals, and
nationalists of the country. Shastri was the bachelors degree awarded
to him by the Vidya Peeth but has stuck in the minds of the people as
part of his name.

In 1927, he got married. His wife, Lalita Devi, came from Mirzapur,
near his home town. The wedding was traditional in all senses but one.
A spinning wheel and a few yards of handspun cloth was all the dowry.
The bridegroom would accept nothing more.

In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi marched to the sea beach at Dandi and

broke the imperial salt law. The symbolic gesture set the whole country
ablaze. Lal Bahadur Shastri threw himself into the struggle for freedom
with feverish energy. He led many defiant campaigns and spent a total
of seven years in British jails. It was in the fire of this struggle that his
steel was tempered and he grew into maturity.

When the Congress came to power after Independence, the sterling

worth of the apparently meek and unassuming Lal Bahadur Shastri had
already been recognised by the leader of the national struggle. When
the Congress Government was formed in 1946, this little dynamo of a
man was called upon to play a constructive role in the governance of
the country. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home
State of Uttar Pradesh and soon rose to the position of Home Minister.
His capacity for hard work and his efficiency became a byeword in
Uttar Pradesh. He moved to New Delhi in 1951 and held several
portfolios in the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways; Minister for
Transport and Communications; Minister for Commerce and Industry;
Home Minister; and during Nehrus illness Minister without portfolio. He
was growing in stature constantly. He resigned his post as Minister for
Railways because he felt responsible for a railway accident in which
many lives were lost. The unprecedented gesture was greatly
appreciated by Parliament and the country. The then Prime Minister, Pt.
Nehru, speaking in Parliament on the incident, extolled Lal Bahadur
Shastris integrity and high ideals. He said he was accepting the
resignation because it would set an example in constitutional propriety
and not because Lal Bahadur Shastri was in any way responsible for
what had happened. Replying to the long debate on the Railway
accident, Lal Bahadur Shastri said; Perhaps due to my being small in
size and soft of tongue, people are apt to believe that I am not able to
be very firm. Though not physically strong, I think I am internally not so
weak.

In between his Ministerial assignments, he continued to lavish his

organising abilities on the affairs of the Congress Party. The landslide
successes of the Party in the General Elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962
were in a very large measure the result of his complete identification
with the cause and his organisational genius.

More than thirty years of dedicated service were behind Lal Bahadur
Shastri. In the course of this period, he came to be known as a man of
great integrity and competence. Humble, tolerant, with great inner
strength and resoluteness, he was a man of the people who
understood their language. He was also a man of vision who led the
country towards progress. Lal Bahadur Shastri was deeply influenced
by the political teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Hard work is equal to
prayer, he once said, in accents profoundly reminiscent of his Master.
In the direct tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri
represented the best in Indian culture.

Played a leading role in Indian freedom struggle; became Parliamentary

Secretary of Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant, the then chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh; became the Minister of Police and Transport in Pant's Cabinet;
appointed as the Railways and Transport Minister in the Central Cabinet; also
held the portfolios of Transport & Communications, Commerce and Industry,
and Home Ministry in the Central cabinet; became Prime Minister of India in
1964; led India to victory over Pakistan in 1965 war. Lal Bahadur Shastri was
the second Prime Minister of independent India. Though diminutive in
physical stature he was a man of great courage and will. He successfully led
country during the 1965 war with Pakistan. To mobilize the support of
country during the war he coined the slogan of "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan". Lal
Bahadur Sastri also played a key role in India's freedom struggle. He led his
life with great simplicity and honesty and was a great source of inspiration
for all the countrymen. Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1904 at
Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh. His parents were Sharada Prasad and Ramdulari
Devi. Lal Bahadur's surname was Srivastava but he dropped it as he did not
want to indicate his caste. Lal Bahadur's father was a school teacher and
later on he became a clerk in the Revenue Office at Allahabad. Though
Sharada Prasad was poor, he lived a life of honesty and integrity. Lal Bahadur
lost his father when he was only one. Ramdulari Devi raised Lal Bahadur and
her two daughters at her father's house. There is a very famous incident
regarding Lal Bahadur Shastri's childhood which took place when he was six
years old. One day, while returning from school, Lal Bahadur and his friends
went to an orchard that was on the way to home. Lal Bahadur Shastri was
standing below while his friends climbed the trees to pluck mangoes.
Meanwhile, the gardener came and caught hold of Lalbahadur Shastri. He
scolded Lal Bahadur Shastri and started beating him. Lal Bahadur Shastri
5

pleaded to gardener to leave him as he was orphan. Taking pity on Lal

Bahadur, the gardener said, "Because you are an orphan, it is all the more
important that you must learn better behavior." These words left a deep
imprint on Lal Bahadur Shastri and he swore to behave better in the
future. Lal Bahadur stayed at his grandfather's house till he was ten. By that
time he had passed the sixth standard examination. He went to Varanasi for
higher education. In 1921 when Mahatma Gandhi launched the noncooperation movement against British Government, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was
only seventeen years old. When Mahatma Gandhi gave a call to the youth to
come out of Government schools and colleges, offices and courts and to
sacrifice everything for the sake of freedom, Lal Bahadur came out of his
school. Though his mother and relatives advised him not to do so, he was
firm in his decision. Lal Bahadur was arrested during the Non-cooperation
movement but as he was too young he was let off. After his release Lal
Bahadur joined Kashi Vidya Peeth and for four years he studied philosophy. In
1926, Lal Bahadur earned the degree of "Shastri" After leaving Kashi Vidya
Peeth, Lal Bahadur Shastri joined "The Servants of the People Society", which
Lala Lajpat Rai had started in 1921. The aim of the Society was to train
youths that were prepared to dedicate their lives in the service of the
country. In 1927, Lal Bahadur Shastri married Lalitha Devi. The marriage
ceremony was very simple and Shastriji took only a charkha (spinning wheel)
and few yards of Khadi in dowry. In 1930, Gandhiji gave the call for Civil
Disobedience Movement. Lal Bahadur Shastri joined the movement and
encouraged people not to pay land revenue and taxes to the government. He
was arrested and put in jail for two and a half years. In jail Shastriji became
familiar with the works of western philosophers, revolutionaries and social
reformers. Lal Bahadur Shastri had great self respect. Once when he was in
prison, one of his daughters fell seriously ill. The officers agreed to release
him out for a short time but on condition that he should agree in writing not
to take part in the freedom 'movement during this period. Lal Bahadur did
not wish to participate in the freedom movement during his temporary
release from prison; but he said that he would not give it in writing. He
thought that it was against his self-respect to give it in writing. After Second
World War started in 1939, Congress launched "Individual Satyagraha" in
1940 to demand freedom. Lal Bahadur Shastri was arrested during Individual
Satyagraha and released after one year. On August 8, 1942, Gandhiji gave
the call for Quit India Movement. Lal Bahadur actively participated in the
movement. He went underground but was later arrested. Lal Bahadur Shastri
was released in 1945 along with other major leaders. He earned the praise of
Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant by his hard work during the 1946 provincial
6

elections. Lal Bahadur's administrative ability and organization skills came to

the fore during this time. When Govind Vallabh Pant became the Chief
Minister of Uttar Pradesh, he appointed Lal Bahadur Shastri as his
Parliamentary Secretary. In 1947, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the Minister of
Police and Transport in Pant's Cabinet. Lal Bahadur Sastri was the General
Secretary of the Congress Party when the first general elections were held
after India became Republic. Congress Party returned to power with a huge
majority. In 1952, Jawahar Lal Nehru appointed Lal Bahadur Shastri as the
Railways and Transport Minister in the Central Cabinet. Lal Bahadur Shastri's
contribution in providing more facilities to travelers in third class
compartments cannot be forgotten. He reduced the vast disparity between
the first class and third class in the Railways. Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned
from Railways in 1956, owning moral responsibility for a railway accident.
Jawaharlal Nehru tried to persuade Shastriji but Lal Bahadur Shastri refused
to budge from his stand. By his action Lal Bahadur Shastri set new standards
of morality in public life. In the next general elections when Congress
returned to power, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the Minister for Transport and
Communications and later the Minister for Commerce and Industry. He
became the Home Minister in 1961, after the death of Govind Vallabh Pant. In
the 1962 India-China war Shastriji played a key role in maintaining internal
security of the country. After the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964, Lal
Bahadur Shastri was unanimously elected as the Prime Minister of India. It
was a difficult time and the country was facing huge challenges. There was
food shortage in the country and on the security front Pakistan was creating
problems. In 1965, Pakistan tried to take advantage of India's vulnerability
and attacked India. Mild-mannered Lal Bahadur Shastri rose to the occasion
and led the country ably. To enthuse soldiers and farmers he coined the
slogan of "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan". Pakistan lost the war and Shastriji's
leadership was praised all over the world. In January 1966, to broker peace
between India and Pakistan, Russia mediated a meeting between Lal
Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan in Tashkent, Russia. India and Pakistan
signed the joint declaration under Russian mediation. Under the treaty India
agreed to return to Pakistan all the territories occupied by it during the war.
The joint declaration was signed on January 10, 1966 and Lal Bahadur Shastri
died of heart attack on the same night.
Lal Bahadur
1904, to
Prasad
United Province
7

Shastri was born on October 2,

Ramdulari Devi and Sharada
Shrivastava, in Moghalsarai,
(Uttar Pradesh). He shares his

birthday with Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation. Lal Bahadur was
against the prevailing caste system and therefore decided to drop his
surname. The title "Shastri" was given after the completion of his graduation
at Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi in 1925. The title "Shastri" refers to a "scholar"
or a person, adept in the "Holy Scriptures".
His father Sharada Prasad, a schoolteacher by profession, passed away when
Lal Bahadur was barely two years old. His mother Ramdulari Devi took him
and his two sisters to their maternal grandfather Hazari Lal's house. Lal
Bahadur acquired virtues like boldness, love of adventure, patience, selfcontrol, courtesy, and selflessness in his childhood. After completing his
primary education at Mirzapur, Lal Bahadur was sent to Varanasi, where he
stayed with his maternal uncle.
Young Lal Bahadur, inspired with the stories and speeches of national
leaders, developed a desire to participate in the Indian nationalist
movement. He would also spend time by reading foreign authors like Marx,
Russell and Lenin. In 1915, a speech of Mahatma Gandhi changed the course
of his life and decided to jump into the fire of Indian freedom struggle.
In order to participate actively in the freedom movement, Lal Bahadur
neglected his studies. In 1921, during the non-cooperation movement, called
by Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur was arrested for demonstrating in defiance
of the prohibitory order. Sine he was a minor then, the authority had to
release him. In 1928, Lal Bahadur Shastri married Lalita Devi, the youngest
daughter of Ganesh Prasad. He was against the prevailing "dowry system"
and so refused to accept dowry. However, on the repeated urging of his
father-in-law, he agreed to accept only five yards of khadi (cotton, usually
handspun) cloth as dowry.
Active Nationalist
In 1930, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the secretary of the Congress party and
later the president of the Allahabad Congress Committee. He played a crucial
role during the "Salt Movement". Lal Bahadur lead a door-to-door campaign,
urging people not to pay land revenue and taxes to the British authority. The
leader was also sent to jail for the campaign. During the long span of nine
years he spent in jails, Lal Bahadur utilized the time in reading the social
reformers and western philosophers. He was one of the leading and
prominent faces that continued the Quit India movement, called by Mahatma
Gandhi. Lal Bahadur, in 1937, was elected to the UP Legislative Assembly.
8

Post Independence
Lal Bahadur Shastri had served in various positions before being elected as
the Prime Minister. After Independence, he became the Minister of police in
the Ministry of Govind Vallabh Panth in Uttar Pradesh. His recommendations
included the introduction of "water-jets" instead of sticks to disperse the
unruly mob. Impressed with his efforts in reforming the state police
department, Jawaharlal Nehru, invited Shastri to join the Union cabinet as a
Minister for railways. He was a responsible man and known for his ethics and
morality. In 1956, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned from his post, following a
train accident that killed around 150 passengers near Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu.
Nehru, had once said, "No one could wish for a better comrade than Lal
Bahadur, a man of the highest integrity and devoted to ideas".
Lal Bahadur Shastri returned to the Cabinet in 1957, first as the Minister for
Transport and Communications, and then as the Minister of Commerce and
Industry. In 1961, he became Minister for Home and formed the "Committee
on Prevention of Corruption" headed by of K. Santhanam.
Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru was succeeded by a mild-mannered and soft-spoken Lal
Bahadur Shastri on 9 June, 1964. He was a follower of Nehruvian socialism.
Despite the strong influence and desire of becoming the Prime Minister, of
some party stalwarts Shastri emerged as the consensus candidate.
Shastri tackled many elementary problems like food shortage,
unemployment and poverty. To overcome the acute food shortage, Shastri
asked the experts to devise a long-term strategy. This was the beginning of
famous "Green Revolution". Apart from the Green Revolution, he was also
instrumental in promoting the White Revolution. The National Dairy
Development Board was formed in 1965 during Shastri as Prime Minister.
After the Chinese aggression, the major cross-border-problems Shastri faced
was caused by Pakistan. It sent her forces across the eastern border into the
Rann of Kuch in Gujarat. Shastri showing his mettle, made it very clear that
India would not sit and watch. While granting liberty to the Security Forces to
retaliate He said, "Force will be met with force".
The Indo-Pak war ended on 23 September 1965 after the United Nations
passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire. The Russian Prime Minister,
9

Kosygin, offered to mediate and on 10 January 1966, Lal Bahadur Shastri and
his Pakistan counterpart Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration.

A member of Mahatma Gandhis noncooperation movement against British

government in India, he was imprisoned for a short time (1921). Upon
release he studied in the Kashi Vidyapitha, a nationalist university, where he
graduated with the title of shastri (learned in the scriptures). He then
returned to politics as a follower of Gandhi, was imprisoned several more
times, and attained influential positions in the Congress Party of the state of
the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh state.
Shastri was elected to the legislature of the United Provinces in 1937 and
1946. After Indian independence, Shastri gained experience as minister for
home affairs and transport in Uttar Pradesh. He was elected to the central
Indian legislature in 1952 and became union minister for railways and
transport. He gained a reputation as a skillful mediator after his appointment
to the influential post of minister for home affairs in 1961. Three years later,
on Jawaharlal Nehrus illness, Shastri was appointed minister without
portfolio, and after Nehrus death he became prime minister in June 1964.
Shastri was criticized for failing to deal effectively with Indias economic
problems, but he won great popularity for his firmness on the outbreak of
hostilities
with
neighbouring Pakistan (1965)
over
the
disputed Kashmirregion. He died of a heart attack after signing a no-war
agreement with Pres. Ayub Khan of Pakistan and was succeeded as prime
minister by Indira Gandhi, Nehrus daughter.
Lal Bahadur Shastri (born 1904) succeeded Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime
Minister of India in 1964. Though eclipsed by such stalwarts of the Congress
party as Kamaraj (the Kingmaker) and Morarji Desai, Finance Minister in
Nehru's government, Shastri emerged as the consensus candidate in the
midst of party warfare. He had not been in power long before he had to
attend to the difficult matter of Pakistani aggression, as represented by India,
along the Rann of Kutch; and though a cease-fire under the auspices of the
United Nations put a temporary halt to the fighting, the scene of conflict
soon shifted to the more troubled spot of Kashmir. While Pakistan claimed
that a spontaneous uprising against the Indian occupation of Kashmir had
taken place, India charged Pakistan with fomenting sedition inside its
territory and sending armed raiders into Jammu and Kashmir from Azad
Kashmir. Shastri promised to meet force with force, and by early September
the second Indo-Pakistan war had commenced.
10

Though the Indian army reached the outskirts of Lahore, Shastri agreed to
withdraw Indian forces. He had always been identified with the interests of
the working class and peasants since the days of his involvement with the
freedom struggle, and now his popularity agree. But his triumph was shortlived: invited in January 1966 by the Russian Premier, Aleksei Kosygin, to
Tashkent for a summit with General Muhammad Ayub Khan, President of
Pakistan and commander of the nation's armed forces, Shastri suffered a
fatal heart attack hours after signing a treaty where India and Pakistan
agreed to not meddle in each other's internal affairs and "not to have
recourse to force and to settle their disputes through peaceful means.
Shastri's body was brought back to India, and a memorial, not far from the
national memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, was built to honor him. It says, in
fitting testimony to Shastri, "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" ("Honor the Soldier, Honor
the Farmer"). He is, however, a largely forgotten figure, another victim of the
engineering of India's social memory by Indira Gandhi and her clan.
2nd October is celebrated as Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti. Indias second Prime
Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was also born on the same date in 1904.
Freedom fighter and India's second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri shared
his birthday with Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. On his 111th birth
anniversary here are 5 things one must know about Shastriji.
The story behind 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan'
When Lal Bahadur Shastri took over as a Prime Minister in 1964, India used
to be a food importing country then. It depended on food imports from North
America under the PL-480 scheme. In 1965, when we were at war with
Pakistan, India faced drought as well. Keeping in mind, the food situation and
the prevailing hunger, Shastri had urged the entire country to hold a fast for
a day. Lal Bahadur Shastri knew and understood the significance of soldiers
and farmers and gave slogan during that period - Jai Jawan Jai Kisan.
Shastri's conflict with American President Lyndon Johnson
Towards the end of 1965 and before his death on January 11, 1966, in an
interview with an American journalist, Lal Bahadur Shastri, despite his
dependency on America for food import, didn't nod his head and said the war
by America in Vietnam was an act of aggression. His statement wasn't
received well by the American counterpart who then stopped food exports to
India under a 'Stop-go-policy'. India was then in such a miserable situation
that the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations had to appeal
to the US to resume food exports.
11

Related read: Lal Bahadur Shastri's son requests PM Modi to declassify files
related to father's death
He wasn't a born 'Shastri'
Lal Bahadur Shastri was born in Ramnagar of Varanasi in a Kayastha family,
but because he didnt believe in the caste system, he gave up his title. It was
not until later, when he graduated from Kashi Vidyapeeth, the title of Shastri
(scholar) was awarded to him.
As a minister in Jawahar Lal Nehru's cabinet, Shastri set some milestones
that are still followed
As a Transport Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the first in India to make it
possible for women to be appointed as conductors in transportation facilities.
It was also Shastri's idea to use jets of water to disperse the crowd rather
than lathi-charge.
His first address to nation as a Prime Minister
There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the
crossroads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us there
need to be no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to right or left. Our way is
straight and clearthe 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.

2.BRIEF ACHIEVEMENTS OF LALA BAHDUR SHASTRI:

Shastri was born at the house of his maternal grandparents
in Mughalsarai, Varanasi in a Hindu kayastha family, [2][3] that had traditionally
been employed as Highly administrators and civil servants. Shastri's paternal
ancestors
had
been
in
the
service
of
thezamindar of Ramnagar near Varanasi and Shastri lived there for the first
one year of his life. Shastri's father, Sharada Prasad Shrivastava, was a
school teacher who later became a clerk in the revenue office at Allahabad,
while his mother, Ramdulari Devi, was the daughter of Munshi Hazari Lal, the
headmaster and English teacher at a railway school in Mughalsarai. Shastri
was the second child and eldest son of his parents; he had an elder sister,
Kailashi Devi (b. 1900).[4]
In April 1906, When Shastri was hardly one year old, his father, had only
recently been promoted to the post of deputy tahsildar, died in an epidemic
of bubonic plague. Ramdulari Devi, then only 23 and pregnant with her third
12

child, took her two children and moved from Ramnnagar to her father's
house in Mughalsarai and settled there for good. She gave birth to a
daughter, Sundari Devi, in July 1906. [2][5] Thus, Shastri and his sisters grew up
in the household of his maternal grandfather, Hazari Lal. However, Hazari Lal
himself died from a stroke in mid-1908, after which the family were looked
after by his brother (Shastri's great-uncle) Darbari Lal, who was the head
clerk in the opium regulation department at Ghazipur, and later by his son
(Ramdulari Devi's cousin) Bindeshwari Prasad, a school teacher in
Mughalsarai. Thus, the greatness of the traditional Indian joint family system,
and the traditions of family responsibility and kinship, are deeply evident in
Shastri's case, where the orphan child of a penniless widow was raised by his
distant relatives in a manner which enabled him to become Prime Minister of
India.
In Shastri's family, as with many Kayastha families, it was the custom in that
era for children to receive an education in the Urdu language and culture.
This is because Urdu/Persian had been the language of government for
centuries, before being replaced by English, and old traditions persisted into
the 20th century. Therefore, Shastri began his education at the age of four
under the tutelage of a maulvi (a Muslim cleric), Budhan Mian, at the East
Central Railway Inter college in Mughalsarai. He studied there until the sixth
standard. In 1917, Bindeshwari Prasad (who was now head of the household)
was transferred to Varanasi, and the entire family moved there, including
Ramdulari Devi and her three children. In Varanasi, Shastri joining the
seventh standard at Harish Chandra High School. [2] At this time, he decided
to drop his caste-derived surname of "Varma" (which is a traditional optional
surname for all Kayastha families).
The young satyagrahi (19211945)
While Shastri's family had no links to the independence movement then
taking shape, among his teachers at Harish Chandra High School was an
intensely patriotic and highly respected teacher named Nishkameshwar
Misra, who gave Shastri much-needed financial support by allowing him to
tutor his children. Inspired by Misra's patriotism, Shastri took a deep interest
in the freedom struggle, and began to study its history and the works of
several of its noted personalities, including those of Swami Vivekananda, Bal
Gangadhar Tilak, Gandhi and Annie Besant. In January 1921, when Shastri
was in the 10 standard and three months from sitting the final examinations,
he attended a public meeting in Benares hosted by Gandhi and Pandit Madan
Mohan Malaviya. Inspired by the Mahatma's call for students to withdraw
13

from government schools and join the non-cooperation movement, Shastri

withdrew from Harish Chadra the next day and joined the local branch of the
Congress Party as a volunteer, actively participating in picketing and antigovernment demonstrations. He was soon arrested and jailed, but was then
let off as he was still a minor. [6][7] Shastri's immediate supervisor was a
former Benares Hindu University lecturer named J.B. Kripalani, who would
become one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence
movement and among Gandhi's closest followers. Recognising the need for
the younger volunteers to continue their educations, Kripalani and a friend,
V.N. Sharma, had founded an informal school centered around "nationalist
education" to educate the young activists in their nation's heritage. With the
support of a wealthy philanthropist and ardent Congress nationalist, Shiv
Prasad Gupta, the Kashi Vidyapith was inaugurated by Gandhi in Benares as
a national institution of higher education on 10 February 1921. Among the
first students of the new institution, Shastri graduated with a first-class
degree in philosophy and ethics from the Vidyapith in 1925. He was given
the title Shastri ("scholar"). The title was a bachelor's degree awarded by the
Vidyapith, but it stuck as part of his name.[5][8][9]
Shastri enrolled himself as a life member of the Servants of the People
Society (Lok Sevak Mandal), founded by Lala Lajpat Rai, and began to work
for the betterment of theHarijans under Gandhi's direction at Muzaffarpur.
[10]
Later he became the President of the Society.[11][12]
Independence activism
In 1928 shastri become an active member of congress at the call of gandhiji.
Shastri participated in the Salt Satyagraha in 1930. He was imprisoned for
two and a half years.[13]Later, he worked as the Organizing Secretary of the
Parliamentary Board of U.P. in 1937.[14] In 1940, he was sent to prison for one
year, for offering individual Satyagraha support to the independence
movement.[15]
On 8 August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi issued the Quit India speech at Gowalia
Tank in Mumbai, demanding that the British leave India. Shastri, who had just
then come out after a year in prison, travelled to Allahabad. For a week, he
sent instructions to the independence activists from Jawaharlal Nehru's
home, Anand Bhavan. A few days later, he was arrested and imprisoned until
1946.[15] Shastri spent almost nine years in jail in total. [16] During his stay in
prison, he spent time reading books and became familiar with the works of
western philosophers, revolutionaries and social reformers.
Political career (194764)
14

State minister
Following India's independence, Shastri was appointed Parliamentary
Secretary in his home state, Uttar Pradesh. He became the Minister of Police
and Transport under Govind Ballabh Pant's Chief Ministership on 15 August
1947 following Rafi Ahmed Kidwai's departure to become minister at centre.
As the Transport Minister, he was the first to appoint women conductors. As
the minister in charge of the Police Department, he ordered that police use
jets of water instead of lathis to disperse unruly crowds.[17] His tenure as
police minister (As Home Minister was called prior to 1950) saw successful
curbing of communal riots in 1947, mass migration and resettlement of
refugees.[citation needed]
Cabinet minister
In 1951, Shastri was made the General Secretary of the All-India Congress
Committee with Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. He was directly
responsible for the selection of candidates and the direction of publicity and
electioneering activities. He played an important role in the landslide
successes of the Congress Party in the Indian General Elections of 1952,
1957 and 1962. In 1952, he successfully contested UP Vidhansabha from
Soraon North cum Phulpur West seat and won getting over 69% of vote. He
was believed to be retained as home minister of UP, but in a surprise move
was called to Centre as minister by Nehru.
He was elected to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh w.e.f. 3 April 1952. He
served as the Minister of Railways and Transport in the Central Cabinet from
13 May 1952 to 7 December 1956. In September 1956, he offered his
resignation after a railway accident at Mahbubnagar that led to 112 deaths.
However, Nehru did not accept his resignation.[18]Three months later, he
resigned accepting moral and constitutional responsibility for a railway
accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu that resulted in 144 deaths. While
speaking in Parliament on the incident, Nehru stated that he was accepting
the resignation because it would set an example in constitutional propriety
and not because Shastri was in any way responsible for the accident.[5]
As the Railway Minister Shastri installed the 1st Machine at Integral Coach
Factory ICF Chennai on 20.02.1955.
In 1957, Shastri returned to the Cabinet following the General Elections, first
as the Minister for Transport and Communications, and then as the Minister
of Commerce and Industry.[10] In 1961, he became Home Minister.[5] As Union
Home Minister, he was instrumental in appointing the Committee on
Prevention of Corruption under the Chairmanship of K. Santhanam.[19] During
15

his tenure as Home Minister he created the famous "Shastri Formula" to

contain the language agitations in the states of Assam and Punjab
acceptable to all section of people. He handled well the Hazrathbal Mosque
sacred missing relic incident in Jammu and Kashmir and the crises between
the Chief Minister and his deputy in the state government of Kerala in 1962.
Prime minister of India (196466)
Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on 27 May 1964 and left a void. [citation
needed]
Then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making
Shastri Prime Minister on 9 June. Shastri, though mild-mannered and softspoken, was a Nehruvian socialist and thus held appeal to those wishing to
prevent the ascent of conservative right-winger Morarji Desai.
In his first broadcast as Prime Minister, on 11 June 1964, Shastri stated: [20]
"There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the crossroads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us there need be
no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to right or left. Our way is straight and
clearthe building up of a secular mixed-economy democracy at home with
freedom and prosperity, and the maintenance of world peace and friendship
with select nations."
Domestic policies
Shastri retained many members of Nehru's Council of Ministers. T. T.
Krishnamachari was retained as the Finance Minister of India, as was Defence
Minister Yashwantrao Chavan. He appointed Swaran Singh to succeed him
as External Affairs Minister. He also appointed Indira Gandhi, daughter of
Jawaharlal Nehru and former Congress President, as the Minister of
Information and Broadcasting. Gulzarilal Nanda continued as the Minister of
Home Affairs.
Shastri's tenure witnessed the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965. The
government of India had for a long time made an effort to establish Hindi as
the sole national language of India. This was resisted by the non-Hindi
speaking states particularly Madras State. To calm the situation, Shastri gave
assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as
long the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri's
assurance, as did the student agitation.
Economic policies
Shastri discontinued Nehru's socialist economic policies with central
planning. He promoted the White Revolution a national campaign to
16

increase the production and supply of milk by supporting the Amul milk cooperative of Anand, Gujarat and creating the National Dairy Development
Board.[19]
He visited Anand on 31 October 1964 for inauguration of the Cattle Feed
Factory of Amul at Kanjari. As he was keenly interested in knowing the
success of this co-operative, he stayed overnight with farmers in a village,
and even had dinner with a farmer's family. He discussed his wish with Mr
Verghese Kurien, then the General Manager of Kaira District Co-operative
Milk Producers Union Ltd (Amul) to replicate this model to other parts of the
country for improving the socio-economic conditions of farmers. As a result
of this visit, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established
at Anand in 1965
While speaking on the chronic food shortages across the country, Shastri
urged people to voluntarily give up one meal so that the food saved could be
distributed to the affected populace. However he ensured that he first
implemented the system in his own family before appealing to the country.
He went on air to appeal to his countrymen to skip a meal a week. The
response to his appeal was overwhelming. Even restaurants and eateries
downed the shutters on Monday evenings. Many parts of the country
observed the "Shastri Vrat". He motivated the country to maximize the
cultivation of food grains by ploughing the lawn himself, at his official
residence in New Delhi.
During the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965, On 19 October 1965, Shastri
gave the seminal Jai Jawan Jai Kishan ("Hail the soldier, Hail the
farmer")slogan at Urwa in Allahabad that became a national slogan.
Underlining the need to boost India's food production. Shastri also promoted
the Green Revolution. Though he was a socialist, Shastri stated that India
cannot have a regimented type of economy.[19]
The Food Corporation of India was set up under the Food Corporation's Act
1964. Also The National Agricultural Products Board Act.
Jai Jawan Jai Kisan
For the outstanding slogan given by him during Indo-Pak war of
1965 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) commemorated
Shastriji even after 47 years of his death on his 48th martyr's day:
Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was one of those great Indians
who has left an indelible impression on our collective life. Shri Lal Bahadur
Shastri's contribution to our public life were unique in that they were made in
17

the closest proximity to the life of the common man in India. Shri Lal Bahadur
Shastri was looked upon by Indians as one of their own, one who shared their
ideals, hopes and aspirations. His achievements were looked upon not as the
isolated achievements of an individual but of our society collectively.
Under his leadership India faced and repulsed the Pakistani invasion of 1965.
It is not only a matter of pride for the Indian Army but also for every citizen
of the country. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri's slogan Jai Jawan! Jai
Kisan!! reverberates even today through the length and breadth of the
country. Underlying this is the inner-most sentiments 'Jai Hind'. The war of
1965 was fought and won for our self-respect and our national prestige. For
using our Defence Forces with such admirable skill, the nation remains
beholden to Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. He will be remembered for all times to
come for his large heartedness and public service.[21]

Foreign policies
Shastri continued Nehru policy of non-alignment but also built closer
relations with the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of
1962 and the formation of military ties between the Chinese People's
Republic and Pakistan, Shastri's government decided to expand the defence
budget of India's armed forces.
In 1964, Shastri signed an accord with the Sri Lankan Prime
minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike regarding the status of Indian Tamils in the
then Ceylon.[22] This agreement is also known as the Sirima-Shastri Pact or
the Bandaranaike-Shastri pact.[23]
Under the terms of this agreement, 600,000 Indian Tamils were to be
repatriated, while 375,000 were to be granted Sri Lankan citizenship. This
settlement was to be done by 31 October 1981. However, after Shastri's
death, by 1981, India had taken only 300,000 Tamils as repatriates, while Sri
Lanka had granted citizenship to only 185,000 citizens (plus another 62,000
born after 1964). Later, India declined to consider any further applications for
citizenship, stating that the 1964 agreement had lapsed.[22]
India's relationship with Burma had been strained after the 1962 Military
coup followed by the repatriation of many Indian families in 1964 by Burma.
While the central government in New Delhi monitored the overall process of
repatriation and arranged for identification and transportation of the Indian
returnees from Burma, it fell under the responsibilities of local governments
18

to provide adequate facilities to shelter the repatriates upon disembarkation

on Indian soil. Particularly in the Madras State the Chief Minister during that
time, Minjur K. Bhaktavatsalam, showed care in rehabilitation of the
returnees. In December 1965 Shastri made an official visit with his Family to
Rangoon, Burma and re-established cordial relations with the country's
military government of General Ne Win.
War with Pakistan
Shastri's greatest moment came when he led India in the 1965 Indo-Pak War.
Laying claim to half the Kutch peninsula, the Pakistani army skirmished with
Indian forces in August, 1965. In his report to the Lok Sabha on the
confrontation in Kutch, Shastri stated:[20]
In the utilization of our limited resources, we have always given primacy to
plans and projects for economic development. It would, therefore, be obvious
for anyone who is prepared to look at things objectively that India can have
no possible interest in provoking border incidents or in building up an
atmosphere of strife... In these circumstances, the duty of Government is
quite clear and this duty will be discharged fully and effectively... We would
prefer to live in poverty for as long as necessary but we shall not allow our
freedom to be subverted.
In September 1965, major incursions of militants and Pakistani soldiers
began, hoping not only to break down the government but incite a
sympathetic revolt. The revolt did not happen, and India sent its forces
across the Ceasefire Line (now Line of Control) and threatened Pakistan by
crossing the International Border near Lahore as war broke out on a general
scale. Massive tank battles occurred in the Punjab, and while the Pakistani
forces made gains in the northern part of subcontinent, Indian forces
captured the key post at Haji Pir, in Kashmir, and brought the Pakistani city
of Lahore under artillery and mortar fire.
On 17 September 1965, while the Indo-Pak war was on, India received a
letter from China alleging that the Indian army had set up army equipment in
Chinese territory, and India would face China's wrath, unless the equipment
was pulled down. In spite of the threat of aggression from China, Shastri
declared "China's allegation is untrue".The Chinese did not respond, but the
Indo-Pak war resulted in some 34,000 casualties on each side and
significant loss of material.

19

The Indo-Pak war ended on 23 September 1965 with a United Nationsmandated ceasefire. In a broadcast to the nation on the day of the ceasefire,
Shastri stated:[20]
"While the conflict between the armed forces of the two countries has come
to an end, the more important thing for the United Nations and all those who
stand for peace is to bring to an end the deeper conflict.... How can this be
brought about? In our view, the only answer lies in peaceful coexistence.
India has stood for the principle of coexistence and championed it all over
the world. Peaceful coexistence is possible among nations no matter how
deep the differences between them, how far apart they are in their political
and economic systems, no matter how intense the issues that divide them."
During his tenure as Prime Minister, Shastri visited many countries
including Russia, Yugoslavia, England, Canada, Nepal, Egypt and Burma.
[10]
Incidentally while returning from the Non Alliance Conference in Cairo on
the invitation of then President of the Pakistan, Mohammed Ayub Khan to
have lunch with him, Shastri made a stop over at Karachi Airport for few
hours and breaking from the protocol Ayub Khan personally received him at
the Airport and had an informal meeting during October 1964. After the
declaration of ceasefire with Pakistan in 1965, Shastri and Ayub Khan
attended a summit in Tashkent (former USSR, now in modern Uzbekistan),
organized by Alexei Kosygin. On 10 January 1966, Shastri and Ayub Khan
signed the Tashkent Declaration.
Shastri's
sudden
death
immediately
after
signing
the Tashkent
Pact with Pakistan raised many questions in the minds of Indian citizens.
The Prime Minister of India going to Tashkent for a pact and never coming
back has not been accepted easily by Indian citizens. His health was fit
according to his doctor, R. N. Chugh, and he had no sign of heart trouble
before.
Shastri's sudden death has led to persistent conspiracy theories that he was
poisoned.[26] The first inquiry into his death, conducted by the Raj Narain
Inquiry, as it came to be known, however did not come up with any
conclusions, and today no record of this inquiry exists with the Indian
Parliament's library.[27] It was alleged that no post-mortem was done on
Shastri, but the Indian government in 2009, claimed it did have a report of a
medical investigation conducted by Shastri's doctor and some Russian
doctors. Furthermore, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) revealed that there
was no record of any destruction or loss of documents in the PMO having a
20

bearing on Shastri's death.[26] The Russian butler attending on Shastri at the

time of his death was arrested for suspected poisoning but released later as
per the news source. It was maintained that Shastri had died of cardiac
arrest but his family insisted he was poisoned.[28]
After Shastri's death, his wife Lalita Shastri had alleged he was poisoned. An
epic poetry book in Hindi titled Lalita Ke Aansoo[29] written byKrant M. L.
Verma was published in 1978.[30] In this book, the tragic story about the
death of Shastri has been narrated by his wife Lalita Shastri.[31] There are still
serious doubts surrounding the nature of his death. His son, Sunil Shastri,
asked the government to unravel the mystery behind Lal Bahadur Shastri's
death.[32] Raising doubts about the dark blue spots and cut marks on the
abdomen of his father's body after his death in 1966, Sunil asked how the cut
marks appeared if a post-mortem had not been conducted.
When Shastri went to the USSR for the Tashkent talks, he wanted a promise
from Ayub Khan that Pakistan would never use force in the future. But the
talks did not proceed and followed Shastri's death on the next day. [33] The
Indian Government released no information about his death, and the media
then was kept silent. The possible existence of a conspiracy was covered in
India by the Outlook magazine.[27][27] A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar,
author of CIA's Eye on South Asia, under the Right to Information Act to
declassify a document supposedly related to Shastri's death, but the Prime
Minister's Office refused to oblige, reportedly citing that this could lead to
harming of foreign relations, cause disruption in the country and cause
breach of parliamentary privileges.[26] Another RTI plea by Kuldip Nayar was
also declined, as PMO cited exemption from disclosure on the plea. The home
ministry is yet to respond to queries whether India conducted a post-mortem
on Shastri, and if the government had investigated allegations of foul play.
The Delhi Police in their reply to an RTI application said they do not have any
record pertaining to Shastri's death. The Ministry of External Affairs has
already said no post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Central Public
Information Officer of Delhi Police in his reply dated 29 July said, "No such
record related to the death of the former Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur
Shastri is available in this district... Hence the requisite information
pertaining to New Delhi district may please be treated as nil." [34] This has
created more doubts.[35]
The PMO answered only two questions of the RTI application, saying it has
only one classified document pertaining to the death of Shastri, which is
21

exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act. It sent the rest of the questions
to the Ministry of External Affairs and Home Ministry to answer. The MEA said
the only document from the erstwhile Soviet Government is "the report of
the Joint Medical Investigation conducted by a team comprising R. N. Chugh,
Doctor in-Attendance to the PM and some Russian doctors" and added no
post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Home Ministry referred the
matter to Delhi Police and National Archives for the response pertaining to
any post-mortem conducted on the body of Shastri in India. Sunil Shastri, son
of the former Prime Minister, called the transferring of application as
"absurd" and "silly joke". "He (Lal Bahadur Shastri) died as sitting Prime
Minister. It sounds very silly that MHA is referring the matter of death of
second Prime Minister of India to a district level police." He also demanded
that "It should be looked into by highest authorities like President, Prime
Minister and home minister."[36]
Later, Gregory Douglas, a journalist who interviewed former CIA
operative Robert Crowley over a period of 4 years, recorded their telephone
conversations and published a transcription in a book titled Conversations
with the Crow. In the book, Crowley claimed that the CIA was responsible for
eliminating Homi Bhabha, an Indian nuclear scientist whose plane crashed
into Alps, when he was going to attend a conference in Vienna; and Lal
Bahadur Shastri. Crowley said that the USA was wary of India's rigid stand on
nuclear policy and of then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who wanted to
go ahead with nuclear tests. He also said that the agency was worried about
collective domination by India and Russia over the region, for which a strong
deterrent was required.
On 16 May 1928, Shastri married Lalita Devi a lady from Mirzapur. The
marriage, which was arranged by their parents in the traditional Indian way,
was harmonious and conventional. The couple were blessed with four sons
and two daughters, namely
1. Kusum Shastri, the eldest daughter
2. Hari Krishna Shastri, eldest son, who was married to Vibha Shastri
3. Suman Shastri, second daughter, married to Vijay Nath Singh. Her son,
Siddharth Nath Singh, is a spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party
4. Anil Shastri. He is married to Manju Shastri. Alone in his family, he
remains a member of his father's Congress Party. His son Adarsh
22

Shastri gave up his corporate career with Apple Inc to contest

the General elections of 2014 from Allahabad on an Aam Aadmi
Party ticket. He lost that election.[38]
5. Sunil Shastri. He is married to Meera Shastri. He is a member of
the Bharatiya Janata Party.
6. Ashok Shastri, the youngest son. He worked in the corporate world
before his untimely death at the age of 37. [39] His wife Neera
Shastri and his son Sameep Shastri are members of the Bharatiya
Janata Party.

23

Ramachandra Guha argued that Shastri shared little in common with

his predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru.[40] While Shastri preferred peace with
Pakistan, writing to a friend after the Indo-Pakistani War in 1965 that
the problems between both countries should be settled amicably, he
had previously displayed a knack for taking quick and decisive actions
during the war.[40] He swiftly took the advice of his commanders, and
ordered a strike across the Punjab border.[40] This was in stark contrast
to Nehru who in a similar situation in 1962, had refused to call in the
air force to relieve the pressure on the ground troops. [40] At the end of
the conflict, Shastri flamboyantly posed for a photograph on top of a
captured US-supplied Pakistani M48 Patton tank.[40]

However, in common with Nehru, Shastri was a secularist who refused

to mix religion with politics. In a public meeting held at the Ram Lila
grounds in Delhi, a few days after the ceasefire, he complained against
a BBC report which claimed that Shastri's identity as a Hindu meant
that he was ready for a war with Pakistan. He stated:[40]

"While I am a 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."

24

Kuldip Nayar, Shastri's media advisor from 1960 to 1964, recalls 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 himself
and that as a MP and minister he didn't earn enough to save for time of
need.[41]

Although Shastri had been a cabinet minister for many years in the
1950s, he was poor when he died. All he owned at the end was an old
car, which he had bought in instalments from the government and for
which he still owed money. He was a member of Servants of India
society (which included Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhle)
which asked all its members to shun accumulation of private property
and remain in public life as servants of people. He was the first railway
minister who resigned from office following a major train accident as
he felt moral responsibility.

The foundation stone of Bal Vidya Mandir, a distinguished school

of Lucknow, was laid by him during his tenure as the Prime Minister, on
19 November 1964.

He inaugurated the Central Institute of Technology Campus at

Tharamani, Chennai, in November 1964.

He inaugurated the Plutonium Reprocessing Plant at Trombay in 1965.

As suggested by Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Shastri authorized the
development of nuclear explosives. Bhabha initiated the effort by
setting up the nuclear explosive design group Study of Nuclear
Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP).

He inaugurated the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University at

Hyderabad on 20 March 1965 which renamed as Acharya N. G. Ranga
Agricultural University in 1996 and was separated into two universities

after formation Telangana State. The University in Telangana was

named in July 2014 as Professor. Jayashanker Agricultural University.

25

Shasstriji also inaugurated the National Institute of Technology,

Allahabad.

Lal Bahadur Shastri inaugurated the Jawahar Dock of the Chennai Port
Trust & starts the construction work of Tuticorin Port (Now VOC Port
Trust) in November 1964.

He inaugurated Sainik School Balachadi, in State of Gujarat. He laid the

foundation stone of Almatti dam during the year -------- . Now the
commissioned dam bears his name.

Shastri was known for his honesty and humility throughout his life. He
was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna,
and a memorial "Vijay Ghat" was built for him in Delhi.

Several educational institutes, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy

of Administration (Mussorie, Uttarakhand) is after his name.

Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management was established in Delhi

by the 'Lal Bahadur Shastri Educational Trust' in 1995 as is one of the
top business schools in India.

The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute was named after Shastri due to his
role in promoting scholarly activity between India and Canada.[42]

Lal Bhadur Shastri Memorial run by Lal Bahadur Shastri National

Memorial Trust, is situated next to 10 Janpath his residence as Prime
Minister,[43] at 1, Motilal Nehru Place, New Delhi.

In
2011,
on
Shastri's
45th
death
anniversary, Uttar
Pradesh Government announced to renovate Shastri's ancestral house
at Ramnagar inVaranasi and declared plans to convert it into a
biographical museum.[1][44]

Varanasi International Airport is named after him.[45]

Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre For Indian Culture with a Monument and a
street is named after him in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Few stadiums are named after him in the cities of Hyderabad, Andhra
Pradesh Ahmadabad in Gujarat and another one at Kollam, Kerala.
Shastri Road in Kottayam,Kerala[46]

The Almatti Dam is renamed as Lal Bahadur Shastri Sagar in Northern

Karnataka built across the River Krishna. The foundation stone was laid
by him.

MV Lal Bahadur Shastri a Cargo Ship is named after him.

RBI released coins in the denomination of Rs.5 during his birth century
celebrations.

All India Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey tournament is held every year
since 1991 a major tournament in the field of Hockey.

The Left Bank Canal form the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in AP is named Lal
Bahadur Shastri Canal which is 295 km in Length.

Life size statues of Shastri are erected at Mumbai,Bangalore(Vidhana

Soudha),New Delhi(CGO Complex),Almatti Dam Site,Ramnagar-UP,
Hisar, Vizagapattinam,Nagarjuna Dam site.

Life
size
bust
of
Shastri
are
erected
Thiruvandram,Pune,Varanasi(Airport),Ahmedabad
side),Khrushetra,Shimla,Kasargod,Indore,Jalandar,Mhow,Uran.

Some
major
roads
in
the
cities
Delhi,Mumbai,Pune,Puduchery,Lucknow,Warangal
and
bearing the name of the legend.

In 2005, the Government of India created a chair in his honour in the

field of democracy and governance at Delhi University

at
(lake

of
New
Allahabad

- one of modern India's icons whose enduring popularity cuts through all
divides. What really happened in the wee hours of January 11 in Tashkent

26

(Uzbekistan) in 1966 remains shrouded in mystery, largely thanks to the

gratuitous state secrecy resorted to by our government.

Generations have gone by, but conspiracy theories about what caused
Shastris death have not ceased. In some other country, the strange case of
a prime ministers death would have been inquired into by a high-powered
team long ago and all relevant documents placed in the public domain.

After signing the Tashkent accord, around 4pm on January 10, prime minister
Shastri reached the villa he was provided by his Russian hosts. Late in the
evening, he had a light meal prepared by Jan Mohammad, the personal cook
of TN Kaul, the Indian ambassador to Moscow.

There were other Russian butlers at his service in the same villa. At 11.30pm,
Shastri had a glass of milk brought by the ambassador's cook. When his
personal staff took leave of him at that time, he was fine.
But around 1.25am on January 11, Shastri woke up, coughing severely. The
room he was in had no phone or intercom. So he walked out to another room
to tell his staff to inform his personal doctor RN Chugh. By the time Dr Chugh
arrived, Shastri was dying. The symptoms were of a heart attack. There was
not much Dr Chugh could do now. He began to cry. "Babuji, you did not give
me enough time." Shastri took Lord Ram's name and he was gone.

What happened next had a ring of unusualness about it. Given here for your
consideration are four reasons that make Shastris death suspicious:

1. The KGB suspected poisoning

At 4am, Ahmed Sattarov, the Russian butler attached to Shastri, was rudely
woken up by an officer of the Ninth Directorate of the KGB (responsible for
the safety of VIPs). In Sattarov's own words, the KGB officer "said that they
suspected the Indian prime minister had been poisoned".
Sattarov was handcuffed and, along with three junior butlers, was rounded
off to a location 30km away. Their harsh interrogation commenced in a
27

dungeon. After some time, Jan Mohammad was brought in. In Sattarov's
words again: "We thought that it must have been that man who poisoned
Shastri."
Decades after the harrowing interrogation he was subjected to, Sattarov
continued to reel under its impact. "We were so nervous that the hair on the
temple of one of my colleagues turned gray before our eyes, and ever since I
stutter".
2. Shastris near and dear ones see a needle of suspicion pointing towards an
insider's hand
When Shastris body was brought to Delhi, no one had any clue about what
the KGB was suspecting. But seeing strange blue patches on Shastris body,
his mother screamed that someone had poisoned her son. Mere bitwa ko
jahar de diya! The old womans wail continues to haunt the Shastri family
till date.
Shastris sons Anil and Sunil Shastri (one in Congress, another in BJP) and
grandsons Sanjay and Siddharth Nath Singh have often spoken about their
ongoing anguish and pain about what happened so long ago.
Shastris wife Lalita died thinking that her husband had been poisoned. Other
family members and near and dear ones, like childhood friend TN Singh and
close follower Jagdish Kodesia, were not able to make sense of the cut marks
on Shastri's stomach and back of the neck. The cut on his neck was pouring
blood and the sheets, pillows and clothes used by him were all soaked in
blood. A grandson of Shastri told me that he still has his nanajis bloodsoaked cap.
Back in 1966, the family sought clarification and action from the
government. Whatever was done did not satisfy them. Kodesia, a former
Delhi Congress chief, even began to think that Shastris death had some link
to the Netaji mystery.

Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, who was in Tashkent on that fateful day as
Shastris advisor, opened up recently to state that his suspicions were
aroused some time after the tragedy when a Member of Parliament raked up
the charges of poisoning and TN Kaul, by then the foreign secretary, "rang
me up to issue a statement" against it.

"He badgered me literally four-five times."

28

Jan Mohammed was employed in the Rashtrapati Bhavan after the Tashkent
tragedy.

Dr Chugh, his wife and two sons were run over by a truck in 1977. Only his
daughter survived, but was crippled.

3. No post mortem was carried out on Shastris body

The only sure-shot way to find out whether or not Shastriji was poisoned was
to carry out a post-mortem on his body. The family demanded it. But the
demand was not accepted. Interim prime minister Gulzarilal Nanda was to
later on feign ignorance about Shastris family approaching him with the
demand.

4. RTI responses muddied the water further

In 2009, I tried to get some clarity on the issue by filing RTI applications. The
prime minister's office (PMO) told me that it possessed only one classified
document relating to the former prime ministers death, and that there was
no record of any destruction or loss of any document related to the tragedy.

The ministry of external affairs (MEA) informed me on July 1, 2009 that the
division concerned had no information on the subject. It was quite strange
because the sudden death of the prime minister must have thrown the
Indian embassy in Moscow and the ministry in New Delhi into a tizzy.

Ambassador Kaul must have scrambled to inform Delhi of the tragedy. The
ministry would have gone on an overdrive to find out the circumstances
leading to the prime ministers death. The ambassador must have been
asked to send blow-by-blow reports, and he must have done that.

The Russians too would have felt obliged to tell the Indians about their
handling of the matter. And as the charges of foul play emerged, the
29

government of India, through the ministry of external of affairs (and also the
intellligence bureau, which was then responsible for foreign intelligence),
must have tried to get to the bottom of the story. So how could the division
in the ministry have no records?

On July 21, I filed another application seeking copies of the entire

correspondence between the MEA and the embassy and between the
embassy and the Soviet foreign ministry over the issue. I requested the
ministry to clearly state in case no such records were extant. In its belated
response, the MEA refused to release the information, pleading that doing so
would harm national interest.

It was only after the intervention of chief information commissioner

Satyananda Mishra that the MEA, in August 2011, supplied me copies of Dr
Chughs medical report and a copy of the statement made by the external
affairs minister in the Rajya Sabha. Neither of them was classified. There was
no word about the secret documents.

Mishra upheld the PMOs decision in withholding the single secret record with
it. Later, I learned that this record contained a conspiracy theory that the
Americans had spread rumours about foul play in Shastris death. I see
nothing to back this mindless charge.

Anyhow, today there must be several classified records about Shastris death
in the non-accessible archives of our intelligence agencies. The Russians will
have interrogation records of the butlers at least. In the fullness of time all of
that must come out. Perhaps time has come for Shastrijis family to seek an
appointment with the prime minister.

3.STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM BY SHASTRI:

A SHORT-STATURED man with a lean body, clad in dhoti-kurta, sporting a
Gandhi topi, simplicity personified. This is how we remember the great
political leader and India's second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The
nation celebrates the centenary of the devout Gandhian this year on October
2, which also happens to be Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Even as the
30

Government gets ready to organise a number of events in the coming year,

people will get the chance to have a glimpse of his life and lifestyle when his
memorial re-opens for public in the coming year.
The residence of Shastri, where he stayed as Prime Minister, now hailed as
Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial, at 1, Motilal Nehru Place (formerly 10,
Janpath), is being spruced up.
Some precious moments of the former Prime Minister stand still at the
memorial .The abode, still has in its primal form, the original mosaic floors
and vanilla walls. The kitchen, dining room, pooja room, bedroom and the
porch are all intact, as is the Fiat DLE 6 parked in the garage.
Homeless minister
Known as the homeless home minister (he always stayed in a rented house),
the earthy leader in his 17-room palatial mansion, occupied a mere 3 x 4.85
m room. His room opened into a backyard porch and a huge mango tree
where his children got married. His wife, Lalita Shastri, a beautiful lady who
used to wear a big vermilion bindi and a glittering nosepin, stayed in a
slightly bigger room adjacent to Shastri's.
The place is being renovated but one can see his arm chair, wooden
badminton racket, a plank-bed, an array of books, a globe, photographs,
paintings and Nataraj idols, Lalita Shastri's pooja utensils and other precious
remnants, including the wheat crop which Shastri produced in the garden of
this very place. A photograph of him tilling the land inside the complex
strikes one immediately as do photographs with army men and farmers,
people he admired and coined the famous slogan: `Jai Jawan Jai Kisan'.
Born in a middle-class family of Moghalsarai in Uttar Pradesh, Shastri had a
humble childhood and came up in his life braving severe hardships. At the
age of 17, he joined the Non-Cooperation movement of Gandhiji. After
Independence, he became Minister of Police in Nehru's Cabinet. He held
various ministries in his political career, including the Home ministry and
rose to become Prime Minister in 1964, after Nehru's death.
But he remained a simple man in spite of the offices he held. Dr. Savita
Singh, daughter of Shastri's close friend, the late journalist D. N. Singh, talks
about his plain lifestyle and is particularly reminiscent of one evening when
she saw a dishevelled and seemingly upset Shastri walked barefoot from 10
31

Janpath to the residence of then Industries minister T.N. Singh at 16, Ashoka
Road , which was quite a distance.
Lal Bahadur was born on October 2nd, 1904 at Mughalsarai, seven miles
from Kashi. His parents were Sharada Prasad and Ramdulari Devi. They were
agriculturists. Srivastava was part of Lal Bahadur's name. He dropped that
part indicating his caste when he grew up. He did not like such indications of
caste.
Lal Bahadurs father was a poor teacher at first. Then he became a clerk in
the Revenue Office at Allahabad. Here, too, he earned very little. But, even
though he was poor, he never accepted bribes. He lived a life of honesty and
integrity.
Sharada Prasad died when Lal Bahadur was only a year old. Ramdulari Devi
felt as though the skies had come down on her.
Her father gave shelter to her and her three children, a boy and two girls.
Lal Bahadur's grandfather Hazari Lai's family was very large. His brothers,
their wives and children, besides his own children and grand children, lived
under the same roof. It was a small world in itself and Hazari Lai was the
fountain of love and affection to all of them. He looked after every one in the
family with love. He was especially fond of little Lal Bahadur. He always
affectionately called him 'Nanhe' which means 'tiny'.
An interesting incident took place when Lal Bahadur was only three months
old. The mother went to bathe in the holy Ganga with her child. In the milling
crowd at the bathing ghat she lost her child. The child had slipped from his
mother's arms into a cowherd's basket. The cowherd had no children, So he
took the child as a gift from God and celebrated the event with great joy.
The mother was lost in grief. A complaint was lodged with the police. They
traced the child. The foster parents wept bitterly to give back the child. Lal
Bahadur, who was destined to govern the country, narrowly missed the 'good
fortune' of becoming a cowherd.
Lal Bahadur stayed at his grandfather's house till he was ten. By that time he
had passed the sixth standard examination. There was no high school in that
place. They sent him to Kashi for further education.

32

Courage and self-respect were two virtues, which took deep root in him from
his childhood. While in Kashi, he went with his friends to see a fair on the
other bank of the Ganga. On the way back he had no money for the boat
fare. His self-respect did not allow him to ask his friends for money. He
slipped from their company without their knowledge. His friends forgot him in
their talk and boarded the boat. When the boat had moved away, Lal
Bahadur jumped into the river; as his friends watched breathlessly he swam
to the other bank safely.
Though Lal Bahadur was, a man of small build, he was unusually strong. His
moral strength was even greater. As in water so in life he swam quite
successfully. Twice he was about to be drowned but was saved. It is said that
when he was saved the second time, he had his teachers three-year-old
baby on his shoulders.
Lal Bahadur acquired virtues likeboldness, love of adventure, patience, selfcontrol, courtesy and selflessness in hischildhood.
Even as a boy he loved to read books. He read whatever books he came
across, whether he understood them or not. He was fond of Guru Nanak's
verses.
He used to repeat the following lines often:
"0 Nanak! Be tiny like grass,
For other plants will whither away, but grass will remain ever green."
An incident, which took place when he was six years old, seems to have left
a deep mark on his mind. Once he went to an orchard with his friends. He
was standing below while his friends climbed the trees. He plucked a flower
from a bush.
The gardener came in the meantime and saw Lal Bahadur. The boys on the
trees climbed down and ran away. The gardener caught Lal Bahadur. He beat
him severely.
Lal Bahadur wept and said, "I am orphan. Do not beat me."
The gardener smiled with pity and said, "Because you are an orphan, you
must learn better behavior, my boy."
33

The words of the gardener had a great effect on him. He swore to him, "I
shall behave better in future. Because I am an orphan I must learn good
behavior."
Though short he was not timid at school. All boys were friendly with him. Like
the grass he always looked fresh and smiling. Not only during his school days
but also in his later life he did not hate anyone. It seems he used to act in
plays at school. He played the role of Kripacharya in the play
'Mahabharatha'. Kripacharya was in the court of Duryodhana and yet was
loved by the Pandavas. Lal Bahadur Shastri had acquired the same worth.
Even when Lal Bahadur was a student of Harischandra. High School at
Varanasi a whirlwind had disturbed India.
Everywhere there was the cry of 'Freedom'! "Swaraj is our birth right" - Bala
Gangadhara Tilak had declared. This had become the nation's battlecry.
Lal Bahadur reverenced Tilak. He longed to see him and hear his speech.
Once Tilak visited Varanasi. Lal Bahadur was away in a village fifty miles from
Varanasi. He borrowed money and traveled in a train to see and hear Tilak.
He saw him and heard his speech. It reverberated in his ears like Krishna's
conch, thePanchajanya. Like Bharata, carrying Rama's sandals on his head,
Lal Bahadur carried Tilak's message in his heart. This message guided him
all through his life.The greatest influence on Lal Bahadur was that of
Mahatma Gandhi. Lal Bahadur was electrified when he heard a speech of
Gandhi at Varanasi in 1915. Then and there he dedicated his life to the
service of the country.
n 1921, Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement against
British Government and declared that the country would not cooperate with
the Government in its unjust rule. Lal Bahadur was then only seventeen
years. When Mahatma Gandhi gave a call to the youth to come out of
Government schools and colleges, offices and courts and to sacrifice
everything for the sake of freedom, Lal Bahadur came out of his school.
His mother and other relatives advised him not to give up his studies. But Lal
Bahadur was firm in his decision -Lai Bahadur joined the procession, which
disobeyed the prohibitory order. The police arrested him. But as he was too
young, he was let off.

34

Lal Bahadur did not go back to his school. He became a student of Kashi
Vidya Peeth. During his four years' stay there, he made excellent progress.
Dr.Bhagawandas's lectures on philosophy went straight to his heart. In later
life Lal Bahadur displayed surprising poise in the midst of conflict and
confusion. This he learnt from his teacher, Bhagawandas.
It was in 1926 that Lal Bahadur got the degree of 'Shastri' and left the Kashi
Vidya Peeth. The whole country became the arena of his activity. He became
the life- member of The Servants of the People Society, which Lala Lajpat Rai
had started in 1921. The aim of the Society was to train youths that were
prepared to dedicate their lives to the service of the country.
One of the rules of the Society required the members to take an oath to
serve the Society at least for twenty years and to lead a simple and honest
life till the end. Lal Bahadur earned the love and affection of Lajpat Rai by his
earnestness and hard work. Later he became the President of the Society.
Shastriji married in 1927. Lalitha Devi, his bride, came from Mirzalyur. The
wedding was celebrated in the simplest way. All that the bridegroom took as
a gift from father-in-law was a charaka and a few yards of Khadi.
The struggle for freedom was intensifield all over the country in 1930.
Mahatma Gandhi started the 'Salt Satyagraha'. Lal Bahadur took a leading
role in it.

At the age of seventeen Lal Bahadur had participated in a procession against

the British Government. The government had arrested him and then freed
him. But this time it did not let him off easily. He had been calling on people
not to pay land revenue and taxes to the government and the government
had been keeping a wary eye on him. Now he was sent to prison for two and
a half years.

From this time onwards prison became his second home. He was sent to
prison seven times and was forced to spend nine long years in various
prisons on different occasions.

His going to prison was a blessing in disguise. He had time to read a number
of good books. He became familiar with the works of western philosophers,
35

revolutionaries and social reformers. He translated the autobiography of

Madam Curie (a French scientist who discovered radium) into Hindi.

Lal Bahadur's virtues shone even in the prison. He was a ideal prisoner. 'He
was a model to others in discipline and restraint. Many political prisoners
used to quarrel among themselves for small things. They used to cringe for
small favors before the officials of the prison. But Lal Bahadur used to give
up his comforts for others.
The greatness of Lal Bahadur was that he maintained his self-respect 'even
in prison. Once when he was in prison, one of his daughters fell seriously ill.
The officers agreed to let him out for a short time but on condition that he
should agree in writing not to take part in the freedom 'movement during
this period. Lal Bahadur did not wish to participate in the freedom movement
during his temporary release from prison; but he said that he would not give
it in writing. He thought that it was against his self-respect to give it in
writing. The officers knew that he was truthful. Therefore they did not insist.
Lal Bahadur was released for fifteen days.

But his daughter died before he, reached home. After performing the
obsequies he returned to his prison even before the expiry of the period.

A year passed. His son was laid up with influenza this time. Lal Bahadur was
permitted unconditionally to go home for a week. But the fever did not come
down in a week. Lal Bahadur got ready to go back to prison. The boy pleaded
dumbly with his tearful eyes.

In a weak voice he urged his father to stay.

For a moment the father's mind was shaken. Tears rolled down from his eyes.

But the next moment his decision was made. He bade good bye to all and
left his home for prison. His son survived.

36

Two qualities, which the leader of any nation must have, are devotion and
efficiency. Lal Bahadur had both the qualities in a large measure. He would
not swerve from his aim, come what may. When the people of India. Were
fighting for freedom he brushed aside all thought of personal happiness and
plunged into the freedom struggle. His daughter'sdeath, his son's illness,
poverty - none of these made him swerve from his selection path. Even when
he became a minister and, later, the Prime Minister he was never attracted
to a life of luxury and comfort.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the leaders of our country
were in a dilemma. When the people of India were slaves how could they
support the cause of Britain?

In the end they decided to launch a 'Satyagraha' against the British

Government for the freedom of thecountry (1940). Satyagraha means
opposition based on Truth. Lal Bahadur was one of those who offered
individual Satyagraha. He was sent to prison for one year for this.

The freedom struggle became more widespread and intense. The prisons
were bursting with political prisoners.

On 8th August 1942, the Indian National Congress which led the fight for
freedom decided at its historic meeting in Bombay to sound the trumpet for
the final struggle against the British in India. It called on the British to 'Quit
India'. The people were determined to 'do or die'.

The government reacted sharply to these calls and arrested many leaders.
Prisons became over-crowded. The government used all cruel methods of
suppression to nip the movement in the bud.

Lal Bahadur, who had just then come out after a year in prison, traveled from
Bombay to Allahabad by train. He got off at a station, unknown to the police.
For a whole week he used to send instructions to the freedom fighters from
Anand Bhavan, Jawaharlal Nehru's home in Allahabad.
37

Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the sister of Nehru, lived in Anand Bhavan at the time.
The police came there to arrest her and to take possession of the house. Lal
Bahadur destroyed all-important documents. Luckily, the police arrested only
Vijayalakshmi Pandit and went away.

A few days later Lal Bahadur who was underground came out and shouted
slogans against the government. The police arrested him then.
India got freedom in 1947.Lal Bahadur's administrative ability and skill in
organization came to light in the days following India's freedom. He was an
expert in the art of bringing together people and winning their hearts. Pandit
Govind Vallabh Pant, the leader of Uttar Pradesh, was the first to recognize
this talent of Shastriji and to encourage him. He earned the love of Pant by
his hard work during the elections of 1946 in the provinces. The Congress
Office had become Shastriji's home during that period. The Congress won a
resounding victory in the elections.
When Govind Vallabh Pant became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, he
wished to train able young men to run the government. But it was not easy
to please him. Lal Bahadur did not want any office; yet he was appointed as
Parliamentary Secretary to Pant. Pant praised him as 'likable, hard-working,
devoted, trustworthy and non-controversial'.
Later, in 1947, Lal Bahadur became the Minister of Police and Transport in
Pant's Ministry. He took many steps to bring discipline into the
administration. As Transport Minister he subjected government buses to
discipline. He was the first to appoint women conductors. Usually the
minister in charge of the Police Department will not remain popular for long.
But Lal Bahadur Shastri never allowed the police to resort to lathi charge and
firing. He ordered that using jets of water instead of lathis should disperse
unruly crowds. Though there were many strikes in Uttar Pradesh when he
was in office, there was not a single occasion when people shouted slogans
against him.

Lal Bahadur was a lover of cricket. Once he was watching a match at Kanpur.
Trouble broke out among the spectators. The Police and young men came to
blows. Since Shastriji was on the spot thesituation did not go out of control.
38

The young men demanded that the red turbans' (thepolice) should not be
found on the cricket ground and Lal Bahadur agreed. But the police were
there the next day. The young men became angry with Shastriji and
protested. Lal Bahadur laughed and said, "I fulfilled my promise to you
faithfully. You did not want red turbans to be here. You see the police are now
wearing khaki turbans." The spectators laughed and dropped the matter.
In the first General Elections after India became a Republic, the Congress
Party returned to power with a huge majority. Lal Bahadur Shastri worked
hard for this success. He was the General Secretary of the Congress at the
General Secretary of the Congress at the time. The selection of candidates
and the direction of publicity and electioneering were under the direct
guidance of Shastriji. But he did not contest the elections. However, Nehru
did not wish to leave such an able and honest man outside the government.
He persuaded him to seek election to the Rajya Sabha. He was elected to the
Rajya Sabha. He was appointed as the Railways and Transport Minister in the
Central Cabinet (1952).
The railways are among the biggest Central Government undertakings,
transport plays a vital role in the progress of any country. The railways in
India had been badly disrupted after the division of the country. Lal Bahadur
strove hard to set right and regulate the railways. It is not easy to organize
movement ofpassengers and good from place to place without waste of time
and without inconvenience. Lal Bahadur succeeded in this to a large extent.
There were four classes- first, second, intermediate and third in the railways
then. First class compartments offered extreme luxury and were almost
heavenly.But the discomfort ofpassengers in the third class compartments
was beyond description. They did not have even minimum comforts. Lal
Bahadur's efforts to reduce the vast disparitybetween the first and the last
classes cannot be forgotten. The first class that offered royal comfort was
abolished. The old second came to be known as the first class and the
intermediate class as the second class. His idea was to have only two classes
of compartments in course of time - the first and the second. It was he who
provided more facilities to travelers in third class compartments. It was
during his time that fans were provided in the third class compartments. He
also worked hard to improve the administration of Railways and to eliminate
thefts in the trains.
Lal Bahadur identified himself with the Railways so much that he felt he was
responsible if anything went wrong in his department. When he was the
Railway Minister in 1956, 144 passengers died in an accident that took place
39

near Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Just three months before this, an accident that
took place near Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Just three months before this, an
accident had occurred at Mehboob Nagar in which 112 people died. Lal
Bahadur was in no way responsible for these accidents. Yet he was very
much pained. He felt he could not escape the moral responsibility for them.
He had submitted his resignation letter to Pandit Nehru when the Mehboob
Nagar accident took place. But Nehru had not accepted it. But when the
Ariyalur accident took place Shastriji said, 'I must do penance for this. Let me
go.' So strong was his sense of responsibility.
Lal Bahadur Shastri's exit from the Central Cabinet was a blessing for the
ruling party. He worked for the party during the General Elections next year.
Then he became the Minister for Transport andCommunications and later the
Minister for Commerce and Industry. He became the Home Minister in 1961,
after the death of Govind Vallabh Pant.

People used to call him the homeless Home Minister because he did not have
a house of his own. He had rented a small house in Allahabad. Even when he
was a minister, he used to stay in that house when he went to Allahabad.
After a few days the owner of the house let it out to another family. When
Shastriji resigned as minister he vacated the government quarters and he
did not have a place to line in!
The greatest danger that India had to face at the time was China's
aggression (1962). The Chinese army crossed the Himalayan border and
moved forward in wave after wave and occupied Indian territory in the north.
But India stood up like one man against China. The Chinese moved back. But
they did not return the areas they had occupied. China stabbed India in the
back and lost the friendship of India.

This was the time when China in the north and Pakistan both in the east and
the west started giving trouble to India. It was absolutely necessary that the
people of India should forget internal quarrels and that they should unite like
brothers and sisters. Lal Bahadur Shastri strove hard to make the people feel
that they were all one.

40

People who clung to power sometimes showed their pettiness. To some

people clinging to the minister's seat, rather than uniting the people, is the
aim of life. At this time a plan was carried out to purify the ruling arty. The
Chief Minsters of all states and the senior Ministers at the Centre had to
handover their resignations to the Prime Minister Nehru he was to decide
who should come out of office and work for the party and who should remain
in office. Accordingly they all tendered resignations.
Nehru died suddenly on May 27, 1964.

The ruling Congress Party elected Lal Bahadur unanimously as its leader. He
did not show any interest in the discussions before the election of the leader.
He remained aloof as if it had nothing to do with him. The detachment he
showed then was surprising.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister of India at a crucial time in India's
history. He was physically weak, but he faced the problems confronting the
nation like a hero. The first problem that he had to face after he became the
Prime Minister was one caused by Pakistan. Pakistan took shape by eroding
India's land, and was instigating Indian Muslims. After the Chinese
aggression, when India's confidence in her strength had been shaken,
Pakistan was creating trouble along the borders.

But Shastriji would not yield to the wickedness of Pakistan. He first tried to
earn the goodwill and support of other nations for India. He visited Russia,
Egypt, Canada and Britain and explained to the leaders of those nations
India's stand. He attended a meeting of the non-aligned nations (nations
which were neutral) and explained India's position. He even tried to reason
with President Ayub Khan of Pakisthan. The wicked do not like advice. They
can understand only one language, the language of war.
It had become Pakistan's habit to provoke India somehow and jump to arms.

Pakisthan had been waiting to swallow Kashmir somehow. She pushed her
forces across the eastern border into the Rann of kuch in Gujarat State in
41

April-May of 1965. Lal Bahadur was not unnerved by this unexpected attack.
He faced the problem with great tact at that critical moment. The Indian
Army forced the attackers to retreat. Then both countries agreed to stop
fighting
But friendly words cannot tame a serpent. There is but one way to do it - to
remove the serpent's fangs.

Even before the ink with which they had signed the Kutch agreement dried
up, Pakisthan raised its hood to strike again. Pakistani soldiers entered
Kashmir in disguise. In September 1965 there was a large-scale invasion of
the territory by Pakistani soldiers in the Chhamb area. War broke out all
along the Cease-fire Line on the Kashmir border.

The enemies who had managed to enter Kashmir were cunning and
mischievous. Pakistan also tried to incite Indian Muslims. The Pakisthan army
was engaged in forcibly occupying areas, which belonged to India. There was
the danger of the fighting spreading to the eastern border also. In addition to
this, there was the threat posed by the Chinese on the northern borders of
India. Lal Bahadur Shastri faced all these problems with a will of iron. It was
at this time that the country understood the greatness of Lal Bahadur
Shastri. He decided that was the time to teach Pakistan a lesson. He gave full
freedom to the Commander of the Army. 'Go forward and strike' was
Shastriji's command to the generals.

Addressing the nation on 13th August 1965 Shastriji referred to Pakistan's

threats and said, "Force will be met with force." Two days later, during the
celebration of Independence day, he declared from the ramparts of the Red
Fort: "It does not matter if we are destroyed. We will fight to the last to
maintain the high honor of the Indian nation and its flag."
Just at this time another danger threatened India. China sent a letter, which
said, "The Indian army has set up army equipment in Chinese territory. India
should pull down this equipment. Otherwise it will have to face the wrath of
China."
42

At that moment India was fighting against the Pakistani army equipped with
the latest weapons supplied in plety by the United States of America. And, at
this very moment how was India to resist China?

China's allegations were a bundle of lies. If India removed the military

equipment she would be admitting that China's charges were true. Also, that
would mean India was afraid of China.

Even the big nations waited breathlessly to see what Lal Bahadur would say
and what India would do.

Lal Bahadur did not take long to give a reply. The letter from China was
received on the morning of 17th September 1965. He made a statement in
the Parliament the same afternoon. He declared: "China's allegation is
untrue. If China attacks India it is our firm resolve to fight for our freedom.
The might of China will not deter us from defending our territorial integrity."

China kept quiet.

India's soldiers had no fear of death and fought most splendidly and
heroically. The army and the air force functioned like the two arms of a single
body. The invaders were beaten. The Pakistani army could not stand against
the Indian army. It was then that, for the first time, the world came to realize
the supremacy of the Indian army.
Some big nations feared that, if India won a total victory over Pakistan, it
would lower their prestige. The Security Council of the United Nations
Organization called on India and Pakistan to stop fighting.

43

On the invitation of Kosygin, the Premier of Soviet Russia, Lal Bahadur

Shastri and Ayub Khan met in Tashkent on January 4, 1966. The leaders
agreed that their armies should withdraw to the old Cease-fire Line in
Kashmir and that the two countries should live in peace and friendship.

Many people in India felt that we should not return the territory taken from
Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. They argued that the entire Kashmir belonged to
India. But Shastriji wished to give one more chance to Pakistan to live in
peace and friendship with India. So he signed the treaty of friendship.
Shastriji had suffered heart attacks twice before. And during the period of the
Pakistan war and the following days, his body, already battered, had to bear
a very heavy strain. He signed the joint Declaration on 10th January 1966.
He died the same night.

The news of Lal Bahadur Shastri's death struck India like a bolt from the blue.
The entire nation was plunged in grief. Some people suspected foulplay also.
Gone was the war hero and the messenger of peace, gone was the great
statesman who restored to India her honor and self- respect in the assembly
of nations. A tiny, tidy figure. A soul that had lived in perfect purity of
thought, word and deed. The very embodiment of selflessness, detachment
and simplicity. Such was this man who had lived in our midst. He belongs to
the race of the heroes of India.
Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's son has demanded that the
government should unravel the mystery shrouding his father's death.

44

Raising doubts about the dark blue spots and cut marks on the abdomen of
his father's body after his death in 1966,Shastri's son Sunil asked, When the
postmortem was not conducted, then how the cut marks appeared?

The government should clear all doubts about my father's death, he said at
a club function here.

After Shastri's death in Tashkent, USSR, on January 11, 1966 soon after
signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan, his wife Lalita had alleged he was
poisoned.

A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar, author of CIA's Eye on South Asia,
under the Right to Information Act about his death but the government had
refused to part with classified information on the issue.

The Prime Minister's Office, while refusing information under the RTI Act on
the cause and circumstances of Shastri's death, had said revealing these
details could harm India's foreign relations and would violate Parliamentary
Privilege.

The government had admitted no postmortem was conducted on Shastri.

However, his personal doctor R N Chugh and some Russian doctors
conducted a medical examination.

The Russian butler attending on Shastri at the time of his death was arrested
for suspected poisoning but released later.
Prime Minister's address at the inauguration of centenary year
celebrations of late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri
45

October 2, 2004
New Delhi

Hindi Version
Respected Soniaji, Atalji, Gujralji, Jaipal ji

Friends,

"I am happy to be amongst you to launch the centenary celebrations of a

great Indian patriot, a freedom fighter, a man of the people and a remarkable
Prime Minister: the late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. While it is matter of
coincidence that Shastriji shares a birthday with Mahatma Gandhi, his
abiding commitment to the values and ideals of the Mahatma is truly
significant.

Shastrijis life is aptly described as an illustration of the practical application

of Gandhian principles. While in government, he abided by Gandhijis dictum
that when in office, "always sit light, never tight". Shastrijis innate sense of
humility, sincerity and simplicity enabled him to establish a deep bond with
people, and to easily strike a chord of understanding.

46

It is worth recalling that like many amongst his generation, Shastriji also
gave up his studies to join the freedom struggle in response to Gandhijis call
to strengthen the non-cooperation movement. He was arrested for the first
time at the age of seventeen, and again, like many of the stalwarts of our
independence movement, prison was to become a second home. All told,
Shastriji was sent to prison seven times, spending as many as nine long
years in various prisons.

Despite his involvement in the freedom struggle, following the noncooperation movement, Shri Lal Bahadur resumed and completed his studies
at the Kashi Vidya Peeth. He was awarded the degree of "Shastri" in
philosophy and the humanities, and this was the reason for the public at
large to address him as "Shastriji". Those were also the years in which he
joined the Servants of India society, which burnished his image as a man of
simple habits, great commitment, diligence and sincerity. Shastriji was to
participate in many landmark events of our freedom struggle, including the
salt satyagraha and the Quit India movement. His organizational skills were
noticed at an early stage. In an early recognition of his abilities, Shastriji was
appointed as the Organizing Secretary of the Parliamentary Board of UP in
1937.

Subsequent to our independence, Shastriji graduated rapidly from state level

politics to the national level. In the first General Elections of our Republic,
Shastriji was General Secretary of the Congress Party. He was directly
responsible for the selection of candidates and the direction of publicity and
electioneering activities. In recognition of his abilities and his commitment to
the values of the Congress Party, Pandit Nehru picked him for the Rajya
Sabha, to utilize his talents in government.

Shastrijis first Ministerial term was as Railways and Transport Minister in the
Union Cabinet in 1952. He worked to improve the functioning of the railways,
guiding their transition out of the colonial era. Today, many of the younger
generation may not be aware of these efforts, but most would have heard of
Shastrijis resignation from the Ministerial post, taking moral responsibility for
a major accident. In a tribute to his convictions, Panditji was to say that "no
47

man can wish for a better comrade and better colleague in any undertaking".
Despite this setback, Shastriji was to hold several other important portfolios
in Panditjis cabinet, including the portfolios of Transport and
Communications, Commerce and the Home Ministry.

Apart from his contributions to Panditjis Cabinet, Shastriji also contributed to

the growth of the Congress Party. It was only natural, therefore, that when
Panditji passed away in May 1964, a distraught country and Party turned to
Shastriji for leadership. The choice of a successor was a major national
concern in the early 1960s. "After Nehru Who?" was an oft-repeated question
in the newspapers. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri prove to the world that he was a
worthy successor.

Shastrijis brief tenure of eighteen months as Prime Minister were testing

times for our young Republic. And yet through crises such as war and
privation, Shastrijis immense moral courage, character and great intuition
were visible in his calm and effective leadership. In fact it would not be
incorrect to say that few leaders of any democracy could have endured so
many trials in such a short period of time. But the dexterity with which
Shastriji braved complex challenges remains an inspiring episode in our
recent history. It requires extraordinary courage and determination to have
steered a vast and complex country like ours through such difficult times.
The nation will always remember his slogan with which he captured the
Nations pride in our soldiers and our farmers: Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan. His sudden
demise in Tashkent in 1966 was an enormous blow.

Today, as we launch the Birth Centenary celebrations of Shri Lal Bahadur

Shastriji, we remember his sincerity of purpose and his commitment to
integrity in public life. These qualities are the need of the hour, in our
collective effort to steer our country through contentious times on the path
of economic and social development. Whether it is the soldier, the farmer,
the scientist, the worker, the entrepreneur, the teacher or the public official,
each one of us plays a vital role in the process of nation building. Therefore,
in the spirit of commitment exemplified by Shastriji, I wish to urge all of us to
rekindle that sense of idealism, which inspired our freedom struggle. The
48

best way for us to pay tribute to the memory of patriots like Shastriji is for us
to live by the principles they cherished, of service to the Nation and pursuit
of truth, with firm resolve, simple living and high thinking.

I would like to conclude with the hope that the National Committee of
eminent persons with which the Government is consulting for activities to
commemorate the centenary of Lal Bahadur Shastri will be able to develop
suitable events to pay a truly fitting tribute to the memory of this great son
of India.

Jai Hind".
It was but natural that people everywhere should mentally compare Mr.
Shastri in his new role to the Pt. Nehru. Many people thought that he may at
best be a competent stop-gap Prime Minister.

But Mr. Shastri suffered from no such inhibitions. He saw his duty clearly.
While maintaining and strengthening he basic framework of national policy
built by his illustrious predecessor, he had to chalk out his course of action
by his own lights. He had enough strength as an individual to see the danger
inherent in trying to be anyone but himself.

Mr. Shastri could not be another Nehru. He was a person in his own right and,
called upon to lead the nation at a particularly difficult time in its history, he
had to do his best. Therefore, he told the people, Nobody can succeed
Nehru; we can only try to carry on his work in a humble way.

Achievements

49

As Prime Minister of India, Mr. Shastri actually got into stride sometime in
October, 1964 when he had sufficiently recovered from a heart-attack which
had kept him largely inactive during the first four months of his stewardship.

The second Non-aligned Nations Summit conference in Cairo was the first
important international meeting which he attended as Indias chosen leader.
While in Cairo, he raised his voice in favor of peace. He had taken the first
opportunity to show that under his leadership, India would continue to be a
force on the side of peace in the world.

The talks with Ceylons Prime Minister, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike towards
the end of October, 1964, resulted in an agreement that was hailed as a
magnificent achievement of Mr. Shastri as it removed a persistent cause of
unpleasantness between India and Ceylon.

Chinas debut as a nuclear power was perhaps the most important

development from Indias point of view. The first test of Nuclear weapon by
China was done on 16th October, 1964. It gave rise to vociferous demands in
India in favor of manufacturing an Indian atom bomb. The demand had
considerable popular backing and India had the capacity to make the bomb.
But, he insisted on using the nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

War with Pakistan

The Indo-Pakistan war begun in April, 1965. The war continued till
September, 1965.

When Pakistan launched the invasion of Kashmir, he hit back hard. His call
galvanized the whole nation to rise as one man to meet the challenge. Thus
50

this man of peace was forced to lead his people into a fierce conflict for
preserving Indias honor and sovereignty.

Addressing the nation on 13th August, 1965, he said, When freedom is

threatened and territorial integrity is endangered, there is only one duty
the duty to meet the challenge with all our might.

His inspiring words infused new life into the people, and heartened Indias
brave army. Against superior equipment and heavy odds, the Indian soldiers,
airmen and sailors gave a glorious account of their courage and prowess.
The countless deeds of unparalleled heroism performed by the jawans during
the time of war were enough to make every Indian feel proud of belonging to
this country. The nation gained a new confidence in itself. Even though the
conflict lasted for a few weeks only, it served to show India how she stood
vis--vis other nations.

Even though the Indian Army scored victories, but the destruction and
bloodshed made his heart bleed, and in keeping with the honor of the
motherland, he bent his energies towards bringing the conflict to a close.
After cease-fire, while mentioning those who had lost their lives on the
battle-field, he broke down. That was indicative of the anguish which he must
have undergone while the conflict lasted. But in spite of it, he did not spare
himself in his relentless quest for peace.

Tashkent Declaration

After the India-Pakistan war of 1965, a peace agreement was signed at

Tashkent, USSR, between India and Pakistan on 10th Jan, 1966. It was this
untiring quest for peace which took him to Tashkent where he made sure that
a beginning in the right direction was made.

51

Death

However, he died after signing the Tashkent declaration. Though, it is

reported that the cause of his death was heart-attack, some people believe
that he was poisoned. His death is still a subject of mystery. He didnt
returned back to India from Tashkent.

Estimate: Mr. Shastri held charge of the country for a brief period of 18
months. Even during this period he made to the countrys heritage a
contribution which can compare with the best in its richness and variety. He
not only preserved but also strengthened the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru.

His composed calmness in the midst of turmoil and excitement, and his cool
determination showed his countrymen where their strength lay. In fact, these
were the qualities which enabled him to grapple with the multifarious
problems which confronted the country at the time he was called upon to
wear the mantle of the Late Pt. Nehru. The world has acknowledged that he
wore it well.

Conclusion: It would be futile to speculate to what further heights Mr. Lal

Bahadur Shastri would have risen, had he been allowed some more time to
serve the country. But none will easily forget that it was that simple,
unassuming man who rehabilitated his countrymens belief in the destiny of
India and restored the countrys image abroad when almost the whole world
predicted for it nothing but confusion and chaos. He left India and the world
much better than he found them, and although he shone on the Indian
firmament for a brief period, he blazed a new trail for others to follow.
October 2 holds a special place in Indian history. Two of its greatest national
leaders were born on 2nd October. While many know that Mahatma Gandhi
was born on the 2nd October 1869, many dont know that also Indias second
52

Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on the same date in 1904.
Shashtriji was an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi and his principles. It
was Mahatma Gandhi who drew Shastrijis attention to Indias independent
movement.
Lal Bahadur Shashtri believed in Nehruvian economic policies and hence he
was made the Prime Minister after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964.
There are lot of episodes and things that one would like to know about
Shashtriji. We take a look at them here:
1. Lal Bahadur Shastri was born in Ramnagar in Varanasi in a Kayastha
family, but as Shastriji didnt believe in caste discrimination, dropped his
tittle. Later, when he graduated at Kashi Vidyapeeth, he was given the title
of Shashtri (scholar).
2. Lal Bahadur Shastris fondness for Mahatma Gandhi is well known. Not
many know that Shashtri was also influenced by Bal Gangadhar (Lokmanya)
Tilak in his early days.
3. In 1921, when Mahatma Gandhi call for youth to come out of schools and
colleges and join the Non-Cooperation movement, Shahstri paid heed to that
call. This also marked Shashtris first move/contribution towards Indias
freedom.

4. Lal Bahadur Shastri went to jail as early as when he was 17-years-old.

Jailed for his participation in non-cooperation movement, Shastri was later
let-off as he was only 17 (minor) then.
5. In 1930, during the Civil Disobedience Movement Lal Bahadur Shastri was
again jailed for his participation in it. This time Shastri served a jail-term of
two and half years. Shastri learned about western philosophers and social
reformers during his jail-term.
6. Lal Bahadur Shastri was also arrested in 1940, and 1941 till 1946. The fact
will surprise you a bit that Shastri spent almost nine years in jail in total
during Indias Independence activism.

53

7. Not many know that the credit of appointing women conductors in

transportation facilities go to Lal Bahadur Shastri. As a transport minister
post-independence, Shastri achieved this feat.

8. Another little known fact about Lal Bahadur Shastri is that it was him who
ordered using jets of water instead of lathis to disperse the crowd; during his
charge as a minister of Police Department.

9. Lal Bahadur Shastri was the brain-child of landslide victories of the

Congress party in General Elections 1952, 1957 and 1962.
10. In the recent 2014 Lok Sabha Elections from where Mohammad Kaif
contested- Phulpur constituency, it was once used to be Lal Bahadur
Shastris terrain.
11. Owing moral responsibility to a railway accident in Mahbubnagar in 1956,
Lal Bahadur Shastri had resigned as the Railway Minister setting new
standards of morality in public life.

12. The credit of first appointing the committee on Prevention of Corruption

also goes to Lal Bahadur Shastri during his tenure as Union Home Minister.
13. It is a little known fact that after Nehru died, Indira Gandhi was first
offered the post of Prime Ministership. Only after she declined, Lal Bahadur
Shastri was made the PM.
14. Lal Bahadur Shastris first broadcast as Prime Minister said, 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 right or left. Our way is straight and
clearthe 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.
54

15. Lal Bahadur Shastri coined the phrase Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan (Hail soldier,
Hail Farmer) to enthuse the moral, during Indias successful war against
Pakistan in 1965.

16. Lal Bahdaur Shastris leadership was hailed across the globe when he led
India to victory in the Indo-Pak war of 1965.
17. Lal Bahadur Shashtri died due to cardiac arrest under suspicious
circumstances in Tashkent, giving rise to reports of a deep-rooted conspiracy.
India acquired independence on 15 August 1947 though sections of the
country were carved out and stitched together to create another new
country, Pakistan. The institutional road to independence was perhaps laid
down by the Government of India Act of 1935, where the gradual emergence
of India as a self-governing entity had first been partly envisioned. Following
India's independence in 1947, the Constituent Assembly deliberated over the
precise constitutional future of India. On 26 January 1950, India became a
Republic, and the Constitution of India was promulgated. Jawaharlal Nehru
had become the countrys first Prime Minister in 1947, and in 1952, in the
countrys first general election with a universal franchise, Nehru led the
Indian National Congress to a clear victory. The Congress had long been the
principal political party in India, providing the leadership to the struggle for
independence, and under Nehrus stewardship it remained the largest and
most influential party over the next three decades. In 1957, Nehru was
elected to yet another five-year term as a member of the Lok Sabha and
chosen to head the government. His regime was marked by the advent of
five-year plans, designed to bring big science and industry to India; in
Nehru's own language, steel mills and dams were to be the temples of
modern India. Relations with Pakistan remained chilling, and the purported
friendship of India and China proved to be something of a hoax. Chinas
invasion of India's borders in 1962 is said to have dealt a mortal blow to
Nehru.

Nehru was succeeded at his death on 27 May 1964 for a period of two weeks
by Gulzarilal Nanda (1898-1998), a veteran Congress politician who became
active in the non-cooperation movement in 1922 and served several prison
terms, principally in 1932 and from 1942-44 during the Quit India movement.
55

Nanda served as acting Prime Minister until the Congress had elected a new
leader, Lal Bahadur Shastri, also a veteran politician who came of age during
the Gandhi-led non-cooperation movement. Shastri was the compromise
candidate who, perhaps unexpectedly, led the country to something of a
victory over Pakistan in 1965. Shastri and the vanquished Pakistani
President, Muhammad Ayub Khan, signed a peace treaty at Tashkent in the
former Soviet Union on 10 January 1966, but Shastri barely lived to witness
the accolades that were now being showered upon him since he died of an
heart attack the day after the treaty was signed. Shastris empathy for the
subaltern classes is conveyed through the slogan, Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Hail
the Soldier, Hail the Farmer, which is attributed to him and through which
he is remembered at Vijay Ghat, the national memorial to him in New Delhi
in the proximity of Rajghat, the national memorial to Mohandas Gandhi.

On Shastris death, the Congress was once again engulfed by an internal

struggle. Gulzarilal Nanda once again served as the acting Prime Minister,
again for a period of less than a month, before being succeeded by Indira
Gandhi, Nehru's daughter. By the late 1960s, Indira Gandhi had engineered a
split in the Congress, as the only means to ensure her political survival, and
the Congress party, which with every passing year was losing something of
its shine, now went into a precipitous decline. In 1971, India crushed Pakistan
in a short war that also saw the birth of Bangladesh, and Indira was now at
the helm of her powers. But the Congress was now a mere shadow of its
former self, and as domestic problems mounted and popular movements
directed at Indira Gandhi began to show their effect, she resorted to more
repressive measures. An internal emergency, which placed almost the entire
opposition behind bars, was proclaimed in May 1975, and only removed in
1977; and the same opposition, which hastily convened to chart its strategy,
achieved in delivering the Congress party its first loss in national elections.
This government, serving various political interests and led by the victorious
Janata Party, which had been formed out of various opposition parties, lasted
a mere three years. It was led by the controversial Gandhian and Congress
stalwart, Morarji Desai, for two years, and for another year by Chaudhary
Charan Singh (1902-1987), who came from a Jat farming community with
roots in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The Lok Sabha or Lower Assembly never
met during Charan Singhs Prime Ministership and the political alliance
crumbled. Indira Gandhi rode a spectacular wave of victory in 1980. But she
did not live to complete her term: shot by her own Sikh bodyguards, who
56

sought to avenge the destruction unleashed upon the Golden Temple, the
venerable shrine of the Sikh faith, by Indian government troops given the
task of flushing out the terrorists holed in the shrine, she was succeeded by
her son, Rajiv Gandhi, in late 1984.

In the December 1994 Lok Sabha elections, Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress
party won a landslide election. But Rajivs premiership was to be marked by
numerous political disasters, and Rajivs own name was tainted by the
allegation that he had received huge bribes from a Swedish firm of Bofors,
manufacturers of a machine-gun for which the Indian army placed a large
order. His own finance minister, V. P. Singh (1931-), once a Indira Gandhi
loyalist who had been picked by her in 1980 to serve as the Chief Minister of
Uttar Pradesh, was to turn against Rajiv; and in 1989, V. P. Singh led the
Janata Party to an electoral rout over the Congress. However, the revived
Janata party mustered only 145 votes, and it had to take the support of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by L. K. Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee, in
order to form a government. It is at this juncture that India truly entered the
era of coalition governments. V. P. Singh would soon be brought down by two
disputes: one over the status of the Babri Masjid, a sixteenth-century
mosque that Hindu militants claimed had been built over the Ram
Janmasthan [birthplace], and the second over the recommendations of the
Mandal commission pertaining to quotas for various elements of Indias
underprivileged masses. On 7 November 1990, by a vote of 356-151, V. P.
Singh lost the confidence of the Lok Sabha, and some days later Chandra
Sekhar (1927-), with the support of Rajiv Gandhis Congress, was sworn in as
the next prime minister. However, Congress withdrew its support in March
1991, and elections were called in May.

On 21 May 1991, as intense electioneering was taking place, Rajiv Gandhi

was assassinated by a Sri Lankan suicide bomber. The mantle of Congress
leadership fell on the veteran P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921-2004), who led the
party to triumph, even as the BJP raised the number of its seats in Parliament
from a little over 80 to 120. On 6 December 1992, acting in defiance of
Supreme Court orders, Hindu militants destroyed the Babri Masjid, and so
initiated one of the most intense crises in Indias post-independent history.
Rao weathered many a storm, and presided over the liberalization of the
57

economy -- the architect of which was Manmohan Singh, then Finance

Minister and, since 2004, the Prime Minister of India. But Rao could not keep
the BJP and its friends in check. In the general elections of 1996, the BJP
emerged as the largest party, but its 194 seats were not enough to give it a
working majority in the 545-seat Lok Sabha, and Atal Behari Vajpayees first
government lasted a mere twelve days. A 13-party coalition of the United
National Front and the Indian left was brought into power, and Deve Gowda,
the Chief Minister of Karnataka, was raised to the office of the Prime Minister;
but after less than a year in office, he resigned and was succeeded by Inder
Kumar Gujral, whose main contribution in office was to bequeath the Gujral
doctrine a reference to his genuine attempts to mend Indias relations with
its South Asian neighbors, based on the principle that as the largest country,
India could afford to be generous, and did not have to require reciprocity for
all its munificent actions.

But Gujrals government similarly lasted less than a year; and in the general
elections of February 1998, the BJP emerged again as the single largest
party, this time with 200 seats. Vajpayee was invited to form a government,
and did so with a coalition of several parties, including the AIADMK, led by
Jayalalitha. Nothing that the BJP did was so ripe with consequences as the
decision to turn India into a nuclear state with a series of nuclear tests in
May 1998. The coalition, not unpredictably, broke down; but the general
elections of September 1999, in which the BJP again emerged as the single
largest party, and the Congress had a poor showing at the polls, despite
being led by Sonia Gandhi, a scion of the Nehru dynasty, were to reinforce
the impression that regional parties and politics have fundamentally altered
the state of Indian politics. Under Vajpayee, the BJP presided over the
countrys destiny until 2004, even though it was becoming inescapably clear
that the dominance of any one party is no longer a foregone conclusion and
that coalition politics appears to be the way of the future. Many
commentators were rightfully alarmed by various ominous developments
that transpired during the BJPs years in office, such as the coercive
Hinduization of the country, the inability of the state to guarantee the rights
of religious minorities, and other obvious manifestations of an utter disregard
for human rights, such as state-sponsored killings in Kashmir, the north-east,
and elsewhere, or the oppressions unleashed upon Christians and women.
On the other hand, Vajpayee and the BJP are not only credited with having
administered a crushing blow to Pakistans adventurism on the Himalayan
58

mountain tops at Kargil, but with having spearheaded a rapid expansion of

the Indian economy.

In provincial elections held in several states in late 2003, the BJP registered
impressive triumphs and the party leadership was led into thinking that, in
calling for early elections, it could consolidate its gains with a magisterial
showing in national elections. The BJP waged a campaign on the slogan of
India Shining, trumpeting the emergence of India as a major power.
However, the Indian electorate once again showed that it was not to be
taken for granted, and the BJP and its allies lost to a coalition headed by the
Congress party. [See Indias Moment: Elections 2004.] The Fourteenth Lok
Sabha convened on 17 May 2004 and Manmohan Singh (1932-) assumed the
office of the Prime Minister at the head of what is known as the UPA (United
Progressive Alliance) government. The UPA is supported by the Left Front, a
coalition of parties headed by the CPM, or the Communist Party of India
(Marxist).
The partition of India is a signal event in world history, not merely in the
history of the Indian subcontinent. British rule became established in eastern
India around the mid-eighteenth century, and by the early part of the
nineteenth century, the British had tightened their grip over considerable
portions of the country. The suppression of the Indian revolt of 1857-58
ushered in a period, which would last ninety years, when India was directly
under Crown rule. Communal tensions heightened in this period, especially
with the rise of nationalism in the early 20th century. Though the Indian
National Congress, the premier body of nationalist opinion, was ecumenical
and widely representative in some respects, Indian Muslims were
encouraged, initially by the British, to forge a distinct political and cultural
identity. The Muslim League arose as an organization intended to enhance
the various -- political, cultural, social, economic, and religious -- interests of
the Muslims.

The bulk of the scholarly literature on the partition has focussed on the
political processes that led to the vivisection of India, the creation of
Pakistan, and the "accompanying" violence. Numerous people have
attempted to establish who the "guilty" parties might have been, and how far
communal thinking had made inroads into secular organizations and
59

sensibilities. Scholarly attention has been riveted on the complex

negotiations, and their minutiae, leading to partition as well as on the
personalities of Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Azad, Patel, and others, and a
substantial body of literature also exists on the manner in which the
boundaries were drawn between India and Pakistan, on the western and
eastern fronts alike. (In general, however, the partition in the Punjab has
received far more scholarly attention than the Bengal partition.) There has
been much speculation about the role of the British in hastening the
partition, and Gandhis inability to prevent it; indeed, some Hindu ideologues
have even suggested that, whatever his stated opposition to the bifurcation
of India on religious grounds, Gandhi is more properly viewed as the Father
of Pakistan rather than the Father of the Indian nation. Whatever the
"causes" of the partition, the brute facts cannot be belied: down to the
present day, the partition remains the single largest episode of the uprooting
of people in modern history, as between 12 to 14 million left their home to
take up residence across the border. The estimates of how many people died
vary immensely, generally hovering in the 500,000 to 1.5 million range, and
many scholars have settled upon the nice round figure of 1 million. There is
nothing nice or comforting about this somewhat agreed-upon figure, and it is
interesting as well that few scholars, if any, have bothered to furnish an
account of how they came to accept any estimate that they have deemed
reasonable. We know only that hundreds of thousands died: in South Asia,
that is apparently the destiny of the dead, to be unknown and unaccounted
for, part of an undistinguished collectivity in death as in life.

In recent years, the scholarly literature has taken a different turn, becoming
at once more nuanced as well as attentive to considerations previously
ignored or minimized. There is greater awareness, for instance, of the
manner in which women were affected by the partition and its violence, and
the scholarship of several women scholars and writers in particular has
focussed on the abduction of women, the agreements forged between the
Governments of India and Pakistan for the recovery of these women, and the
underlying assumptions -- that women could scarcely speak for themselves,
that they constituted a form of exchange between men and states, that the
honor and dignity of the nation was invested in its women, among others -behind these arrangements. Earlier generations of scholars hardly bothered
with oral histories, but lately there have been a number of endeavors to
collect oral accounts, not only from victims but on occasion even from
60

perpetrators. These accounts raise important questions: should the partition

violence be assimilated to the broader category of genocide so widely
prevalent in the twentieth century? or was the violence of the partition
something very different, a kind of uncalculated frenzy? was it really a time
of insanity? can the partition justly be differentiated from the bureaucratized
machinery of death installed by the holocaust perpetrated against the Jews?
why do we insist on speaking of the violence as merely "accompanying" the
partition, as though it were almost incidental to the partition?

There was a time, not long ago, when scarcely any attention was paid to the
partition. Perhaps some forms of violence and trauma are better forgotten:
the partition had no institutional sanction, unlike many of the genocides of
the twentieth century, and the states of Pakistan and India cannot be held
accountable in the same way in which one holds Germany accountable for
the elimination of Europes Jews or Soviet Russia accountable for the death of
millions of peasants in the name of modernization and development. It is
also possible to argue that the partition theme gets displaced onto other
forms of expression. But it can scarcely be denied that now, more than ever,
it ha has become necessary to adopt several different approaches to the
partition, taking up not only the questions covered in the more conventional
historical literature -- the events leading up to the partition, the ideology
(indeed pathology) of communalism, and the immediate political
consequences of the partition -- but also the insights offered by film,
literature, memoirs, and contemporary political and cultural commentary. Of
course, the consequences of partition are there to be seen: India and
Pakistan continue to be embroiled in conflict, and Kashmir remains a point of
contention between them. The psychic wounds of partition are less easily
observed, and we have barely begun to fathom the myriad ways in which
partition has altered the civilizational histories of South Asia. If the partition
appeared to some to vindicate the idea of the nation-state, to others the
partition might well represent the low point of the nation-state ideology. Will
the people of South Asia ever leave behind their partitioned selves?
Democracies everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more so than in India,
present a complex scenario of tensions between constraints and liberty,
unfreedom and freedom, the imperatives of the modern national security
state and the aspirations of a free citizenry. The very fact that India has
repeatedly been able to mount general elections since it gained its freedom
61

from British rule in 1947, and on a scale never before witnessed in history, is
adduced as evidence of the strength of Indian democracy -- an
accomplishment that seems all the more remarkable given the precarious
state of democracy in most of the world. Indeed, assumptions about the
robustness of democracy in India always take as their implied referent the
contrast that comes to mind with Pakistan and many other states in the
global South. Pakistan has been under military rulers for 32 of its sixty years
of its existence, and even its civilian rulers have always governed with the
apprehension that a coup might summarily remove them from office as the
constant tussle between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, each removed
from office more than once to pave the way for the other, amply suggests.
[See also on MANAS, Pakistan: A Select Political Chronology, 1947-2008.] In
Africa, democratic states have had at least as fragile an existence, and
military dictatorships, despotisms, and authoritarian democracies have
indisputably been the norm.

So just what is it that accounts for the resilience and endurance of Indian
democracy? Why has it flourished in India when it has failed in other states?
And why has it done so even though Indias mass poverty, widespread
illiteracy, slow economic growth, a large bureaucracy clearly indifferent to
norms of efficiency, a culture of permissive corruption, and unrivaled
heterogeneity were all, according to classical accounts, supposed to militate
against the growth of democracy? The rhetoric of the state was
redistributive, but in practice substantial redistribution was abandoned.

Some considerations quickly come to mind, and are offered here as an aid to
rumination, and with the hope that researchers will find these suggestions of
sufficient intellectual interest to pursue them at greater length:

1. The Congress, for all its authoritarian tendencies and its close
identification with the Nehru-Gandhi family, furnished a considerable
element of stability. In 1985, the Congress completed 100 years of its
existence, and only a few Western democracies have had political parties
which have similarly stood the test of time. To be sure, the Congress of Indira
Gandhi, and even more so of contemporary times, may not bear much of a
62

resemblance with the Indian National Congress during the time of Beasant,
Tilak, Gandhi and later, but nonetheless the very presence of the Congress
signifies certain continuities.

2. India had, from the colonial period, a relatively centralized state and, at
the same time, some machinery for local elections and political
representation. Though center-state relations have not been without deep
difficulties, India has achieved a not insignificant balance between
Federal/center and the states. The creation of linguistic states was in itself an
important accommodation in this regard. It is important to issue a caveat
here about supposing that the colonial legacy was all-important: the British
in India, for example, resisted universal franchise, and only after
independence did this become a reality.

3. India inherited and retained a well-oiled civil service. India had what is
called a bourgeois revolution; the demand for Pakistan, by contrast, was
led by landed aristocrats. This might also explain why land reforms have
been less far-reaching in Pakistan and why that country is still said to be
governed more by feudal norms.

4. Notwithstanding full adult franchise from the outset, participation has

been gradual and more easily assimilable without disturbing the center
excessively. Linguistic communities; mobilization of low caste communities
and of OBCs; the emergence of regional parties (which counted more on the
backward castes to whom the Congress had paid insufficient attention); and
the advent even of Hindu nationalists: all this happened incrementally, as it
were, and allowed absorption of these various constituencies into the
national mainstream. Reservations allowed middling and lower castes a
political voice.

5. India retained civil society & state institutions that have provided stability.
Two that come to mind are the Supreme Court and the Electoral Commission.
The same Supreme Court that sentenced Mohammed Afzal to death,
63

notwithstanding the failure of the state to produce decisive evidence against

the condemned man, also acquitted other men for want of evidence.

6. Strong peoples and grassroots movements dalit, ecological, womens

movements, among others have persisted and flourished.

7. A strong and, on the whole, independent press has characterized the

history of independent India, though doubtless there are many stories to be
told about the capitulation and subservience of the press to the state and
more recently to corporate interests. Even if the press has often been a
bulwark of support to lites, the vigilance of the English-language press
during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, to take one example,
cannot be denied.

8. One should not understate important legislative gains for ordinary people,
including the passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the
Forest Peoples Land Rights Bill, the Right to Information Act, and the
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. One can argue this even
while conceding that progressive legislation, for example on the practice of
dowry, can coexist alongside a resolute determination to prevent its
implementation. The law can obfuscate problems as much as it can help to
relieve them, an outcome all but assured when the state has no substantive
commitment to the idea of an open society and distributive equality. One can
also identify other problems with such legislation: it has been said that
something like 90 percent of the requests filed under the Right to
Information Act emanate from institutions and employees of the state, and
more often than not such interests stem from nothing more substantial than
the attempt of an employee to find out the salaries of other employees.
Ultimately, however, arguments against legislation that in principle is
progressive are not easily sustained.

9. In the wisdom of the Indian people is the first source of Indias renewal.
Time after time the illiterate electorates of India have shown better judgment
64

than the educated. The poor are more committed to the ballot box in India
than the elites; in the modern West, such as the US, it is the other way
around. The ruling party was thrown out in 1977, 1980, and in several
elections since then, including the election of 2004.

10. The Constitution of India remains, despite attempts to subvert its

emancipatory provisions, a document and a vision that continues to hold out
the promise of equality, justice, and opportunity. It has survived the
wreckage of an authoritarian executive and will outlive the Supreme Courts
present disposition to allow massive land grabs in the name of progress and
development.

11. Though Mohandas Gandhis assassins never seem to rest, the spectre of
Gandhi remains to haunt, guide, and inspire Indians who are resistant to
everything that passes for normal politics and have not entirely succumbed
to the oppressions of modernity. As I have elsewhere written, Gandhi took
great risks and was not in the least cowed down by history, the sanctity of
traditions, or scriptural authority. There is something ineffable in all this; the
place of Gandhis long shadowy presence in politics is hard to document.

12. The relationship of Sanskritization

thought. The middle class phenomenon
in absolute numbers than it is as a sign
enter into the mainstream of democratic

to democracy needs much further

is less important as a phenomenon
to the poor that their aspirations to
life might yet bear fruit.

13. The intellectual class in India comprised not merely of academics, but
of writers, filmmakers, public intellectuals, and others -- survived the
onslaught of colonialism better than did intellectual classes in most other
colonized societies. It may have to do, in part, with the insularity,
secretiveness, and esotericism of Brahmin life and networks.

65

14. Hinduism itself, I suspect, has facilitated the pluralist nature of the Indian
polity. The attempt has been to turn Hindus into the proper religious subjects
of a proper nation-state, but the fundamental anarchy of Hinduism resists
such attempt. On the other hand, one can argue that the caste system is
intrinsically hierarchical and oppressive. This subject needs much further
inquiry.

15. The cultural and intellectual project of achieving the nation-state was
taken rather seriously in India from the outset of independence, taking a leaf
here from colonialisms epistemological projects. Let us think of state
institutions such as the Akademis (Sahitya, Lalit Kala, Sangeet Natak), the
ICHR, the state-sponsored histories, and so on; on the other hand, let us not
forget the place of Hindi-language cinema. (This is also quite clearly seen in
the Indian diaspora.)

In thinking about Indian democracy and its future prospects, commentators

have lavished far too much attention on politics in the narrowest
conception of the term. There is much speculation, for example, on whether
India might move towards a two-party system or some variation of it, with
the Congress and the left parties constituting one bloc and the other bloc
being constituted by BJP and its allies. But this kind of scenario has little
room for parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi
Party (SP), which together dominate politics in Uttar Pradesh, where efforts
by the Congress to reinvent itself do not hold much promise of success. In
the General Elections of 2004, the Left Front won 60 seats and came to hold
the decisive swing vote. While so far the left has show little inclination to
revolt, and West Bengal is rapidly retooling itself to become attractive to the
corporate world and foreign investors, the possibility of genuine and
irreconcilable differences developing between the Congress and the Left
Front can never be entirely ignored.

Certainly, if the persistent invocations of the new India, the roaring

economy, and the entrepreneurial and aggressively capitalist spirit of India
are any guide, at least the Indian middle classes have signified their assent
66

to the idea that an economic rather than a political conception of democracy

will drive the Indian future.
[Different versions published as "[The] National Flag: Status and Symbol",
Hindustan Times (October 1995) and as "Idolatry of the national tricolour",
Indian Express (17 January 1996).]

There are certain moments in the cultural and political life of a nation when
the national flag comes into prominence. Every Indian is aware that the
Prime Minister unfurls the national tricolor from the ramparts of the Red Fort
every Independence Day on August 15, and indeed the observance of
January 26th as Republic Day goes back to 31 December 1929, when
Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the flag of the Indian National Congress, gave a call
for purna swaraj, and asked people to observe January 26 as independence
day. Most recently, the cremation of Beant Singh reminded us that the
honored dead are honored with the flag, and that if the national flag is
attendant upon the birth of a nation, it equally accompanies in death those
whose lives are construed as being symbolic of the nation.

Along with the national anthem, the national flag is supremely and specially
iconic of the nation-state. It is understood that the honor and integrity of the
nation are captured by the flag, and as the history of every country shows,
the national flag is uniquely capable of enlisting the aid of citizens, giving
rise to sentiments of nationalism, and evoking the supreme sacrifice of
death: in every respect, the national flag commands, not merely our respect,
but our allegiance. Thus it is that last year, when the then Miss Universe,
Sushmita Sen, was taken on a triumphant parade through the streets of
Delhi, the manner in which her carriage displayed the national flag was
found to be offensive. Attached to the back of her carriage, in direct defiance
of the regulations stipulated in the Flag Code-India, the national flag
appeared to have been compromised and demeaned; indeed, it appeared as
though Sushmita Sen had rendered it into an item of consumption. Though
Sen could, under the laws of the land, have faced fines and imprisonment,
her own iconic significance, as the reigning beauty queen of the world, and
as a supposed paean to the glory of modern Indian womanhood, was
scarcely to be underestimated, and was shown at that moment to be hardly
less than the iconic significance attached to the flag.
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The flag has once again come into the news. In a highly significant ruling on
September 21st, the Delhi High Court directed that the Flag Code-India,
which governs the use and display of the National Flag, could not be so
interpreted as to prevent an ordinary citizen of India from flying in a
respectful manner the National Flag from the premises of his or her business
or residence. In any case, the Flag Code, ruled the Court, was not to be
construed as law, and its contravention could not be enforced unless, of
course, such contravention came within the purview of either the Emblem
Act or the Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act.

Most Indians can scarcely have been aware that they were forbidden,
apparently under pain of punishment, to fly the national flag from the
premises of their residential or office buildings, and it is just as unlikely that
the proverbial 'man on the street' will view the judgment of the Delhi High
Court as of any consequence to him. But this is no small victory for the
Indian citizen, when we consider that a very significant chapter of the history
of the independence movement was woven around the hard-won struggle of
Indians to fly the flag of their choice. The present flag is, to a considerable
degree and certainly in essence, the flag to whose design none other than
Mahatma Gandhi lent his hand, and which the Congress was to adopt in
1921. Writing for Young India on 13 April 1921, two years after the massacre
at Jallianwala Bagh, Gandhi observed that the red in the flag represented
Hindus, the green stood for Muslims, and that the white represented all other
faiths; the spinning wheel in the middle of the flag pointed to the oppressed
condition of every Indian, just as it evoked the possibility of rejuvenating
every Indian household. Gandhi did not think that the matter of the national
flag trifling; as he was to put it, "A flag is a necessity for all nations. Millions
have died for it. It is no doubt a kind of idolatry which it would be a sin to
destroy." If the Union Jack could evoke immeasurably strong sentiments in
English breasts, was it not necessary that all Indians "recognize a common
flag to live and to die for"?

Gandhi's flag, as it was known to English officials, was with some

modifications formally adopted by the Congress in 1931 as the National Flag,
and this flag in turn became the basis, with the substitution of the wheel on
68

the capital of Asoka's Sarnath Pillar for the charkha, for the National Flag
chosen by the Constituent Assembly in July 1947. In the meantime, between
1921 and 1947, a war of attrition developed between Indian nationalists and
government officials over the right to fly the Gandhi or Congress flag. Indian
nationalists found that hoisting the flag invariably attracted the wrath, and
often the vengeance, of British officials, and usually the flag was ordered to
be brought down. Only once, at Bhagalpur in 1923, did the district official
assent to a rare compromise, when he consented to have the Congress flag
flown alongside the Union Jack, albeit at a lower height! This invited the
reprimand of the Government of India and the British Cabinet, who wished to
make it clear "that in no circumstances should the Swaraj or Gandhi Flag be
flown in conjunction with even below the Union Jack." The more usual
response was to have men and boys who defiantly carried the Congress Flag
whipped, and during the civil disobedience movement of 1930-33, boys as
young as 8 years old were given 10-30 stripes each for this purported
offense. A six-month long "Flag Satyagraha" in Nagpur in 1923, in which a
good part of the national leadership participated, led to the withdrawal of
prohibitory orders on the use of the Congress Flag.

Thus, when we consider the arduous effort with which Indians established
their right to fly their flag, it is all the more extraordinary, disturbing, and
deplorable that, in independent India, the state should have arrogated this
right to itself and turned it into a privilege. It is fitting that the judiciary
should now have restored this fundamental right to Indian citizens. However,
as in all matters, the ruling of the Delhi High Court cannot be construed
simply as a cause for celebration. All too often, the national flag in most
countries has been the pivot around which sentiments not merely of
nationalism but of jingoism, hatred, and racial exclusivism have been
fostered, a most telling example of which was the war against Iraq in 1991,
when Americans, most of whom (the 'educated' not excepted) were unable
to locate Iraq on a map, foolishly huddled around their flag. In some other
countries, again most notably the United States, an offensive and
extravagant patriotic sensibility leads the public to an indiscriminate and
excessive display of the flag even during times of peace. One can only hope
that Indians will prevail upon themselves to display a more judicious and
restrained attitude towards the flag. There may also well be a time, in the
very near future, when the Indian parliament and judiciary will have to
deliberate in an altogether different manner on the status of the flag. Is the
69

burning of the National Flag protected under the Constitution as an

expression of free speech, or must such an act invariably be constituted as
an offense punishable under law? In the cultural and political semiotics of
nationhood, the National Flag is bound to occupy an increasingly important
place.
[First published with footnotes in Suitcase 1, nos. 1-2 (1995):60-73; revised
version published in Of Cricket, Gandhi, and Guinness: Essays in Indian
History and Culture (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2002).]

Buddhist texts commonly tell a story where a holy man (sometimes the
Buddha himself), seated at a crossroads, is faced with a difficult decision.
The holy man sees a man run by him; momentarily later, another man, or
group of men, come running by, and inquire of him if he knows which road
the first man has taken. In the interpretive traditions surrounding this story,
the holy man or the Buddha is faced with an intersecting array of
considerations, and at least three choices are evidently available to him. He
can choose to tell the truth, with the possible consequence of endangering
the life of the man who ran by him; he can choose to tell a lie, and perhaps
save the life of this man, but at the price of violating an indispensable
injunction of the ethical life, the obligation to remain bound by the truth; or
he can choose to remain silent. This parable speaks to us about the
difficulties of adhering to the life of truth, about the conflicting
interpretations of truth and falsehood, and about the virtues of stillness and
equanimity; it also says something about energy, and about the dialectic of
rest and motion; and yet again we can also read it as a homily on the
contigent nature of all systems of knowledge, on the ambiguous necessity of
choosing between interpretations, and on the difficulties of deriving the
meaning of meaning itself.

Whatever the holy man's eventual choice, the compilers of the Guinness
Book of Records appear to have had no difficulty in locating the meaning of
another story involving a seated man. For the last few years, the Guinness
Book has accredited an Indian holy man with the world record for remaining
seated for the longest period of time. The entry notes that "the silent Indian
fakir Mastram Bapu ('contented father') remained on the same spot by the
roadside in the village of Chitra for 22 years from 1960-82." It would seem
70

quite logical that this record should be held by an Indian. The fakir has been,
for some centuries, an iconic figure in popular representations of India, and
Westerners have over the years flocked to India to learn something of the
ascetic and meditative practices of Indian holy men. In colonial writings, the
hot climate of India was seen as inducing a stupor in its natives, making
them indolent and averse to a life of action, and a stationary and seated man
would have been the most apposite icon of a static country, impervious to
the passage of time and the attraction of places, where men were quite
content with the simplest of human needs, fulfilled with a minimal
expenditure of energy. By the twin processes of condensation and iteration,
this image is then captured in the entry in the Guiness Book, which also
imposes its own categories of knowledge. Thus the editors must have
thought that there was nothing ironic in placing the entry under the caption
"Camping out". Indians know nothing of camping, and the practice of
pitching tents, or placing stakes, in the great outdoors remains a peculiarly
Anglo phenomenon. There is yet a more supreme irony, one that Henry
David Thoreau, who wrote of the world and stayed in the woods around
Walden Pond, would most certainly have relished: in having stayed at one
spot for a good part of his life, Mastram Bapu had nonetheless managed to
arrive, propelling himself into the pages of what the West calls 'history'.

The peculiar achievement of Mastram Bapu is only one of many like stories.
News bits about Indians finding a place in the Guinness Book of Records have
become staple items in Indian newspapers, whether published in India or
abroad, over the last few years. Though Indians hold only a small fraction of
the thousands of records of human achievement, endurance, prowess,
ingenuity, and foibles, lavish attention is bestowed by Indian print and visual
media upon each Indian triumph, and there is every indication that Indians
today are scrambling, with resounding success, to have their names etched,
in howsoever bizarre a manner, in the annals of fame. Most of the records for
which Indians are included in the Guinness Book were set in the last five
years, in the immediate aftermath of the Rajiv Gandhi 'era', and according to
the London headquarters of the Guinness Book, at least one tenth of all mail
they receive is from India, mainly from people seeking to receive
acknowledgment of some record that they have set. Indians who have been
admitted into the pages of the Guinness Book also belong to the World
Record Holder Club of India, and reportedly the President of this club
changed his name from Harparkash Rishi to Guinness Rishi. What explains
71

the compulsion Indians apparently feel to find a place in the Guinness Book?
Must one point to fragile egos and a feeling of inferiority in comparison to
Anglo-Saxon culture, or can one evoke, as has one writer, the notion of a
fetish for records? Or is there perhaps, in the narrative of Indians'
enchantment with achieving records, something that can be inferred about
the manner in which configurations of masculinity, femininity, eccentricity,
competitiveness, sportsmanship, and 'Indianness', all shaped by the
experience of colonialism and modernity, have contributed to the shaping of
contemporary Indian middle-class public culture?

While these records are to most people a matter of some curiosity, they
would also appear to be nothing short of trivia. The authors of recent
assaults upon the 'canon', while denouncing with good reasons the grand
narratives of Enlightenment rationality, or questioning the place of
foundational categories in interpretive critical theory, or -- less subtly -substituting the works of women and men of color for the writings of white
males grounded largely if not exclusively in European traditions of inquiry
and intellectual practices, have nonetheless retained a fairly conventional
sense of what constitutes 'material' for the purposes of intellectual inquiry
and political argumentation. The place of gossip, rumors, and anecodotes in
the construction of narratives, and in the creation of a cultural politics of
resistance, is beginning to be explored, and in allowing the Guinness Book to
be a refracting medium, particularly for certain positions on modernity, I am
doing no more than extending the meaning of the 'canon'. Let us recall that
the word canon, which has an extraordinarily rich history, largely forgotten in
current debates, meant in the first instance a yardstick, standard, rule, or
model; only later did it acquire some other meanings, such as the notion of a
'list', which is indeed one of the meanings inherent in the idea that there
exists a grand canon of literary works. Rules, much like records, exist to be
stretched indeed broken, and there are also, needless to say, rules for
establishing records. If I appear to be enshrining trivia, by constituting the
Guinness Book as my central text, I do so with the encouragement of a not
inconsiderable authority, Walter Benjamin: "Method of this work: literary
montage. I need say nothing. Only show. I won't steal anything valuable or
appropriate any witty turns of phrase. But the trivia, the trash: this, I don't
want to take stock of, but let it come into its own in the only way possible:
use it."

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To speak of records is, for the most part, to speak of numbers. Take, for
example, the record for needle threading. The 1992 Guinness Book noted
that the record for the number of times that a strand of cotton thread had
been threaded through a number 13 needle (eye 0.5 in. x 0.16 in.) in 2 hours
was 7,238, set by Brajesh Shrivastava on 12 December 1990 in Bhopal, a
city notorious for the record number of dead left behind by a gas leak in a
Union Carbide plant in 1984; however, this record was not to last long, as his
fellow countryman, Om Prakash Singh, a clerk at a bank in Allahabad,
threaded a needle 20,675 times in the same amount of time before a live
audience on 25 July 1993. The former gentleman, having been deprived of
his world record, was to demonstrate his tenacity, and his will to fame, by
the mere expedient of setting a record in an altogether different domain: as
the Guinness Book for 1995 states, Shrivastava holds the record for having
created the largest hand-painted wooden fan, nearly eighteen and a half feet
tall, in the world. Shrivastava, who appears to have nursed lifelong ambitions
to appear in the Guinness Book, first made his way into the Limca Book of
Records, which largely whets the appetites of those Indians who are not
manly, bold, or lucky enough to make it to Guinness' compilation of world
records, but can nonetheless satisfy themselves with the thought that they
hold some record in India, with numerous records for microwriting, such as
writing 61,800 characters, which cannot be read by the naked eye, on threefourth space on one side of a postcard. This sort of record would seem to
appeal to Indians: according to the Guinness Book, the record for "miniscule
writing" is held by Surendra Apharya of Jaipur, who wrote 1,314 characters
on a single grain of rice on 28 February 1991.

If there is, then, a fetish for records, it is in the first instance a propensity
towards numbers. As in any other civilization, numbers have played a fecund
role in the shaping of Indian culture, but it is arguable that the Indian
imagination is particularly drawn to taxonomies, numerology, and the sheer
play to which numbers lend themselves. The Hindu Puranas contain the most
complex concatenations of numbers, and numbers have been critical to such
enterprises as divination, ritual sacrifice, literary compositions, construction
of genealogies, cosmogony, and astrology. The Kama Sutra, the well-known
Indian guide to love-making, is precise about the number of sexual positions
during copulation, and a recent cartoon history of the world mocks this
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"Hindu thoroughness" by showing a couple engaging in intercourse, while the

man, whose one hand holds a book, expostulates: "O.K. Position #133."
Similarly, the Atharva-Veda notes that 53 kinds of sorceries are possible (with
dice), or that there are 101 varieties of death. The Hindu use of numbers, or
rather playfulness with them, filled the English with exasperation, and James
Mill pointed to Hindu numbers -- such as the 1,555,200,000,000 years during
which the Creator was incubating, or the 17,064,000 years during which the
Creator transformed itself from "neuter to masculine, for the purpose of
creating worlds" -- as a sign of the "rude and imperfect state" of the Hindu
mind. Hegel, like most other 'great' European philosophers, was without a
clue as to how Indian texts might be read, and could only consider "large
numbers" in "Hindoo writings" as having "a quite arbitrary origin." If certain
kings were said to have reigned 70,000 years, and Brahma is said to have
lived 20,000 years, one had to presuppose that the "numbers in question,
therefore, have not the value and rational meaning which we attach to
them."

Memory, too, has a hand in this nexus of records, numbers, and statistics,
and what has not been adequately realized, much less studied, is how
numbers function as mnemonic devices. Competitions lasting over days,
even weeks, in which pandits recite entire texts -- such as the Ramayana and
the Bhagvata Purana -- from memory, or recite passages from sacred texts
picked for them randomly, are quite common. It is a similar facility with
memory, and the resort to those mnemonic strategies by which cultures (and
not mere texts) have been preserved and transmitted, that may help to
account for the fact that the most extraordinary "human computer" in the
world today is an Indian, Shakuntala Devi. When she was given two 13-digit
numbers (7,686,369,774,870 and 2,465,099,745,779) to multiply, she did so
accurately within 28 seconds; and she has repeatedly performed such feats.
"Some experts on calculating prodigies refuse to give credence to Mrs. Devi",
states the Guinness Book, "on the grounds that her achievements are so
vastly superior to the calculating feats of any other investigated prodigy that
the authentication must have been defective" (p. 176). It is not an accident
that India is today one of the principal countries for research in statistics, and
that her statisticians are renowned the world over.

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That those numbers which Hegel and James Mill derided may not have been
without 'meaning', or that they followed a cultural logic impervious to an
instrumental rationality, would not have occurred to European commentators
on Indian culture and 'experts' on Indian knowledge systems. This form of
indulgence in, and engagement with, numbers owed something to what we
might call a cultural cosmology, whereas the present-day obsession with
numbers among many Indians has, in part, a rather different locus. Ian
Hacking, the historian of science, has noted that in the 1830s and 1840s
England was engulfed by a "sheer fetishism for numbers": bodies were
furiously counted, and statistics were accumulated on everything, from
railway mileage and the total number of lashes administered in a year to all
habitual offenders, to the number of drunkards and lunatics contained in
prisons and asylums. Where numbers were at one time an occasion for men
and women to give expression to their ludic tendencies, even rendering
themselves ludicrous, in the nineteenth century numbers acquired a
restraining function. The colonial rulers in India were to follow suit: in the
nineteenth century, the state began to acquire enumerative functions, and
this obsession with statistics, which was to constitute one of the central
features of the colonial sociology of knowledge, was conveyed in such
practices as the census, anthropometry, criminal statistics, and numerous
other classificatory, investigative, disciplinary, and repressive procedures.
This avalanche of numbers was to be described by Foucault as "biopower";
an entire administrative and regulatory machinery, harnessed to the body,
was to come into place. It is useful to recall that the word 'statistics' is
etymologically related to the word 'state'; and statistics would henceforth do
the work of the state.

If we appear to be at great remove from the quest for records, we might

return then to the relation between records and numbers. The modernizing
Indian middle-classes are never so happy as when India's achievements are
honored, when her sportsmen and sportswomen are lauded, and when she is
recognized as a nation on the move. It is these same elements, to whom
Mastram Bapu would be an anathema, who have been pressing for India's
admission into the Security Council, on the supposed ground that India's
might and importance as a nation ought to be recognized, but they are
oblivious to the fact that the United States, the leading power in the world,
has rendered the United Nations into an impotent and superfluous body. No
country is loathe to surrender its monopoly over power when other, more
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effective and thorough, avenues for wielding power have been found; and if
India does make its way into the Security Council, to the great delight of its
elites, it shall be a Security Council for whose decisions the United States will
have little or no use. It is the political and economic elite in India who remind
us that India stands third in the strength of its scientific manpower, that it is
a member of the 'Nuclear Club', that its software engineers are feted (and
feared) in Silicon Valley, and that it is the only Third World nation to join a
few of the post-industrial countries as an exporter of satellite and rocket
technology.

Sadly, India is also the country that holds the record for the largest child
labor force in the world, the largest number of illiterates, the largest number
of people suffering from malnutrition, the largest exploited force of tribal
people, and numerous other unsavory matters. However, these gross forms
of exploitation are viewed as deplorably necessary, or as shortcomings of an
earlier era; the elite are prepared to believe that a price has to be paid for
'development', and that some of these problems will disappear over time.
However, what cannot so easily be tolerated, especially when the country is
making a bid to be considered a strong and important member of the world
community, is the shockingly poor performance of Indian sportsmen and
sportswomen. There is no greater lamentation that fills the Indian papers
than the continued inability of India's sporting hopes to haul home a few
trophies and medals, and that humiliation is aggravated when the smallest
nations, which cannot possibly have any pretension to being a major player
in world politics, and which in the view of Indian elites can even less lay
claim to the enormously complex and rich history of a civilizational entity like
India, are shown to have better and more manly athletes. In the last
Olympics, India failed to win a single medal, not even a bronze, and there
was much soul-searching and agonizing in middle-class homes and organs of
middle-class opinion. Politicians were intervening in the conduct of sports, it
was alleged, making it impossible for true sportsmen to flourish: the country
had failed to invest in its sports program, and thus in its youth, and sporting
programs, like everything else in the country, were the victim of corrupt and
nefarious practices. India's youth had never had much of a sporting chance.
Had India's Herculean disaster at the Olympics stood in singular isolation, it
might have been less sinister, but more recent sporting events have only
confirmed that Indian sports and athletics are in a bad way. At the most
recent Asian Games in Hiroshima, where India was competing not only with
76

Japan, China, and South Korea, the sporting giants of the continent, but with
Macau, Turkmenistan, Brunei, Myanmar, and Tajikistan, not countries whose
presence in the mental cartography of most people is overwhelming, India
could only manage to finish eighth in the medal tally. The 4 gold that India
won compared to 137 won by China. Of India's four gold medals, two were
won in tennis, one in kabbadi, a game that is played only in South Asia, and
one in pistol shooting. "A Notch Better, India Still Falls Far Behind" is what
India-West, the principal paper of the Indian community in California, had to
say about India's performance.

The medal for shooting makes one pause. Three weeks earlier, at the
Commonwealth Games, where India's competitors included Britain, Australia,
and Canada, India's small tally of six gold, eleven silver, and seven bronze,
occasioning a remark from one major newspaper that there had been "a lot
of concern over the poor performance of the Indian contingent", included
four medals won by just one sportsman, Jaspal Rana. The subject of India's
poor showing was important enough to merit an editorial, significantly
entitled, "Shooting, the saving grace." One might be forgiven for thinking
that the writer of the editorial is a card-carrying member of that fanatical and
constitutionally-blessed organization known as the National Rifle Association.
It is particularly ironical that India should be winning virtually its only medals
in shooting and weightlifting. Throughout the last one hundred years of
colonial rule, India was governed by the Arms Act, which forbade Indians
from owning arms or weapons. Very few Indians know how to handle a gun;
the vast majority have never even seen one; and those imbecilic debates
that are carried out in the United States over the most trivial measures to
limit gun ownership would be incomprehensible to Indians. In the British
colonial sociology of knowledge, the Indian could not be manly; his
effeminacy was supposedly apparent in his diet, apparel, and behavior, and
his inability to confront the Englishman. In the characterization of Robert
Orme, who penned an essay in 1770 on the "effeminacy of the inhabitants of
Hindustan", an Englishman had merely to brandish a stick and the Indian
would be sent flying. A gun was scarcely to be expected in the hands of an
Indian; nor was the Indian known for flexing his muscles.

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A certain anxiety, first generated during the colonial period, and

subsequently aggravated by the process of nation-building, over masculinity
and the manliness of a people, no less of a nation, must also account to a
great degree for the quest among Indians to have their names etched in the
Guinness Book. Part of the ethos of manliness consists simply in gaining
recognition, in being acknowledged. One long-lasting effect of colonialism
has been that the Indian continues to look up to the white European male,
who confers recognition upon inferiors, and who has established the
standard that the Indian (like other formerly colonized people) must meet.
That is the canonical truth, the qanoon of this world. Anthony Parakal of
Bombay, who engineered his way into the Guinness Book by having the
largest number (3,700) of published letters to an editor, was catapulted into
the pages of Time, which devoted a full page to him, and he has been
interviewed and photographed by other American publications. Such
recognition, which is unquestionably a mark of 'achievement', does not come
easily to Indians. The Guinness Book is there to remind them that such
recognition is possible and desirable, and the editor of the Guinness Book
has himself gone on record as saying: "we at the Guinness Book of Records
greatly value the interest shown by Indians in our book and respect their zeal
in trying to better world record targets in a wide range of subjects."

It appears to matter little to some Indians themselves that the records they
have set exemplify, in minute details, the Orientalist constructions of India.
Speaking of effeminacy, it is notable that the record for needle-threading is
held by an Indian man, in a country where stitching at home is invariably
deemed to be a woman's job. The Guinness Book also notes that the record
for "the longest duration in a typing marathon on a manual machine", 142
hours 50 minutes, was set by an Indian man from 25-31 July 1990: he hit
916,000 strokes. Perseverance at a typewriter is scarcely the most
persuasive demonstration of manliness, or of the ability of Indians to excel,
or be taken seriously as a modernizing people, and in India, as women
continue to join the work force in large numbers, jobs requiring typing are
almost exclusively the preserve of women. It is perfectly apposite that the
record for miniscule writing and letter-writing should be held by Indians:
writing was construed by India's colonizers as something quite feminine, the
task of men being to rule, govern, and administer. (India's colonial rulers did
leave behind voluminous records and would appear to have displayed a
penchant for the written record: when the men wrote, however, they
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recorded "minutes" and "memoranda", and these forms of adjudicative and

prescriptive writing would have been distinguished from more frivolous
engagements with the pen.) The large statue of John Lawrence, the 'savior of
the Punjab' and the Viceroy of India, that stood in Lahore and that was the
target of a satyagraha campaign in the 1920s by the people of Lahore
seeking to have it removed, bore the inscription, 'Will you be governed by
the sword or the pen?', though the countenance and demeanor of Lawrence
belied the force of the interrogative. English officials in India had no anxiety
that nationalist-minded effeminate Bengalis would ever pose a threat to their
sovereignty: "the Baboodom of Lower Bengal", exclaimed Bulwer-Lytton, the
Viceroy of India in 1878-79, "though disloyal is fortunately cowardly and its
only revolver is its ink bottle; which though dirty, is not dangerous."

When the Indian was not seen as lazy, dirty, a lying cheat, and effeminate,
he was construed as being bizarre and eccentric, bound to peculiar customs,
wild in his looks, wholly obsequious to authority. Here, again, Indians whose
names are enshrined in the Guinness Book would appear to endorse this
representation. During a period of 15 months ending on 9 March 1985,
Jagdish Chander crawled 870 miles, apparently "to propitiate his favorite
Hindu goddess, Mata" (p. 526). Students of Indian history might recall that
the notorious General Dyer, perpetrator of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre
and of the even more infamous 'crawling order', which required Indians to
crawl on a particular street where an Englishwoman had been assaulted,
when asked to explain his conduct, replied that some "Indians like to crawl".
It may be poetic justice that the record for the longest continuous crawl is
held by an Englishman, who traversed 28.5 miles in a mere 9.5 hours. To be
eccentric is, literally, to be off-centred, or to be peculiarly balanced: so
showed N. Ravi of Sathyamangalam City, who stood on one foot for a record
34 hours. As the Guinness Book states plainly, "The disengaged foot may not
be rested on the standing foot nor may any object be used for support or
balance" (p. 186). Not to be outdone, his countryman Girish Sharma bettered
this record ten years later by nearly 22 hours. India's yogis and rishis have
long been viewed as capable of the most bizarre or absurd acts, and Swami
Maujgiri Maharaj of Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, took it upon himself to
engage in the most unusual form of penance by continuously standing for 17
years, thereby establishing a world record that no one is likely to break too
soon. "When sleeping", adds the Guinness Book for the benefit of those left
somewhat mystified, "he would lean against a plank" (p. 186).
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Numerous other records of this kind are held by Indians. Thus far I have
suggested that the quest for records by Indians must be viewed not only in
relation to their absorption in, and engagement with, numbers but also in
relation to anxieties about masculinity, modernity, and the nation-state. It is
not accidental that virtually all of the records were set in the last ten years,
and most of these in the last five years. In late 1984, following the
assassination of his mother, Rajiv Gandhi had assumed the office of the
Prime Minister of India. Himself a rather young man, quite unlike many of
India's geriatric politicians, Rajiv Gandhi gravitated towards the youth, and
made known his commitment to making India a strong, modern nation-state.
It is perfectly apposite that "Mera Bharat Mahan", which may be read as "My
India is Great", or "May My India Be Great", should have become the slogan
most closely associated with him, and that Rajiv Gandhi became known as
the man eager to usher India into the twenty-first century, the iconic
representation of which was fittingly a train, which supposedly first propelled
India into modernity, and which today serves as the reminder of a greatness
that India can achieve if it can retain the political integrity of its borders. It is
in Rajiv Gandhi's time that the Indian railways inaugurated its most
prestigious train, the "Shatabdi [literally, a century] Express", as though to
suggest that India would, under his leadership, be well positioned at the
beginning of the next century (and millennium), an ancient civilization once
again poised to leave its impress upon the minds of men and women. The
youth were extolled to excel at sports; the artistic community was urged to
bring home honors; and Indian scientists were encouraged in the belief that
their endeavors would be suitably rewarded. Telecommunications might well
be in a complete shambles, but Rajiv Gandhi's technology adviser could quite
blithely speak of cellular phones as though the day when they would be in
every Indian home, howsoever humble, was just around the corner.

In such a climate of opinion, it is no surprise that, amidst fortune-hunters,

Indians seeking records should also have found a place under the sun. It is
worth bearing in mind, however, that the project of modernity has never
received the endorsement of all Indians, and that even a greater number of
Indians do not think of the nation-state as the inevitable and 'natural'
culmination of history. Nor are those Indians who fancy themselves as
members of the modernizing elite unequivocally pleased about Indian
80

achievements of the sort that are celebrated in the Guinness Book; indeed,
they are quite embarrassed, and occasionally angry, that Indians should be
recognized for endeavors that, on their view, only reinforce Orientalist
representations of Indians as exotic, effeminate, and custom-bound. Nothing
fills Indian elites, who are eager to invite foreign capital into the country, and
crave for the acceptance of India as a tourist mecca, with greater dread than
the thought that India might be construed as backward. (I might note,
incidentally, that the world record for "backwards running" is held by Arvind
Pandya of India: he covered the distance between Los Angeles and New York
City in this fashion in 107 days, from 18 August to 3 December 1984, just at
the time that Rajiv Gandhi was starting to give his painfully monotonous
speeches on taking India forward [p. 785].) These elites cannot but feel that
most Indian achievements are not 'real'; the real, and the capacity to grasp
the real, lies only in the West.

The freakish activities that leave Indian elites disturbed represent, I would
submit, a counter-hegemonic force to modern orthodoxies about
development, production, competition, and modernity. The competitive spirit,
we have been told, brings out the best in human beings, and encourages
people to excel. The narrative of the 'competitive spirit', usually
counterpoised to the stagnation and decay of the East, "vegetating in the
teeth of time" (in Marx's memorable phrase), has a long history in the West.
The story of one element in that narrative is the story of capital, selfaggrandizement, and the greed that drove the West to acquire colonies and
markets overseas; the other element is encapsulated in the phrase 'cultural
capital', though I use it here less in Bourdieu's sense, and more to suggest
that narratives of the like of 'competitive spirit' are used to engender pride in
the nation, refurbish the ever fragile masculinity of man, and promote a
cultural ethos that thrives on such notions as a purported individualism and
self-improvement. It is this 'spirit' of competition that has contributed to the
restlessness, anomie, and anxiety of Indian youth, and to those riots and
disturbances over positions and privileges that have been witnessed in India
from time to time, and which seemed to reach their apogee in 1990 when
several young men took to self-immolation in protest against the stated
policy of the government to implement a plan for increased educational and
employment opportunities for the disadvantaged.

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It is precisely the narrative of competition and triumph, which modernity has

claimed as its very own, that is being defied, and there is no better way of
defying this narrative than by seeming to emulate it, and even giving it one's
most profound homage. If the 'competitive spirit', which stands behind the
quest for records, leads to the drive to excel, or to raise productivity, why not
do so by setting records in activities, appearances, and achievements where
the disutility is all too apparent? What could be the point in growing the
longest fingernails in the world, as has Shridhar Chillal of Pune, whose five
nails on his left hand together measured 205 inches -- so long indeed that his
nails must generate their own political (and undoubtedly gendered)
economy? Chillal would appear to have made himself quite useless: one
cannot be certain how he prevents his manicured hands from being grazed
by objects, how he dresses himself, or how he attends to his other daily
needs. Similarly, what might be the point in growing the longest moustache
in the world? Kalyan Ramji Sain of Sundargarh had grown, by July 1993, a
moustache measuring 133.5 inches; one of his illustrious predecessors, a life
convict in a New Delhi jail by the name of Karma Ram Bheel, received the
permission of the prison governor to keep his moustache untrimmed, which
by 1979 had grown to 7 feet 10 inches (p. 169). He too generated his own
political economy: we do not know how many prison personnel were
assigned to help him in keeping his moustache groomed, or in preventing his
fellow prisoners from tampering with so seductive an appendage to a man's
body. Moreover, as the Guinness Book states, Bheel used "mustard, oil,
butter and cream to keep it in trim", and no doubt a number of cows were
tethered by the jail to service this man's appetite and ambition in a city that,
much to the chagrin of its residents, faces chronic butter shortages on a
frequent basis.

Butter is not the only item that is in short supply, or that is unusually
expensive: for the size of Indian cities, there are very few petrol pumps, and
petrol prices are almost exorbitant. Nonetheless, in the city of Poona,
renowned (or so think its residents) for martial valor, a number of its men
could think of no better way of entering into the Guinness Book than by
keeping a motor scooter in nonstop motion for 1,001 hours, covering a
distance of 49,831 miles at Traffic Park between 22 April and 3 June 1990 (p.
371). Many of the Guinness Book's Indian heroes appear quite insistent on
leaving their imprint on the economy, much as they are interested in
acquiring cultural capital. Marriages, according to an old saying, are made in
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heaven, and one Indian would seem to be quite set on proving this right. An
Indian businessman based in Dubai, one newspaper has reported, recently
chartered an Air-India Airbus so that he could have his son tie the marriage
knot with his fiancee in the presence of a Sikh priest at a height of 20,000
feet above ground. According to the report, "Popley senior said he hopes the
couple, bonded just a tad below heaven, will wing their way into the
Guinness Book of Records."

If the Guinness Book is the poor Indian's medium for acquiring cultural
capital, for the noveau riche their entry into the book of fame, and the book
of numbers, is rendered possible by conspicuous consumption. In either case,
modernity is at once both emulated and defied, honored and parodied,
celebrated and mocked; if the scientific spirit and the competitive ethos
appear to be enshrined, it is unequivocally clear that the achievements
which have enabled Indians (in the most cliched phrase of the times) "to
make history" scarcely rebound to the credit of the nation-state, or do
modernity proud. It is the same ambivalence towards modernity, the ethos of
development and the achievements of science, that can be witnessed in the
photograph that appeared in many Indian newspapers and magazines during
the recent outbreak of plague in Surat, showing a man holding a dead rat in
his naked hand, his mouth covered by a small gauze! Modernity in India is
luckily an unfinished business, and the increasing triumph of Indians in
entering the Guinness Hall of Fame simultaneously enacts a deification and
defilement of modernity. Far from constituting irrefutable evidence of Indians'
feelings of inferiority or their emulation of the 'achieving races', and their
commitment to modernity and the nation-state, the records set by Indians
suggest not only the resilience of a complex civilization against the
homogenizing and deleterious effects of modernity, but also the fact that
resistance in an era of globalization and totalization must perforce enact
both homage and parody.
Much attention has been focussed over the last two decades on the problem
of terrorism, its threat to international peace and security as much as the
sovereignty and integrity of nations, and its obscene repudiation of norms of
civilized conduct. The supposed inexplicability and unpredictability, if not
irrationality, of terrorism are prominently captured in one of the very first
incidents by which it was catapulted into modern-day consciousness. On a
summer day in 1972, three commandos of the Japanese Red Army, wielding
83

Czech submarine guns, fired at Puerto Rican passengers about to embark on

an Air France flight leaving from Lod airport in Israel. These Japanese
commandos, though constituting themselves into a self-proclaimed 'army',
were not acting on behalf of Japan or any other nation-state, nor did they
have any particular grievances against Puerto Ricans, and the aircraft might
just as well have been British Airways or (the now defunct) Pan Am. It was
perhaps clearly understood throughout the world that this attack at once
sought to undermine Israeli territorial sovereignty and rivet the world's
attention on Palestinian claims to a homeland, but what of the victims? What
was to be gained, other than a symbolic and largely impotent challenge to
the hegemony of Western states, by a violent communication of the view
that the very presence of a person on Israeli soil constituted an endorsement
of Israeli's legitimacy and therefore rendered that person liable to
punishment as an 'ally' of Israel? And what kind of blow could the Japanese
Red Army, sworn to opposing the nexus between the military, traditional
elites, and capitalists in Japan, have dealt to the evil empire of international
capitalism when ironically their very operation merely demonstrated that
borders exist only to be rendered permeable and that, much as the
advocates of capitalism would argue, goods respect no boundaries?

The terrorist attack at Lod Airport appeared, in any case, to underline the
international character of terrorism and its arbirtrainess in its mode of
selecting victims. The incident signalled the emergence of a new form of
conflict, the contours of which have been delineated in innumerable studies.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police, at its meeting in 1974,
applied a very simple definition to 'terrorism': it was described as "a
purposeful human activity primarily directed toward the creation of a general
climate of fear designed to influence, in ways desired by the protagonists,
other human beings, and through them some course of events." The Nazis in
Germany and in their acquired territories, the Indonesians in East Timor, the
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and other regimes were certainly engaged in
"purposeful human activity" designed to create a "general climate of fear"
that would render their subject populations totally subservient to the ruling
orders, but terrorism has not generally been associated with entire regimes
or other large collectivities on the scale of a nation-state. The inadequacy of
this definition in setting out what precisely constitutes the particularity of
terrorism was soon to lead to attempts at somewhat more exact distinctions.
"Terrorism is the use of criminal violence to force a government to change its
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course of action", argues one American counter-terrorist expert, while in the

view of another expert (and they are legion), terrorism is "highly visible
violence directed against randomly selected civilians in an effort to generate
a pervasive sense of fear and thus affect government policies." According to
the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, a piece of legislation
in the United Kingdom dating to 1984, "'terrorism' means the use of violence
for political ends and includes any use of violence for the purpose of putting
the public or any section of the public in fear"; in a more elaborate and
precise form, exhibiting the anxieties about real and imaginary foes with
which nation-states are as riddled as other preceding forms of government,
this definition was to appear in Title 22 of the United States Code, Secion
2656 f (d), where terrorism is said to mean "premeditated, politically
motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by
subnational or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an
audience."

There are, it has been said, as many definitions of terrorism as there are
terrorists, but there is certainly widespread agreement that terrorists must
not be allowed to have a free hand. A special American task force "on
combatting terrorism", in its 1986 report to the Vice President of the United
States, enumerated the various measures that could be taken to meet the
threat of terrorism. It recommended the tightening of airport security,
greater cooperation between intelligence and police agencies all over the
world, the development of specially trained forces to handle incidents of
terrorism, and so forth. Similarly, a report published by the U. S. Congress's
Office of Technology Assessment, entitled Technology against Terrorism
(1991), explains how technology is being rendered into the hand-maiden of
counter-terrorist activity. Then there is 'international law', to be made use of
as powerful nations see fit: most recently, the United States, France, and the
United Kingdom were able to enforce, through the vehicle of the United
Nations Security Council, mandatory sanctions against Libya for its alleged
sponsorship of the terrorist bombing in 1988-89 of two civilian aircraft, Pan
Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772.

Incidents of international terrorism, however, are quite insignificant in

relation to domestic terrorism, or the terrorism in many countries that is
85

associated with secessionist movements or guerrilla groups that aim at a

radical restructuring of the society and economy of their country, and here
the measures taken to contain terrorism are much less uniform, running the
gamut from torture of suspected terrorists to the acknowledgment, by way of
negotiation, that terrorist groups may be voicing the aspirations of a
significant portion of the population. Nonetheless, most of the measures
adopted fall generally under two headings: intervention of the armed forces
and anti-terrorist legislation. In Peru, for example, President Fujimoro
suspended constitutional government on 5 April 1992 from the point of view
of providing the armed forces of the country with virtually unchecked powers
to hunt out and eliminate guerrillas belonging to the Maoist Peruvian
Communist Party, otherwise known as Sendero Luminoso, "The Shining
Path". The use of the army in India to combat terrorism has been even more
widespread: if "Operation Bluestar" (1984) was aimed at weeding out
Bhindranwale and his followers in the movement for Khalistan from the
Golden Temple in Amritsar, to be succeeded some years later by "Operation
Night Dominance" as signifying the final endeavor to take the night back
from the terrorists, and "Operation Bajrang" was launched with the intention
of eliminating the problem of militancy in Assam, numerous un-named armed
operations continue to remain in effect in Kashmir, Punjab, and North-east
India.

Despite the use of armed forces, however, it is in fact principally through

legislation that the threat to terrorism has been sought to be minimized, not
only in India but in other democracies as well. Democracies purportedly have
an instrinsic relationship to the 'rule of law', and legislation appears to be the
most consistent and least oppressive of all the measures that democracies
can employ to secure themselves against threats internal and external. But is
legislation intrinsically democratic? The answer to that cannot be in the
affirmative, for discrimination on one or more grounds has, until quite
recently in most countries, including such democracies as the United States,
received the blessings of the law. As the very appeal of any legal system
must necessarily reside in the promise it holds out of offering justice that
transcends the contingencies of class, privilege, race, sex, and so on, even
the most brutal regimes, the Nazis being a case in point, have attempted to
ensure their survival, longevity, and attraction to their subjects by purporting
to subscribe to the 'rule of law'. Might it not be the case that, precisely
because legislation appears to be more 'democratic' a mode of equipping a
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nation-state with an arsenal to combat terrorism, it obfuscates its own

terrorism? To entertain these and other related considerations, I propose to
turn in due course to a more detailed analysis of three societies which,
confronted by the problems of terrorism, have an extensive array of antiterrorist legislation: Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and India.

Legislation to Combat Terrorism

(i) General Considerations

Owing to the nearly world-wide dimensions of the threat posed by terrorism,

many states have recourse, should that be requisite, to anti-terrorist
legislation and other counter-terrorist measures. The response in democratic
countries has varied from the mere enumeration, as in Australia and New
Zealand, of terrorism as a grave security risk to the creation, as in India and
the United States, of special offices for the coordination of counter-terrorist
activity. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act of 1979 added
terrorism to espionage, sabotage, and subversion as a security risk, as did
the amendment, in 1977, to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service
Act (1969). These measures may well be enough in countries where
terrorism has posed no immediate threat, but would scarcely have sufficed to
contain the kind of terrorist movements, nourished by the ideology of anticapitalism, that flourished in Italy, Japan, and the former West Germany, and
would indeed be entirely impotent today in countries such as India and Sri
Lanka, which are beset by secessionist or irredentist movements that have
taken an extremely violent turn. In addition to legislative measures that
states have adopted to counteract terrorism within their boundaries, there
are numerous provisions in international law for the prevention and control of
terrorism. Such measures have been necessitated by the fact that, as is
commonly said, "terrorism knows no boundaries". Terrorists might operate
from one country, be funded by a second, and strike at a third. The
complexity of terrorism is underlined by the fact that although the United
States has been relatively free of terrorist incidents, Americans have been
the most common victims of terrorist attacks in numerous countries, and to a
lesser degree this is also true of the subjects of countries in Western Europe.
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Domestic legislation to contain terrorism clearly cannot be of avail in these

and other instances, and it is for this reason that over the last twenty years
many international protocols, extending from those that stipulate how
hijacking of civilian and military aircraft is to be dealt with under the law, to
those that bind states to accord protection to diplomatic personnel, have
become enshrined in law.

Though one must undoubtedly be critical if not contemptuous of the

designation by the United States and European powers of Libya, Iraq, Iran,
North Korea, Cuba, and Syria as 'terrorist states' that must be compelled,
whether by sanctions or the use of force, to follow norms of conduct to which
the international community has sworn its allegiance, there can be no doubt
that the problems posed by terrorism must perforce be of particular concern
to democracies. Anti-terrorist legislation is generally characterized by its
extraordinary nature: that is, the legislation endows the state with powers
not conferred under the normal law of the land, and while such legislation
may not necessarily be immune from judicial review, the judiciary itself is
asked to assist in the speedy prosecution of detained suspects. Most
commonly this has entailed the establishment of special courts, as in India,
Italy, Northern Ireland, and Sri Lanka, where the usual safeguards attendant
upon the prosecution of suspects under the ordinary criminal law of the land
might be curtailed. For instance, although the ordinary courts in India are
bound to throw out evidence which has not been obtained in accordance
with the country's Law of Evidence, a law so sensitive in principle to the right
of suspects that even the United States Supreme Court adverted to it with
approval in its famous Miranda decision, special courts set up to try suspects
on charges of terrorism are relieved of the obligation to dismiss evidence
that may have been obtained by coercion, without a proper warrant, or by
other means violative of the principles of due process. Thus, the Terrorist and
Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, of which I shall have more to say later,
even allows as admissible evidence presented in the form of audio or video
cassettes (sec. 15).

The introduction of extraordinary anti-terrorist legislation need not lead to

suspension of habeas corpus and other fundamental rights promised in the
constitution of a state. Yet, so long as the containment if not elimination of
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terrorism is sought by legislative measures and other acts of the state,

usually strengthened executive powers, the question remains whether such
legislation and other measures are not ultimately corrosive of the democratic
fabric of the state and civil society. When the threat of terrorism is such that
a state seeks to contain it by introducing progressively more repressive
measures, or by rendering permanent legislation that was introduced purely
to provide the state with temporary powers, does not the 'normalisation' of
such techniques of repression bode ill for any democratic polity? To summon
one instance of such 'normalisation' of extraordinary legislation, consider the
case of India, which was recently taken to task by a Human Right Committee
set up under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which
India is a signatory. India's attorney-general was asked to explain why the
National Security (Amendment) Act and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act, though occasioned by an emergency, had not officially been
proclaimed as emergency legislation in fulfillment of Article 4(1) of the
Covenant. Moreover, if these acts were derogations from the covenant, as
they appeared to be, given that they curtailed the right of assembly and
sanctioned preventive detention without the right to judicial review, why
were such derogations not approved by the Committee as specified by the
Covenant? A different instance of such 'normalisation' is to be found in the
history of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1939, a
measure introduced by the United Kingdom Government for a period of two
years to meet the threat of IRA terrorism. Notwithstanding the act's
"temporary provisions", the act was renewed annually until 1954, even
though IRA terrorism had declined substantially by 1940, and was not to see
a substantial resurgence until the 1960s.

Though there is, then, a considerable history of anti-terrorist legislation in the

twentieth century in numerous countries, India, Northern Ireland, and -- to a
lesser extent -- Sri Lanka provide suitable cases for a comparative study of
the political, social, historical, and legal aspects of such legislation. As is
quite apparent, all three share a colonial past that is rather similar in many
respects; in the case of Northern Ireland, the resolution of this past evidently
has by no means been achieved, as the continuing problem of terrorism by
the IRA, the INLA (the Irish National Liberation Army), and various Protestant
para-military groups so vividly demonstrates. What is less obvious is that the
legislation in India and Sri Lanka also partakes of the colonial past of these
two countries, which in turn raises the question whether these countries may
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not have foreclosed their options when the decision was taken to combat
terrorism through the adoption of extraordinary legislative measures. A
second, and equally compelling reason, for considering India, Northern
Ireland, and Sri Lanka in conjunction is that in all places terrorism has been
fuelled by secessionism, separatism, and 'communal' hatred. Such terrorism,
apart from its economic roots, has ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural
dimensions that terrorism in the former West Germany and to a large extent
in Italy lacked. The comparison between India and Sri Lanka is a particularly
telling one, when we contrast Sikh or Kashmiri separatism in predominantly
Hindu and Hindi-speaking India with Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka, a country
where the majority of the people are Buddhists, of purportedly 'Aryan'
descent, and speakers of Sinhalese. On the other hand, a different historical
perspective might suggest the close affinities between Sri Lanka and
Northern Ireland as societies shaped and marked by an experience of
plantation labor. It is to a more enlarged enumeration of the legal and
political histories of anti-terrorist legislation in Northern Ireland, India, and Sri
Lanka to which I shall now turn.

(ii) The Case of Northern Ireland

The origins of extraordinary legislation to contain terrorism and other acts of

violence directed against the state in Northern Ireland go back to the events
of 1921, which witnessed the splintering of Ireland, the creation of the Irish
Free State from twenty-six of the thirty-two counties that comprised Ireland,
and the political union of six counties in Northern Ireland with England,
Scotland, and Wales. To minimize the effects of the ensuing civil war, waged
primarily between the forces of the Irish Free State and Irish nationalists
seeking to undo the partition of Ireland, or (to put it another way) the
political union of Northern Ireland with Great Britain, the Civil Authorities
(Special Powers) Acts were brought into force. These remained in effect from
1922 to 1940; in 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, a war in which the
Irish Free State proclaimed its neutrality, the Prevention of Terrorism
(Temporary Provisions) Act was passed, and once it was clear that this
legislation would suffice to meet the threat of separatist violence, the Special
Powers Acts were allowed to lapse. In the Republic of Ireland, which
succeeded the Irish Free State in 1937, terrorism posed no grave problems
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as it did in neighboring Northern Ireland. However, terrorists from Northern

Ireland sought refuge in the Republic, and the violence in the north often
threatened to spill over into the south. It is for this reason that a
comprehensive set of measures designed to deal with terrorism, of which the
Offences Against the State Acts constitute a major portion, were etched into
the permanent law of the land in 1939.

The more recent history of anti-terrorist legislation designed to alleviate the

problem that terrorism in Northern Ireland poses for Britain shows a marked
similarity to the history of previous legislative attempts. No sooner had the
Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Bill been introduced in
Parliament on 19 July 1939 than IRA violence saw a dramatic upsurge: a
hundred explosions took place over the next nine days, and this no doubt
hastened the passage of the legislation, which secured the royal assent on
July 28. By 1940 IRA violence had "petered out", but the Act remained in
force until 1954. As one recent study of The Prevention of Terrorism Acts puts
it, "the emergency had lasted approximately one year; the Act had lingered
for just over fifteen -- a tour de force in legislative indulgence." Just as
significantly, the legislation, which was intended to enable the authorities to
curb the violence with more effective powers at their command, may have
precipitated the violence. On the other hand, the Prevention of Terrorism
(Temporary Provisions) Act in 1974 appears to embody a different causal
relationship, for this reincarnation of the legislation can be directly attributed
to two bomb explosions in Birmingham on November 21 of that year which
left 21 people dead and 184 injured. Introducing the legislation in the House
of Commons on November 25, the Home Secretary admitted that "the
powers" that the Act proposed to confirm upon the police and the judiciary
"are Draconian. In combination they are unprecedented in peacetime." He
felt nonetheless that such powers were "fully justified to meet the clear and
present danger". As in 1939, and here the histories most emphatically
merge, the legislation was secured within a matter of days, virtually without
either amendment or dissent. Despite the purportedly "temporary" nature of
the Act, it was superseded by a new Act in 1976. In 1982, as a consequence
of vociferous demand by the opposition, a review of the Act was carried out
by Lord Jellicoe. A former head of the secret National Security Commission
and one-time member of the elite Secret Armed Services, Jellicoe was
scarcely likely to suggest that the government be divested of its powers, but
even he was constrained to advise that the phrase "Temporary Provisions" be
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"removed from the title of the Act" as it "rings increasingly hollow". Only in
this respect was Jellicoe's advice not followed: a new Prevention of Terrorism
(Temporary Provisions) Act came into force in 1984 and given a life of five
years, subject to annual renewal. In 1989, to make the story complete, the
act was again amended, and the following year it was renewed by a
Parliamentary vote of 227 to 136.

As this short review of the history of anti-terrorist legislation to combat

terrorism in Northern Ireland suggests, such legislation is usually secured
without adequate debate, much less dissent or amendment, and usually on
the plea that in an emergency national security, as much as the life and
property of the people, cannot be compromised. The supposed "reviews"
cannot substitute for scrutiny by a standing Parliamentary committee:
Jellicoe, for instance, was expressly forbidden from considering "whether or
not we need the [Prevention of Terrorism] Act", and likewise Sir George
Baker, given the task of carrying out a review of the Northern Ireland
(Emergency Provisions) Act 1978, was provided with terms of reference
which carried the acceptance "that temporary emergency powers are
necessary to combat sustained terrorist violence". Purportedly of a
"temporary" nature, such legislation is given a very long life, and rendered
relatively immune from the kind of judicial review and parliamentary scrutiny
that would have made its passage as the permanent law of the land difficult
if not inconceivable. Secondly, as I have argued above, extraordinary
legislation, far from having the effect of checking violence, might well have
the effect of precipitating violence. The effectiveness of anti-terrorist
legislation can, at a more general level, be put into question. Although it is
true that the passage of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions)
Acts of 1974 and 1976 led to a decline in the number of terrorist-related
incidents, acts of political violence were thereafter more carefully
orchestrated. The transformation of the Metropolitan Police Bomb Squad, first
established in 1971, into the Anti-terrorist Squad in 1976 indicates that the
threat of terrorism could not be contained by the legislation of 1974. Indeed,
between 1971 and 1984, when a new act came into being, terrorist-related
incidents in Northern Ireland remained extravagantly high: 30,000 shootings,
7,831 explosions, 2,372 deaths, and almost 25,000 injuries.

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In further criticism of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, it can be said that it

partakes of yet another kind of "legislative indulgence". Under the Northern
Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act [EPA] of 1973, the government already
had available to it those very powers of preventive detention, summary
arrest, and search without warrant with which it was subsequently
empowered by the Prevention of Terrorism Act [PTA]. It has been argued that
while the EPA is applicable to Northern Ireland, the PTA is directed primarily
at terrorism in Great Britain; however, this obfuscates not only the significant
overlapping between the two pieces of legislation, but also the consideration
that the chief difference between the two resides in the fact that the EPA
allows a greater license to the authorities than does the PTA, partly on the
supposition that Britain with its allegedly great tradition of liberalism would
never allow its subjects to be subjected to draconian laws. Nor are EPA and
PTA the only relevant pieces of legislation: The Immigration Act (1971) gave
the government additional powers to prohibit the entry of suspected
terrorists into the United Kingdom and likewise to exclude suspects. What
justification could there have been then for the passage of legislation like the
PTA which perhaps violated the fundamental postulate that new legislation is
warranted only when there is demonstrable need? More significantly, we
must consider that, as a consequence of the various Prevention of Terrorism
Acts, what was once considered exceptional has come to be viewed as
'normal'. As one member of Parliament put it in the House of Commons
debate on Lord Jellicoe's "review" of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, "the
power to detain suspects for seven days, which produced a shock on both
sides of the House in 1974, now hardly causes an eyelid to flutter." He spoke
of the "insidious circular process in which draconian laws soften us up for
similar laws which become the desired standard for further measures". The
presence of extraordinary legislation, particularly over an extended period of
time, not only weakens the normal law of the land, it also inures a people to
the acceptance of vast powers that no democratic state should be allowed to
wield with impunity. Does such legislation create conditions that, in the long
run, are destructive of the fabric of a democracy, and are other options
indeed foreclosed by the state's assumption of extraordinary and "draconian"
powers? To help with our consideration of these questions, a brief
perspective on anti-terrorist legislation in Sri Lanka and particularly India
might well prove instructive.

(iii) The Case of Sri Lanka

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Whatever abuses anti-terrorist legislation in the United Kingdom to combat

terrorist-related activity in Northern Ireland may have lent itself to, these
abuses are terribly compounded in the former colonies of Sri Lanka and
India. As nation-states, both Sri Lanka and India are quite young: the former
achieved dominion status in 1948 and became a republic in 1956, while the
latter procured independence in 1947. Those 'constitutional' restraints which
operate with more or less regularity in older democracies like the United
States and Britain have been less rigorously observed in India, Sri Lanka, and
other like countries. Both colonies had an extensive police apparatus under
colonial rule, and indeed the long arm of the state was nowhere as long as in
British India, where anti-terrorist legislation may have been introduced
earlier than anywhere else in the world.

In Sri Lanka anti-terrorist legislation is of comparatively recent vintage,

having been introduced not, as is commonly supposed, in response to
escalating violence originating in the demand by Tamil guerrilla groups, most
notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for a separate Tamil homeland
in northern Sri Lanka, but rather in an attempt to prevent the Tamil
population from voicing its demands through democratic channels for an end
to social and economic discrimination. Although it was not until 1983, when
the Tigers under their leader Prabhakaran carried out a daring attack on an
army convoy in Jaffna, that the situation was perceived to call for
extraordinary legislation, emergency legislation conferring wide powers upon
the government had been in effect since 1979. That year, the Sri Lanka
Parliament adopted the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act,
as though to suggest that this act was comparable with the like-named
legislation in the United Kingdom. In point of fact, as various observers have
noted, the Sri Lankan law in 1979 was so fearsomely draconian that in some
respects, for instance with respect to the power of the state to impose
restriction orders on suspects, it bore comparison with legislation then in
force in South Africa. Where the British Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) Act
allows preventive detention for only one week, the Sri Lankan PTA allows
detention without the levying of charges for eighteen months; similarly,
where the British PTA confers special powers only to combat "acts of
terrorism", defined as "the use of violence for political ends", the Sri Lankan
PTA confers powers of search, arrest, and seizure without warrant in
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connection with "any unlawful activity". The Sri Lankan Prevention of

Terrorism Act does, in effect, confer carte blanche upon the forces of 'law and
order', and indeed some of its provisions, such as the infliction of 20 years
imprisonment for defacement of public notices, are nothing short of being
fascist. It is not surprising that the Act also guarantees officers of the state
immunity from prosecution for any action taken under the Act.

Wide as are the powers that the Sri Lankan government has on account of
the Prevention of Terrorism Act, this is not the only legislation of its kind in
force. The Emergency (Miscellaneous Provisions and Powers) Regulations
made under the Public Security Ordinance, the origins of which go back to
the days of colonialism, empower the executive to arrest and detain suspects
without charge, proscribe political parties, and ban publications. Regulation
15A, which dates to 3 June 1983, is susceptible to even greater abuse. This
Regulation entitles police officers or other authorized persons to take
possession of a dead body and determine the manner in which it is to be
disposed. This Regulation was brought into force after the Jaffna Magistrate
returned a verdict of homicide at the inquest into the death of K. T.
Navaratnarajah, who died in army custody from numerous external and
internal injuries inflicted by blows and weapons. By preventing an inquest
from taking place, Regulation 15A can only encourage functionaries of the
state in the belief that indiscriminate and retributory exercise of their power
will remain unpunished. Sri Lankan legislation shows with greater clarity than
anti-terrorist legislation in Northern Ireland and Britain how democratic
norms are easily subverted on the plea that the state must be equipped to
meet any emergency, especially one that appears to pose grave threats to
national security. Although the Sri Lankan Prevention of Terrorism Act (1979)
was promulgated while an emergency was officially in effect, and the
emergency was lifted on December 27 of that year, the legislation was not
removed, merely because Section 29 of the Act provided for the retention of
the Act for "three years"; moreover, a subsequent amendment to the Act has
given it an indefinite life.

(iv) Anti-terrorist Legislation in India

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Far-reaching as anti-terrorist legislation in Sri Lanka is, it pales in comparison

with the extraordinarily wide and, certainly for a democratic state, quite
unprecedented array of powers with which the Indian government has armed
itself in recent years. The pre-history of repressive legislation in India is a
very complex one and remains largely unexplored; we can do little more than
hint at it. To the British must go the dubious distinction of having introduced
preventive detention in India as early as 1793. The East India Company Act
of that year authorized the "governor of Fort William" and such other officers
as he thought fit to "secur[e] and detain in custody any person or persons
suspected of carrying on . . . any illicit correspondence dangerous to the
peace or safety of any of the British settlement or possession in India . . ."
The Company in Bengal subsequently enacted the Bengal State Prisoner's
Regulation, which was to have a long life as "Regulation III of 1818". An
extra-constitutional ordinance, opposed to all the fundamental liberties which
the colonial state would later pretend to be bound by, Regulation III provided
for the indefinite confinement, for "reasons of State", of individuals against
whom there was not "sufficient ground to institute any judicial proceeding".
For the next hundred years, Regulation III was to remain the supreme
weapon available to the government in its war against political violence, and
its removal from the law books was to remain an insistent demand by Indian
nationalists in the early part of the twentieth century.

For more explicit anti-terrorist legislation going beyond preventive detention,

we have to turn to the events of the twentieth century. Action by armed
revolutionaries, characterized as 'extremists' and 'terrorists', with supposed
links abroad inspired new and more draconian legislation between 19051914, and the advent of World War I served as a pretext for strengthening
the forces of the state, of course in the name of 'national security'. In 1908,
the government passed the Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act and the
Explosives Substances Act, and shortly thereafter the Indian Press Act, the
Criminal Tribes Act, and the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act. Although
these pieces of legislation have not been etched into what I have called the
pre-history of anti-terrorist legislation, the purported intent was to prevent
'terrorists' from calling public meetings, publishing material inciting the
people to revolt, disseminating revolutionary literature, and so forth. In
actual fact, as numerous studies have shown, the legislation was of such
wide scope as to render suspect all political activity that was even mildly
critical of the British Government of India, and it put an effective end to
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whatever freedom of expression the Indian press had been allowed. The
exclusion from India of men harboring evil designs towards the Government
of India, 'suspects' in the official vocabulary, was accomplished by the
Foreigners Ordinance of 1914, which restricted the entry of foreigners into
India. The 'foreign hand' theory, which is invoked with notorious monotony
by the Indian state to the present day to account for the rise of secessionist
and communal movements, owes its origins partially to this ordinance.
Meanwhile, the Ingress into India Ordinance (1914) allowed the government
to indefinitely detain and compulsorily domicile suspects, while the Defence
of India Act (1915) allowed suspects to be tried by special tribunals sitting in
camera whose decisions were not subject to appeal. Regulation III also
continued to be available for the indefinite detention of suspects.

As the Defence of India Act was to expire six months after the conclusion of
the war, a new set of emergency measures for the detention and
containment of 'terrorists' to meet what was termed the 'continuing threat'
were planned by the Government of India. These measures were
incorporated within the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, known to
Indians as the Rowlatt Act after the name of the chairman of the committee
that recommended the institution of this legislation. The government could
not have known that the Rowlatt Act would become the occasion for the
most widespread movement of opposition to British rule since the Rebellion
of 1857-58 and indeed the springboard from which the movement for
independence would be launched until India was to become irretrievably lost
to the British. The Rowlatt Act provided for the trial of seditious crime by
benches of three judges; the accused were not to have the benefit of either
preliminary commitment proceedings or the right of appeal, and the rules
under which evidence could be obtained and used were relaxed. Other
preventive measures included detention without the levying of charges and
searches without warrants. As the Rowlatt committee noted in its report,
"punishment or acquittal should be speedy both in order to secure the moral
effect which punishment should produce and also to prevent the
prolongation of the excitement which the proceedings may set up."

The history of anti-terrorist legislation in colonial India by no means ends

with the Rowlatt Act, but such of it as is here narrated suggests that much in
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the present legislation had already been anticipated. With the attainment of
independence, there were anguished debates in the constituent assembly
about whether preventive detention ought to be retained, or whether this
was a measure that could not be maintained with adequate justification as
the country was now no longer under the tutelage of a colonial power. With
independence had come partition, and not only had extraordinary legislation
-- such as the Punjab Disturbed Areas Act, Bihar Maintenance of Public Order
Act, Bombay Public Safety Act, and Madras Suppression of Disturbance Act,
all enacted in 1947-48 -- been required to deal with the problem of
communalism, but also with "anti-social elements" who under the cover of
religion had found the perfect pretext to settle old scores and commit
mayhem. These were the reasons most commonly cited for the retention,
both in the Constitution of India (Art. 22), and in the form of a Preventive
Detention Act (1950), of preventive detention. No doubt too the colonial
legacy could not be abandoned in its entirety in the first flush of freedom.

The Indian state, however, has not been content with merely retaining the
colonial infrastructure of repression, and indeed the last ten years have
witnessed a flurry of legislation that, in many respects, is nothing short of
being frightful. Terrorism in the Punjab, not all of it associated with the
demand for a separate homeland for the Sikhs, has taken a toll of over
15,000 lives since 1980, and likewise there has been very heavy loss of life
in Kashmir, where militants are contesting India's claim to Kashmir. Nor are
these the only states where anti-terrorist legislation has been put into effect;
large parts of the entire north-east are described by the government as
being rife with insurrectionist activity, and Assam, Nagaland, and Mizoram
have all initiated legislation endowing the government with wide-ranging
powers. Whatever the precise causal relationship of such legislation to the
advent of terrorism, and whatever the role of Pakistan, as India claims, in
fomenting political and social unrest in the Punjab and Kashmir, it is quite
clear that some of India's extraordinarily repressive legislation was initiated
well before insurrectionary terrorism was to make its mark. A case in point is
the West Bengal (Prevention of Violent Activities) Act of 1970, which was
inspired by the ambition to crush the Naxalite revolt, a movement of armed
revolutionaries who sought the amelioration of socio-economic inequities
through the use of violence, although one could point with even greater
justification to the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (1971), a piece of
legislation originating in the atmosphere of mutual suspicion and hatred
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between India and Pakistan that was to lead to war between the two
countries in 1971.

As one might expect, it is the secessionist movements of recent years that

have occasioned the most forcible legislative response from the state.
Nothing conveys better the extent of anti-terrorist legislation in India than a
mere, and by no means complete, enumeration of the acts passed with the
consent of the Indian parliament over the course of the last fifteen years:
Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (1978); Assam Preventive Detention
Act (1980); National Security Act (1980, amended 1984 and 1987); Essential
Services Maintenance Act (1981); Anti-Hijacking Act (1982); Armed Forces
(Punjab and Chandigarh) Special Powers Act (1983); Punjab Disturbed Areas
Act (1983); Chandigarh Disturbed Areas Act (1983); Suppression of Unlawful
Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act (1982); Terrorist Affected Areas
(Special Courts) Act (1984); National Security (Second Amendment)
Ordinance (1984); Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (1985,
amended 1987); National Security Guard Act (1986); Criminal Courts and
Security Guard Courts Rules (1987); Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Rules (1986, amended 1987); and the Special Protection Group
Act (1988). Although the intent of certain legislation is quite self-evident, as
in the case of the Anti-Hijacking Act, which stipulates the penalties attached
to the hijacking of aircraft, it is not clear what has been gained by the
profusion of new legislation. Certain powers, such as those of preventive
detention, search and arrest without warrant, and restriction of the
movement of suspects, have long been available to the state, while the
provision under the new laws for "speedy trials", were it to be open to
unhampered judicial scrutiny, would be found to abrogate fundamental
constitutional rights. What are the consequences for a democratic polity of
such legislation and what are the abuses to which such legislation must
necessarily lend itself? Such abuses have been so widely documented by
civil rights groups, the People's Union for Civil Liberties and the People's
Union for Democratic Rights among them, and other international bodies -Amnesty International and Asia Watch, to name two -- that their detailed
enumeration is no longer necessary. However, an analytical understanding of
the issues at stake has, it appears, largely evaded us, and it is to these larger
questions that I shall now turn briefly.

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The Place of Anti-terrorist Legislation in Democracies

The purportedly temporary nature of anti-terrorist legislation is a fiction. Antiterrorist legislation, as I hope has reasonably been shown, is more easily put
in place than removed. This is as true of the Prevention of Terrorism
(Temporary Provisions) Acts in England and Sri Lanka as it is of certain pieces
of legislation in India. The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), which
was passed by the Indian Parliament on the grounds that it gave the
government enhanced powers to deal with threats posed to national security
owing to strained relations between India and Pakistan, remained on the law
books until 1978, nearly seven years after the termination of the war with
Pakistan. Moreover, by the 39th Amendment to the Constitution of India,
MISA was placed in the 9th Schedule to the Constitution, thereby making it
totally immune from any judicial review on the ground that it contravened
the Fundamental Rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution. The
history of MISA illustrates a second caveat that democracies should perhaps
take heed of if they are not to be thrown in greater peril than the peril from
which draconian legislation is presumed to rescue them. Legislation is
designed with one intent in mind, and is often used to serve an altogether
different end, and nowhere is this more true than of anti-terrorist legislation
or other like legislation secured in the name of 'national security'. Thus MISA,
far from curbing terrorist activity, and making India safe from its real and
imagined foes, became the central piece in Mrs. Indira Gandhi's singleminded agenda to stifle all dissent, howsoever legitimate, against her
authoritarian rule. MISA made India wholly unsafe, not for her purported
enemies, but for Mrs. Gandhi's critics, as the two-year period of the
emergency between 1975 and 1977, which saw the suspension of
fundamental constitutional rights, was to show so dramatically and painfully.

All laws are subject to abuse, but laws intended to be employed against
terrorists are notoriously susceptible of manipulation by functionaries of the
state, be they army officers, policemen, bureaucrats, or jail wardens. As the
usual safeguards are put in abeyance, there is less effort to ensure that
procedures are in compliance with the law, and immunity from judicial
scrutiny encourages functionaries of the state to use anti-terrorist legislation
to initiate personal vendettas. The problems, however, are much more
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serious than this. Consider, for example, the Terrorist and Disruptive
Activities (Prevention) Act of 1985, otherwise known as TADA. Although the
Indian Government indubitably faces violent opposition by armed militants
advocating separatism, TADA has been used in areas such as Gujarat, which
are not threatened by secessionist or terrorist movements, to crush
legitimate, usually non-violent, political activity among students and workers.
The largest number of arrests under TADA have been made, not in the
Punjab or Assam, but in Gujarat. Similarly the elite Central Industrial Security
Force, which was created and empowered by special legislation to protect
major industrial undertakings from terrorist or otherwise violent attacks, has
often been employed to suppress trade union activity. The sheer illegitimacy,
and not mere abuse, of this legislation is suggested by the fact that only 434
of the 52,998 people detained under TADA by the end of 1992 were
convicted. If this 0.81 percent conviction rate constitutes a severe indictment
of TADA and the Indian state, what are we to think of the 0.37 percent
conviction rate for TADA detenu in the Punjab, which at one time the Indian
government was apt to characterize as lost to terrorism?

The manner in which the passage of anti-terrorist legislation has been

secured in countries that are purportedly democratic is another pointer to
the 'normalisation' of such legislation. The quick, almost summary, reviews
of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act in Britain, and the
short debates around this act in Parliament, have already been adverted to;
and more ominous still is the history of Parliamentary response to such
legislation in India. The last two-year extension of TADA, in the late summer
of 1993, called forth a mere 70 minutes of discussion in the Lok Sabha, and
in a house with a membership of 542, no more than eight members saw fit to
speak on this piece of legislation. Nor has the previous record of Parliament
been any more inspiring or illustrious in this respect: to summon only two
instances, the debate in August 1985 on the extension for five years of the
Essential Services Maintenance Act (1980), which provides the state with
vast powers to curtail the rights of striking workers when the supply of
essential goods and services appears to be under threat, was conducted over
a period of three hours, and elicited the participation of thirteen members of
the Lok Sabha; more strikingly, only 20 members of the House were present
during the 44-minute discussion on the amendment to the Indian Post Office
Act, and of this body only four registered their opinions about a piece of
legislation that, had the President of India not withheld his assent to the bill,
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would have allowed the government to tamper with the mail of Indian
citizens in the name of 'national security'.

When anti-terrorist legislation is 'normalised', treated just like other proposed

changes and additions to the law, the consequences for democracies must
be perilous. This legislation becomes fraught with hazards greater than the
perils from which it is supposed to rescue the nation. Even in instances
where such legislation is altogether necessary, or where action undertaken
by virtue of the provisions of such legislation is warranted, the state may find
that it cannot legitimate its actions. The bitter public memory of those
abuses returns to haunt the state; its entitlement to public sympathy and
support notwithstanding, the state finds that its legitimacy is now mistaken
for illegitimacy. However, I think it is possible to take yet a more fundamental
stand against anti-terrorist legislation, for the question is not only one of
whether the abuses of the law can be checked, but whether legislation and
other modes of repression are not inherently flawed as strategies to meet
the threat of terrorism. Why is the illusion of the temporariness of antiterrorist legislation so central, if not because any acknowledgment that the
legislation is more than merely temporary is at once an admission that
terrorism originates not in nothingness, as evil designs of mad and
disenchanted men, but in problems so deeply embedded in the fabric of civil
society that they cannot be addressed through any means other than
terrorism? The resort to anti-terrorist legislation, far from being the only just
recourse available to a democratic society, might well prove to be its
undoing, for it defers the moment of recognition that terrorism can never be
contained, much less eliminated, until it has been addressed as an
epiphenomenon of some deep-seated injustices and endemic problems. As I
have suggested, anti-terrorist legislation may well precipitate violence, and
that in a most insidious manner precisely because the supposed resolution of
the problem carries within it the seeds of yet more destruction. In perfecting
the tools of legislative repression, we succeed only in creating a more
impregnable Frankenstein monster.
hough the Constitution of India guarantees equal rights to all citizens,
irrespective of race, gender, religion, and other considerations, and the
"directive principles of state policy" as stated in the Constitution obligate the
Government to provide to all citizens a minimum standard of living, the
promise has not been fulfilled. The greater majority of the Indian people have
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no assurance of two nutritious meals a day, safety of employment, safe and

clean housing, or such level of education as would make it possible for them
to understand their constitutional rights and obligations. Indian newspapers
abound in stories of the exploitation -- by landlords,factory owners,
businessmen, and the state's own functionaries, such as police and revenue
officials -- of children, women, villagers, the poor, and the working class.

Though India's higher courts and, in particular, the Supreme Court have
often been sensitive to the grim social realities, and have on occasion given
relief to the oppressed, the poor do not have the capacity to represent
themselves, or to take advantage of progressive legislation. In 1982, the
Supreme Court conceded that unusual measures were warranted to enable
people the full realization of not merely their civil and political rights, but the
enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights, and in its far- reaching
decision in the case of PUDR [People's Union for Democratic Rights] vs. Union
of India [1982 (2) S.C.C. 253], it recognized that a third party could directly
petition, whether through a letter or other means, the Court and seek its
intervention in a matter where another party's fundamental rights were
being violated. In this case, adverting to the Constitutional prohibition on
"begar", or forced labor and traffic in human beings, PUDR submitted that
workers contracted to build the large sports complex at the Asian Game
Village in Delhi were being exploited. PUDR asked the Court to recognize that
"begar" was far more than compelling someone to work against his or her
will, and that work under exploitative and grotesquely humiliating conditions,
or work that was not even compensated by prescribed minimum wages, was
violative of fundamental rights. As the Supreme Court noted,

The rule of law does not mean that the protection of the aw must be
available only to a fortunate few or that the law should be allowed to be
prostituted by the vested interests for protecting and upholding the status
quo under the guise of enforcement of their civil and political rights. The poor
too have civil and political rights and rule of law is meant for them also,
though today it exists only on paper and not in reality. If the sugar barons
and the alcohol kings have the fundamental right to carry on their business
and to fatten their purses by exploiting the consuming public, have the

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chamars belonging to the lowest strata of society no fundamental right to

earn an honest living through their sweat and toil?

Thus the court was willing to acknowledge that it had a mandate to advance
the rights of the disadvantaged and poor, though this might be at the behest
of individuals or groups who themselves claimed no disability. Such litigation,
termed Public Interest Litigation or Social Action Litigation by its foremost
advocate, Professor Upendra Baxi, has given the court "epistolary
jurisdiction".
Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's eldest surviving son Anil Shastri
has stirred a hornet's nest by demanding an inquiry and declassification of
records concerning the controversial death of his father 49 years ago. Shastri
has gone public with his family's belief that his father did not die a natural
death.

The demand, coming as it does just before Shastri's birth anniversary and
disclosure of the West Bengal government dossier on Subhas Bose, is likely
to die out unlike previous occasions.

Some Twitterati are coming down on Anil, a senior Congress party leader,
asking why is he raising the matter at this moment.

The fact of the matter is that the Shastri family has always taken this line.
From day one, from the time the former PM's mother saw her son's body, the
family suspected poisoning. They demanded autopsy and an inquiry but it
was of no avail. The Congress government simply brushed the matter under
the carpet.

The issue was revived only in 2009 when this writer filed RTI requests with
the prime minister's office (PMO) and the ministry of external affairs.
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Believe it or not, the PMO informed me that it possessed one, just one,
classified document relating to former prime minister's controversial death.
The ministry of external affairs wanted me to believe that its "concerned
division" had no information on the subject matter. I disbelieved it because
the sudden death of the prime minister must have thrown the Indian
embassy in Moscow in a tizzy. Our ambassador in Moscow, TN Kaul, must
have scrambled to inform Delhi of the tragedy. A flurry of telephone calls and
telegrams over the tragic development would have ensued for weeks. The
ministry would have gone on an overdrive to find out the circumstances
leading to the prime minister's death. The ambassador must have sent a
blow-by-blow report, and he must have done that, after checking the facts
with the Russian authorities.

The Soviets, on their part, must have supplied reams of information to

remove the last vestige of doubts in India. And as the charges of foul play
emerged, our government, especially the Intelligence Bureau (there was no
RAW in those days) must have scraped the bottom of the barrel in search for
the truth.

So I flatly rejected the line MEA had given me. I was uneasy with their
statement that the only main record available with the Indian embassy in
Moscow was the report of the joint medical investigation conducted by
Shastri's doctor RN Chugh and the Soviet doctors. The ministry confirmed
that no post mortem was carried out in Moscow. I also got to know from the
Delhi Police through another RTI reply that no post mortem was conducted in
India either. Only an autopsy could have completely ruled out the poisoning
charges.

In view of my doubts, on July 21, 2009 I filed another application seeking

copies of the entire correspondence between the MEA and the embassy, and
between the embassy and the Soviet foreign ministry over the issue. And
this time, the ministry told me I could not be supplied the information under
Clause 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act, dealing with "information, disclosure of which
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would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security,
strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign
State or lead to incitement of an offence".
It was only after the intervention of chief information commissioner
Sadananad Mishra that the MEA in August 2011 supplied me copies of Dr
Chugh's medical report and a copy of the statement made by the external
affairs minister in the Rajya Sabha. The medical report attributed the cause
of death to "an acute attack of infarct miocarda (myocardial infarction)".

Now, there are several circumstances on record going against it the official
line.

For a start, the Russian butler serving Shastri had been arrested - this fact
came to light only decades later. Ahmed Sattarov, the butler, himself told
British and later Russia media that a few hours after Shastri died he was
woken up by an officer of the Ninth Directorate of the KGB. Suspecting that
the Indian PM had been poisoned, the KGB men took Sattarov and others to a
dungeon and subject them to a thorough interrogation.

It is not known that whether TN Kaul personal cook placed in the service of
the prime minister was also interrogated. It seems from extant records that
this cook, Jan Mohammed, was posted in the Rashtrapati Bhavan after he
was moved from Moscow. Kaul became India's foreign secretary.

In the last few years I have had occasions to personally discuss the matter
with Shastriji's youngest surviving son Sunil and Shastriji's two grandsons,
Sanjay Nath Singh and Siddharth Nath Singh. The family firmly believes that
PM Shastri was murdered. They also raise suspicions about the fate that
befell Dr Chug and other members of Shastri's personal staff.

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Then, there is a Netaji angle to the Shastri mystery. There is evidence

suggesting that Shastri was not on the same page as Jawaharlal Nehru with
regard to the possibility of Subhas Bose remaining alive after his reported
death in 1945. It was been claimed that Shastri wanted to settle the Bose
case. His family members think that Lal Bahadur Shastri in his last call home
from Tashkent had stated about "some good news" he was bringing home.

The Shastri family thinks he was alluding to Subhas Chandra Bose.

Exactly 50 years ago on this day, India's second prime minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri, or beloved Shastriji of the nation died an untimely death. Although
he remains a prime minister who died in office serving for one of the shortest
spans of just about 18 months, there are still many things to his credit.

He restored the confidence of the Indian armed forces that had experienced
a humiliating defeat in 1962 following the Chinese aggression. More
importantly, he very successfully filled the post-Nehru void as during the last
year or so of the Nehru era, the political atmosphere in India was agog with
the question "Who after Nehru?"

When Shastriji was unanimously elected as the leader of the Congress

parliamentary party, there were many doubting Thomases who openly
expressed their reservations about Shastriji's selection. Within months,
Shastriji silenced them. Once he had famously and very rightly said, "I am
not as simple as I look."

A man of unimpeachable character, Lal Bahadur Shastri displayed rare

qualities like the highest level of integrity and ownership of responsibility,
emotional connect with the people and above all, leadership required for
crisis management.

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Also read: Remembering Lal Bahadur Shastri's role in 1965 war

Many may not know that Shastriji was responsible for ending disparity in
passenger amenities in different classes prevalent in the railways during
those days. He abolished the luxury class and the most neglected third class.
As the railway minister he improved amenities for the poor and deprived
sections of the passenger community.

Known for his soft, accommodative approach, Shastriji very adroitly handled
the anti-Hindi agitation and accepted that English too would continue as one
of the official languages. He, very successfully, doused the fires of linguistic
conflict.

In so far as his visionary policies are concerned, he laid the foundation of the
Green Revolution and gave impetus to the Operation Flood campaign that
ultimately led to the strengthening of our dairy industry and eventually the
White Revolution as well. It was his brief tenure that saw the foundation of
the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).

However, his governance, more than anything else, always had an indelible
mark of complete accountability and ownership of responsibility. While he
was railway minister, in 1956, there were two railway mishaps, the first in
September 1956, at Mahbubnagar that led to 112 deaths. Accepting
complete responsibility, he tendered resignation which was rejected by prime
minister Nehru.

Three months later, he resigned accepting moral and constitutional

responsibility for a railway accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu that resulted in
144 deaths. What Nehru said while accepting his resignation is noteworthy.
Nehru stated in Parliament that he was accepting the resignation because it

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set an example in constitutional propriety and not because Shastri was in

any way responsible for the accident.

Being extremely down to earth, simplicity was Shastri's greatest strength.

Perhaps, it was this simplicity that earned him not only deep respect but also
a very crucial emotional connect with the people. Post-Nehru, this was of
great importance.

In 1965, while facing severe shortage of rice and other foodgrains, he easily
prepared popular mindset to give up evening meals on Mondays. This was
his way of making people participate in the government's efforts to achieve
national goals. While the nation was facing challenges on the economic front,
a simple appeal by him to women worked wonders and many offered their
gold ornaments for the cause of the nation.

His slogan, "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" caught the imagination of the people as it
underscored the need for involvement of people in both defence
preparedness and food security. No wonder, years later, in 1998, the then
prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee built on the same slogan and added a
suffix "Jai Vigyan".

Shastri's leadership was put to test during the 1965 war with Pakistan and
later while negotiating peace with Pakistan, from a position of strength.
Without mincing words, he told Pakistan that misadventures will cost her
dearly.

Without his visionary statesmanship, our issues with Sri Lanka concerning
the Tamil population there would have been far too complicated. Provisions
of the Srimavo-Shastri pact were remarkable for his quest to find a
permanent solution to the Tamil question.

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Today, when the Congress finds the going tough, it can take a couple of
leaves out of Lal Bahadur Shastri's politics as well as policies. This is relevant
as the Grand Old Party of India almost completely lacks emotional connect
with the people, leadership and more importantly, faces a grave crisis of
ownership as well.
We have several friendly countries as neighbours, but one of them - a
terrorist - is enough to cancel out those friendly benefits. We have been
investing - both men and materials - so much in our defence plans because
of this one terrorist. It all started with Partition, and despite nearly seven
decades since then, the rivalry - albeit with patches of white flags in between
- continues.

India is now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its 1965 war victory over
Pakistan. Did we really win the war? It's not just us, but neutral analysts also
say so. However, Pakistan has always claimed they too won it. They claim
they defended the Indian forces with great pride and celebrate September 6
every year as their Defence Day! But it is a country that repeatedly says it
does not sponsor cross border terrorism. Everybody laughs at that
statement, maybe even the Pakistan leaders too, in private.

Kashmir has always been a jewel Pakistan wanted to possess. They devised
Operation Gibraltar for it. It failed, and a war ensued. American author
Stanley Wolpert wrote in his book India that "Ayub [Khan] was a giant of a
man, as tall and sturdy as India's Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was
small and physically frail. But India's army was four times larger than
Pakistan's, and quickly dispelled the popular Pakistani myth that one Muslim
soldier was "worth ten Hindus"." He concluded that India was in a position to
inflict grave damage to, if not capture, Pakistan's capital of the Punjab when
the ceasefire was called, and controlled Kashmir's strategic Uri-Poonch bulge,
much to Ayub's chagrin.

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As former national security adviser JN Dixit wrote, Shastri unexpectedly

authorised the Indian armed forces to expand the scope of the war beyond
Jammu and Kashmir across the international border with Pakistan and the
army was ready to aim at Lahore and Sialkot. This surprised Pakistan and
forced them to withdraw their forces from the Chhamb-Akhnoor sector and
resist Lahore and Sialkot. This move effectively put Pakistan, which aimed
Kashmir, to go on the defensive. Wolpert was also referring to this strategic
upper hand India had in the war.

The United Nations suggested a ceasefire and both countries agreed to it.
The formalities were later completed with the signing of the Tashkent
Declaration. In hindsight, it was just one of the several agreements the two
countries had signed. But as Wolpert wrote, Shastri never awoke to help
implement that hopeful accord. He was found dead. No post-mortem. No
official inquiry. Crisis man Gulzarilal Nanda was readied a second time to
swear in as prime minister. End of story.

Current defence minister Manohar Parrikar has been critical of the Indian
media that they did not give necessary coverage to the celebrations of the
war victory anniversary. But what respect has the nation returned to Shastri?
Even after 49 years of his death, Shastri's family has been asking for nothing
more than justice to his memory. His family says his body sported blue
patches by the time it reached India and that it also had several injury marks
on it. As you would expect, our government still keeps classified files about
Shastri's death, much like in the case of Subhas Chandra Bose.

The biggest asset of the small and frail Shastri was the power of his tactics.
More than anything, he could direct an army which Pakistan thought was
completely demoralised after losing the war to China. It also showed the
decision makers under Shastri were quite apt for the job. Through his slogan
"Jai Jawan Jai Kisan", Shastri could enthuse both the soldiers and the farmers
alike. Soldiers were cheered to defend the country and farmers were cheered
to increase food production and reduce import in war time.

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Will we give Shastri his due? Indian government fears that the truth about
Shastri's death will harm our foreign relations. Doesn't the government in a
democratic country owe certain responsibilities to the public? Soviet Russia
undoubtedly holds the keys to resolving the death/disappearance mysteries
of two of India's foremost leaders. No celebration is good if the nation does
not care for its leaders who brought freedom and who defended the enemy
with great pride and passion.
After the Indo-Pak war in 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri travelled to Tashkent to
sign an agreement that would formally end the war on 10th January, 1966.
One day later, he was found dead. It was alleged that he died of a heart
attack but the circumstances seemed extremely suspicious. Recently
Shastri's family has also asked files related to his demise be declassified, just
like Subhash Chandra Bose's. Until then, we can only jump into the pond of
conspiracies and fish out what could be the truth.
Here are 8 mysteries and conspiracies surrounding the death of Lal Bahadur
Shastri:
1. Where are the records of the first inquiry into his death?
The Raj Narain Inquiry apparently could not come up with any conclusions,
however there are no records in the Parliament's library of this inquiry.
Regardless of the conclusion, it does raise questions as to why the report is
missing, suppressed or destroyed.

Source: ceylon-ananda
2. There was no post-mortem conducted. Or was there?
His wife Lalitha said the body was blue and there were cut marks. A body
turns blue if it is embalmed. If there was no post-mortem conducted, then
why would these indications be there? And if it was, where are the reports?
3. Could it be poisoning?
His personal doctor, RN Chugh, had said that he was in perfect health and
never had any heart issues in the past. A heart attack seemed highly

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unlikely. And since there were claims that there was no post-mortem
conducted, then the puncture marks could be a result of poisoning.

Source: knowquot
4. What about the witnesses?
There were two witnesses the night Shastri died and they were scheduled to
be in front of the parliamentary body in 1977. One was Dr RN Chugh, who
was on his way to testify in front of the committee but was hit by a truck and
died.
The other was his servant Ram Nath who visited Shastri's home first and
according to the family members he said, Bahut din ka bojh tha, amma. Aaj
sab bata denge (I have been carrying this burden too long. I will shed it
today). He too was hit by a car. His legs were crushed and had to be
amputated. He lost his memory.
5. What of the CIA agent's word?
Gregory Douglas, a journalist, interviewed CIA agent Robert Crowley, who
confirmed that the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri and even Dr Homi Bhabha
(father of Nuclear Science in India) was the work of the CIA. Shastri gave the
green light for nuclear tests and the US seemed threatened by India
emerging as a reformed state and also of Indo-Russian dominance in the
region. The interview was published in a book called, "Conversations with the
Crow" .

Source: crooksandliars
6. Was the Russian butler involved?
The butler was serving the then PM and was in fact arrested. He had easy
access to Shastri and if in fact he was poisoned, the butler would certainly be
a big suspect. But he was allowed to walk and the authorities maintained
that Shastri died of cardiac arrest.

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7. Why was Delhi Police asked to handle the retrieval of docs?

The Home Ministry referred the matter to Delhi Police and the National
Archives for retrieving any documents or information based on the incident.
Shastri's son said that it was "absurd and silly" how the death of a sitting PM
was inspected by district level police instead of higher authorities.
8. What about the RTIs?
Anuj Dhar (author of CIA's Eye on South Asia) filed an RTI pertaining to the
PM's death. But the PMO responded saying there was only one classified
document which could not be declassified as it may disrupt foreign relations.
A different response was given to one, Kuldip Nayar, "No such record related
to the death of the former Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri is
available in this district... Hence the requisite information pertaining to New
Delhi district may please be treated as nil."
He led the nation to victory in the 1965 war. His slogan, ' Jai Jawan Jai Kisan',
became our war cry. Many twists in the mystery behind his death have taken
place since the night of 11th Jan, 1966 in Tashkent.
If the government was to declassify documents on his death, his family and
the Indian public may get some substantial evidence or information on how
our second premier died.
As he grew up, Lal Bahadur Shastri became more and more interested in the
countrys struggle for freedom from foreign yoke. He was greatly impressed
by Mahatma Gandhi,s denunciation of Indian Princes for their support of
British rule in India. Lal Bahadur Sashtri was only eleven at the time, but the
process that was end day to catapult him to the national stage had already
begun in his mind.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was sixteen when Gandhiji called upon his countrymen
to join the Non-Cooperation Movement. He decided at once to give up his
studies in response to the Mahatmas call. The decision shattered his
mother,s hopes. The family could not dissuade him from what they thought
was a disastrous course of action. But Lal Bahadur had made up his mind. All

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those who were close to him knew that he would never change his mind
once it was made up, for behind his soft exterior was the firmness of a rock.

Lal Bahadur Shastri joined the Kashi Vidya Peeth in Varanasi, one of the
many national institutions set up in defiance of the British rule. There, he
came under the influence of the greatest intellectuals, and nationalists of the
country. Shastri was the bachelors degree awarded to him by the Vidya Peeth
but has stuck in the minds of the people as part of his name.

In 1927, he got married. His wife, Lalita Devi, came from Mirzapur, near his
home town. The wedding was traditional in all senses but one. A spinning
wheel and a few yards of handspun cloth was all the dowry. The bridegroom
would accept nothing more.

In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi marched to the sea beach at Dandi and broke the
imperial salt law. The symbolic gesture set the whole country ablaze. Lal
Bahadur Shastri threw himself into the struggle for freedom with feverish
energy. He led many defiant campaigns and spent a total of seven years in
British jails. It was in the fire of this struggle that his steel was tempered and
he grew into maturity.

When the Congress came to power after Independence, the sterling worth of
the apparently meek and unassuming Lal Bahadur Shastri had already been
recognised by the leader of the national struggle. When the Congress
Government was formed in 1946, this \'little dynamo of a man, was called
upon to play a constructive role in the governance of the country. He was
appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home State of Uttar Pradesh and
soon rose to the position of Home Minister. His capacity for hard work and his
efficiency became a byeword in Uttar Pradesh. He moved to New Delhi in
1951 and held several portfolios in the Union Cabinet - Minister for Railways
Minister for Transport and Communications; Minister for Commerce and
Industry; Home Minister; and during Nehru,s illness Minister without portfolio.
He was growing in stature constantly. He resigned his post as Minister for
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Railways because he felt responsible for a railway accident in which many

lives were lost. The unprecedented gesture was greatly appreciated by
Parliament and the country. The then Prime Minister, Pt. Nehru, speaking in
Parliament on the incident, extolled Lal Bahadur Shastri,s integrity and high
ideals. He said he was accepting the resignation because it would set an
example in constitutional propriety and not because Lal Bahadur Shastri was
in any way responsible for what had happened. Replying to the long debate
on the Railway accident, Lal Bahadur Shastri said; Perhaps due to my being
small in size and soft of tongue, people are apt to believe that I am not able
to be very firm. Though not physically strong, I think I am internally not so
weak.

In between his Ministerial assignments, he continued to lavish his organising

abilities on the affairs of the Congress Party. The landslide successes of the
Party in the General Elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962 were in a very large
measure the result of his complete identification with the cause and his
organisational genius.

More than thirty years of dedicated service were behind Lal Bahadur Shastri.
In the course of this period, he came to be known as a man of great integrity
and competence. Humble, tolerant, with great inner strength and
resoluteness, he was a man of the people who understood their language. He
was also a man of vision who led the country towards progress. Lal Bahadur
Shastri was deeply influenced by the political teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
Hard work is equal to prayer, he once said, in accents profoundly reminiscent
of his Master. In the direct tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri
represented the best in Indian culture.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the second Prime Minister of independent India and
a significant figure in the struggle for independence. Shashtriji was born in
Mughalsarai, in Uttar Pradesh. To take part in the non-cooperation movement
of Mahatma Gandhi in 1921, he began studying at the nationalist, Kashi
Vidyapeeth in Kashi, and upon completion, he was given the title Shastri, or
Scholar, Doctor at Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. He spent almost nine years in
jail in total, mostly after the start of the Satyagraha movement in 1940, he
was imprisoned until 1946. Following Indias independence, he was Home
Minister under Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant of Uttar Pradesh. In 1951,
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he was appointed General Secretary of the Lok Sabha before re-gaining a

ministerial post as Railways Minister. He resigned as Minister following a rail
disaster near Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. He returned to the Cabinet following the
General Elections, first as Minister for Transport, in 1961, he became Home
Minister. After Jawaharlal Nehrus death in May 27, 1964, he became the
prime minister. Shastri worked by his natural characteristics to obtain
compromises between opposing viewpoints, but in his short tenure was
ineffectual in dealing with the economic crisis and food shortage in the
nation.

However, he commanded a great deal of respect in the Indian populace, and

he used it to advantage in pushing the Green Revolution in India; which
directly led to India becoming a food-surplus nation, although he did not live
to see it. His administration began on a rocky turf. In 1965 Pakistan attacked
India on the Kashmiri front and Lal Bahadur Shastri responded in kind by
punching toward Lahore. In 1966 a cease-fire was issued as a result of
international pressure. Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Tashkent to hold talks
with Ayub Khan and an agreement was soon signed. Lal Bahadur passed
away in Tashkent before returning home. All his lifetime, he was known for
his honesty and humility. He was the first person to be posthumously
awarded the Bharat Ratna and a memorial Vijay Ghat was built for him in
Delhi. The slogan Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan is attributed to Shastri. If one person
gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal of the
day.: made during the food crisis to encourage people to evenly distribute
food.
The word politics is in trouble. It suggests intrigue, manipulation and rivalry
every conceivable form of it, ranging from simple envy to the most
complicated of psychopathic jealousies. In other words, politics has come to
be seen as a calling that simple people are wary of and keep a safe distance
from.

The word politician is in even greater trouble. Today, it conjures a person

who is one thing in appearance, quite another in reality. There is a song that
goes Naqli chehra saamne aaye, asli suurat chhupi rahey. A politician may
be trusted to forget a favour received by him, but always remember a favour
done by him. In other words, a politician today is a person the mirror would
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rather it did not have to reflect. Not at the start of the day and certainly not
after the sun has set.

Siyaasat aaj diqqat mein hai; uski sifat taqliif mein hai. Aawaam kaa aitbaar
us par agar aataa hai, to ruktaa nahiin. Siyaasii insaan aaj mushkilii mein hai.
Aam log usko apnaa rakhvaalaa samjhte hein lekin rahbar ya rahnumaa
nahiin. Log us mein prerana dhundhtein hein, paate hein kuchh aur. Yah
afsos kii baat hai, intahaa afsos kii.
(This is more than a pity; it is a tragedy. For, until not long ago, politics
meant public service of the highest, most self-denying, self-effacing kind.
Those who wanted to be useful to society and earn an honest wage, joined
the civil or military services, the magistracy, took up professional careers.
Those who wanted to be useful without bothering about earnings, took to
political work. Politicians were volunteers in a spontaneous self-conscription
for national service. Politics was, almost, a monastic order.)

Politicians once lived unostentatiously, often frugally and never flaunted their
wealth, which they had either inherited with dignity or acquired outside
politics through other careers with honesty.

Above all, politicians had a cause or a set of causes beyond and larger than
themselves. Self-interest, self-protection and self-advancement did not occur
to them. They stood for selflessness. Stood, I say that in the past tense.

Khadaa honaa rajnitigyon ko aaj bhii aataa hai, chunaavon mein khadaa
honaa, leaderon ke saamne jhat utth khadaa honaa, manch par khadaa
honaa, Sansad mein bulaye-na-bulaaye khadaa honaa. Aur haan, adaalat ke
kathghare mein khadaa honaa. Lekin paidal chalnaa aaj viral ho gayaa hai.
Zamaanaa thaa jub siyaasat apne pairon par chaltii thii. Aaj vah chalti kam
hai, chalaatii ziadah hai.

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Mostly, politicians do not walk now as much as they move. Literally, in moves
and manoeuvres. Just like chessmen, they move adroitly, some with
smartness, some moving sideways and then leaping forward, some two
steps at a time, displacing the person ahead and moving in the swift sweep
of a knight or the slow swagger of a castle. Those who walk one step at a
time, are pawns, mere pawns.

The other requirement for politicians, namely, of them being able to talk,
explain and persuade is now practised in a slightly different way. They talk to
clarify what they have complicated and explain what they have knotted up.
And so they also hector and harangue to overwhelm.

Besides that, politics has found a new ally in money. I have said new ally, but
that is not quite right. Politics has always needed money for elections, for
publicising its programmes, running its campaigns and for offices. Politics
once used money and now money uses politics. That is the difference. It is
not as if all politicians are in the clutches of money, certainly not. But the
surface density of politicians who are not has become alarmingly thin.

Were it not for Shastriji, the Santhanam committee on corruption would

never have been constituted. Today, we must ask in Shastrijis name and in
that of K. Santhanam, why is the Lok Pal eluding us? Why are whistleblowers
in danger? Why, to put it differently, is honesty looking for a home?

Politics has always known risks of failure, mainly of defeat and even violence.
But today, politics is not just risky, it is full of danger. The politics-money
nexus has made it so. Not just those in politics, but also those who question
the nexus, are in danger, just look at the number of RTI activists who have
been killed. Ask and it shall be given has acquired a new meaning.

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In this state of our political reality, our siyaasii haqiqaat, I ask myself: would
the strong yet gentle, the soft-spoken but utterly clear-worded, the selfeffacing patriot of patriots Lal Bahadur Shastri recognise Indian politics
today? He would not. And conversely, do politicians in India today
especially the young ones recognise that soul of probity, dedication and
service? They do not. How can they, for he was the very antithesis of Indian
politics as they or we know it now.

Lal Bahadur Shastri. Credit: Twitter

Lal Bahadur Shastri. Credit: Twitter
Shastriji knew his India and was thus in Indian politics. Today, you need to
know your politics to be in Indian politics. Like the extraordinary Congress
president K. Kamaraj, he was trusted, relied on and loved. Shastriji enjoyed
the confidence of his times. He was the very personification of vishvaas, of
bharosaa and of aiitbaar.

When he told an agitated Tamil Nadu that Hindi would not be imposed on
them against their will, Periyar Ramasamy and C. N. Annadurai trusted him.
His word was enough. In Tamil, one would say, he enjoyed nambikkai. Being
true to ones word was a quality that marked other Congress leaders of the
Gandhi-Nehru-Patel generation as well, and of those outside the Congress in
the Left, like Acharya Narendra Deva, P. Sundarayya, E.M.S. Namboodiripad,
Jayaprakash Narayan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Aruna Asaf Ali, Renu
Chakravartty, and on the Right like Nanaji Deshmukh, Homi Mody, Nani
Palkhivala.

Which is why his exceptional leadership of India through the 1965 war
brought to him the spontaneous solidarity of all classes of its people. Shastriji
was not spared opposition, but neither did he resent it, nor was he unnerved
by it. When Rajaji referred to the concept of autonomy in the context of
Kashmir, a Congress leader appealed to Shastriji, who was the then prime
minister, to invoke the laws of sedition against the octogenarian leader.

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Shastriji gently admonished his colleague, saying Have you heard of

Bertrand Russell? Rajaji is our Russell. Britain will never call Russell a traitor.
We cannot call Rajaji seditious.

Intolerance is not a sign of patriotic strength, but of political insecurity.

Dissent, as long as it stays non-violent, is democracys proudest expression.
Free speech and honest, frank expression of views, whether in politics or
administration, or in the conduct of foreign relations, comprise a republics
true signature.

In a democracy, as it is wrong to expect a single political line to be observed

by all, it is also wrong to seek to make robots of bureaucrats and digits of
diplomats. Respect is not a protocol to be observed by the calculating mind,
but an emotion to be felt in ones unconditional heart.

Shastriji showed that great as the victory in a just war was, a greater victory
lay in a just peace. Even as the lamp of his mortal life went out in Tashkent,
his stature found eternal light. President Radhakrishnan, in conferring the
Bharat Ratna on Shastriji posthumously, recognised in the Tashkent
Declaration a supremely Ashokan moment Ashokan in its strength, Ashokan
in its humanity.

The Shimla Agreement of 1972 took that further into an agreement reached
in a new context. More meaningful than Shastrijis brilliant leadership in the
1965 war and more relevant than his inspired Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan thought,
was his firm refusal throughout his political life to hurl stones, arrows or
bullets at colleagues or opponents. He rose sky-high in dignity because he
never trampled on the dignity of his fellows. Wanting no one to feel small, he
towered great.

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WHILE Mayawati government earned praise from Lal Bahadur Shastri's family
for converting his ancestral house in Varanasi into a museum last week, his
memorial in New Delhi located next to 10, Janpath is witnessing a
protracted battle. Between those entrusted to preserve and promote the
former prime minister's ideals and those in charge of Congress president
Sonia Gandhi's security.
The Special Protection Group (SPG)'s insistence on not allowing parking of
vehicles near the memorial is said to have become a big deterrence for those
interested in the life and works of the second prime minister who succeeded
Jawaharlal Nehru.

The memorial authorities are learnt to have taken up the issue with Sonia
also but to no avail.

Opposition BJP has now decided to jump into the fray with senior leader
Ananth Kumar, one of the trustees of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Memorial Trust, taking up the cudgels. "This is a sad state of affairs. I am
going to write a letter to the Prime Minister, who is the chairman of the trust,
seeking his intervention in the matter. Shastri was an icon because of his
simplicity, humility and sacrifices. This shows the apathy of the Congress-led
government, which is not moved unless it is a Nehru or Gandhi memorial,"
he told The Indian Express.

Incidentally, on Shastri's 45th death anniversary last Tuesday, the BSP

regime in Uttar Pradesh announced to renovate Shastri's ancestral house at
Ramnagar in Varanasi and declared that it will be converted into a museum
to showcase his life and works.

The same day, the former PM's son Anil Shastri, a Special Invitee to the
Congress Working Committee and Editor of party mouthpiece Congress
Sandesh, tweeted: "Mayawati govt needs to be complimented for converting

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Shastriji's ancestral home into a museum in Varanasi on his death

anniversary today."

The memorial in New Delhi had been approved by the previous NDA
government only to gather dust in government files until the change of
regime, which saw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh taking keen interest in
the project.

Inaugurating it on May 7, 2005, Singh had stated: " Shastriji gave our country
a sense of security and comfort during a turbulent and trying period, when
the world speculated over the question, 'After Nehru Who?'"

Within a week after its inauguration, the number of visitors at Shastri

memorial had reached up to 1,700 in a day. Soon, however, the SPG began
objecting to the parking of vehicles on the plea that the National Advisory
Council (NAC), headed by Sonia, was located right across the road, according
to sources associated with the memorial. When she quit the NAC
Chairperson's post in 2006 in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy, the
memorial director was said to have written to her to seek her intervention.

"Because of SPG's problem, there is no parking system. Therefore, visitors'

flow is very less," Kundan Singh, Assistant Curator of the Memorial, told The
Indian Express .

Shastri's son and one of the trustees, Sunil Shastri, sought to downplay the
issue. "We have already taken up the matter with the SPG. It has been
pending for a long time, but it is a high security area. We are trying our
best."

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Shastri has been forgotten by the nation. He has been pushed into the
background. I have no doubt that there was a Congress conspiracy to
underplay Shastri after his death.

The Congress is the party that should have put him to the fore but I
remember visiting a Congress meeting where Shastri's portrait was not even
displayed with respect.

He simply didn't fit in. Mrs Gandhi was strongly against the Congress old
guard. When he died there was a strong resistance against his cremation in
the area where Gandhi and Nehru had been laid to rest. Most Congressmen
wanted his body taken to Allahabad. When Mrs Lalita Shastri said she would
go public only then did the Congressmen relent.

They even protested against inscribing the slogan -- Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan on
his samadhi. Then again, only when Mrs Shastri threatened to go on a
hunger strike was it was allowed.

After leaving the Press Information Bureau I became a reporter. Wherever I

went to meet Congress leaders, I was labelled as 'Shastri ka aadmi' [Shastri's
man].

Now, a committee has been set up by the Congress-led government to

celebrate his birth centenary but it seems like an afterthought. I think after
the death of Shastri, the Congress did not know where to fit him. When Mrs
Gandhi succeeded him, the Congress didn't know where to put his legacy in
the scheme of things then.

Shastri stands for austerity.

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Shastri stands for simplicity and consensus.

Shastri represents an ideology that was right of Centre but not left of Centre.
After all, he is the man who said we need the five-year plan but let us have a
one year holiday from plan.

I remember vividly a small incident that brought out the stark difference
between the two (Shastri and Indira Gandhi) leaders.

During Shastri's tenure his home in Janpath was upgraded quite a bit to suit
the status of a PM.

After his death, while searching for a suitable home Mrs Gandhi went to see
Shastri's home. She entered the home, had a round inside and said, "middle
class!"

The making of Shastri

Shastri was selected

Sanjeeva Reddy and
Nehru's death I asked
unanimous decision of

by veteran Congress leaders K Kamaraj, Neelam

S Nijalingappa to lead the nation. Moments after
him who should become PM, he said it should be the
the Congress.

He gave two names in order. First, Jayaprakash Narayan and second, Indira
Gandhi. He told me he wanted a unanimous decision over the selection. "But

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if there is a contest (which Morarji Desai contemplated) then I can defeat

Morarji Desai but not Indira Gandhi," he told me.

Probably he was right. However, the question didn't arise because Kamaraj
was asked to talk to members informally. Shastri was made PM but
Morarjibhai never accepted the decision.

After Shastri became PM he had to face the war with Pakistan. When the
Chamb border was attacked Shastri was asked to take a tough decision
whether to cross the international border. The army chief said it would be
difficult to hold on for long at Chamb. Shastri gave the order saying -- before
they can capture Chamb you should capture Lahore.

After the war was over, I asked Indira Gandhi if Nehru would have allowed
the crossing of the international border. Mrs Gandhi said, 'Whatever the
generals would have advised him he would have followed."

But I wonder.

A slight man made of steel

After the war, Shastri's name was all over. Before the war many people
laughed at him for his softness but not after the war. He came out as a tough
hero.

His toughness was evident at Tashkent. When Russian Prime Minister Alexei
Kosygin (left: Shastri with Kosygin and Indian's then external affairs minister
Swaran Singh) wanted Shastri to sign the agreement for peace with General
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Ayub Khan of Pakistan after the 1965 war, Shastri insisted on adding the
assurance, "never again will weapons be used to sort out problems between
India and Pakistan."

Ayub was maintaining a vague stance by quoting UN resolutions. "Then you

will have to find another PM," said Shastri during the arguments. In the final
agreement General Ayub Khan had not mentioned those words but Shastri
continued to press for it.

Ayub finally wrote it at the very last moment. General Ayub's handwritten
assurance is still preserved in the Indian archives. Shastri was a slight person
but with a strong mind.

Also read: Kuldip Nayar on the Tashkent summit

Shastri can't be revived

If the Congress wants to celebrate Shastri, it will have to re-emphasis the

honesty of Shastri. He stood for the small men of India.

But the Congress has changed completely. Since Mrs Gandhi said that
corruption is a world phenomenon, Congressmen are not losing sleep over it.
Neither can I imagine Shastri imposing the Emergency.

All those Congressmen seen active during the Emergency are part of this
government. Ambika Soni is a confidante of Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee,
Arjun Singh, Kamal Nath all were part of the establishment then.
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How can these leaders bring in the values of Shastri?

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty culture has also played a role in minimising

Shastri's legacy. When Shastri was made a minister without portfolio in the
Nehru's Cabinet, he was uncomfortable. Once in a huff he told me, "I shall
quit and retire to Allahabad."

While cajoling him not to entertain an such idea I said, "Nehru has you in his
mind."

Shastri said, "Unke dimag main to unki putri hai. (He has his daughter in his
mind as successor.)"

As soon as Shastri died the dynasty culture returned to the Congress.

Shastri's message of life was that if he could become PM anybody could
because he was a common man. As the Bible says the meekest shall inherit
the earth, he proved it.

In 1942 (during the Quit India Movement), when he was in a jail, his daughter
was ill and he was released on parole. But he could not save her life because
doctors had recommended costly drugs.

Shastri never made money. In 1963, on the day when he was dropped under
the Kamaraj plan I went to meet him. He was sitting in his home without a
light.

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"Why are you sitting in the dark?" I asked. He said, "From today all expenses
will be borne by me." He told me as a MP and minister he didn't earn enough
to save for his rainy day.

On that evening, I told him to turn a columnist to earn some money. So he

wrote a column on Lala Lajpat Rai. That was the first syndicated column in
India.

I syndicated it to four newspapers and collected Rs 500 from each. Quite a

hefty sum!

The second column was on Nehru but before he could write more he was
recalled tothe Cabinet.

I don't see the revival of the values Shastri stood for. A day before his first
press conference after becoming PM I asked him what will be your message
tomorrow?

He said: "I'll tell them that during my tenure there will not be any increase in
food price and as PM of India I would ask members of the Planning
Commission to have one more column in their charts to show me how many
jobs will be created after spending thousands of crores of rupees."

He was a man concerned about the common man of India. Can these values
return to this country?

I don't think so.

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The gardener smiled with pity and said, "Because you are an orphan, you
must learn better behavior, my boy."
The words of the gardener had a great effect on him. He swore to him, "I
shall behave better in future. Because I am an orphan I must learn good
behavior."
Though short he was not timid at school. All boys were friendly with him. Like
the grass he always looked fresh and smiling. Not only during his school days
but also in his later life he did not hate anyone. It seems he used to act in
plays at school. He played the role of Kripacharya in the play
'Mahabharatha'. Kripacharya was in the court of Duryodhana and yet was
loved by the Pandavas. Lal Bahadur Shastri had acquired the same worth.
Even when Lal Bahadur was a student of Harischandra. High School at
Varanasi a whirlwind had disturbed India.
Everywhere there was the cry of 'Freedom'! "Swaraj is our birth right" - Bala
Gangadhara Tilak had declared. This had become the nation's battlecry.
Lal Bahadur reverenced Tilak. He longed to see him and hear his speech.
Once Tilak visited Varanasi. Lal Bahadur was away in a village fifty miles from
Varanasi. He borrowed money and traveled in a train to see and hear Tilak.
He saw him and heard his speech. It reverberated in his ears like Krishna's
conch, thePanchajanya. Like Bharata, carrying Rama's sandals on his head,
Lal Bahadur carried Tilak's message in his heart. This message guided him
all through his life.The greatest influence on Lal Bahadur was that of
Mahatma Gandhi. Lal Bahadur was electrified when he heard a speech of
Gandhi at Varanasi in 1915. Then and there he dedicated his life to the
service of the country.
n 1921, Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement against
British Government and declared that the country would not cooperate with
the Government in its unjust rule. Lal Bahadur was then only seventeen
years. When Mahatma Gandhi gave a call to the youth to come out of
Government schools and colleges, offices and courts and to sacrifice
everything for the sake of freedom, Lal Bahadur came out of his school.
His mother and other relatives advised him not to give up his studies. But Lal
Bahadur was firm in his decision -Lai Bahadur joined the procession, which

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disobeyed the prohibitory order. The police arrested him. But as he was too
young, he was let off.
Lal Bahadur did not go back to his school. He became a student of Kashi
Vidya Peeth. During his four years' stay there, he made excellent progress.
Dr.Bhagawandas's lectures on philosophy went straight to his heart. In later
life Lal Bahadur displayed surprising poise in the midst of conflict and
confusion. This he learnt from his teacher, Bhagawandas.
It was in 1926 that Lal Bahadur got the degree of 'Shastri' and left the Kashi
Vidya Peeth. The whole country became the arena of his activity. He became
the life- member of The Servants of the People Society, which Lala Lajpat Rai
had started in 1921. The aim of the Society was to train youths that were
prepared to dedicate their lives to the service of the country.
One of the rules of the Society required the members to take an oath to
serve the Society at least for twenty years and to lead a simple and honest
life till the end. Lal Bahadur earned the love and affection of Lajpat Rai by his
earnestness and hard work. Later he became the President of the Society.
Shastriji married in 1927. Lalitha Devi, his bride, came from Mirzalyur. The
wedding was celebrated in the simplest way. All that the bridegroom took as
a gift from father-in-law was a charaka and a few yards of Khadi.
The struggle for freedom was intensifield all over the country in 1930.
Mahatma Gandhi started the 'Salt Satyagraha'. Lal Bahadur took a leading
role in it.

At the age of seventeen Lal Bahadur had participated in a procession against

the British Government. The government had arrested him and then freed
him. But this time it did not let him off easily. He had been calling on people
not to pay land revenue and taxes to the government and the government
had been keeping a wary eye on him. Now he was sent to prison for two and
a half years.

From this time onwards prison became his second home. He was sent to
prison seven times and was forced to spend nine long years in various
prisons on different occasions.

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His going to prison was a blessing in disguise. He had time to read a number
of good books. He became familiar with the works of western philosophers,
revolutionaries and social reformers. He translated the autobiography of
Madam Curie (a French scientist who discovered radium) into Hindi.

Lal Bahadur's virtues shone even in the prison. He was a ideal prisoner. 'He
was a model to others in discipline and restraint. Many political prisoners
used to quarrel among themselves for small things. They used to cringe for
small favors before the officials of the prison. But Lal Bahadur used to give
up his comforts for others.
The greatness of Lal Bahadur was that he maintained his self-respect 'even
in prison. Once when he was in prison, one of his daughters fell seriously ill.
The officers agreed to let him out for a short time but on condition that he
should agree in writing not to take part in the freedom 'movement during
this period. Lal Bahadur did not wish to participate in the freedom movement
during his temporary release from prison; but he said that he would not give
it in writing. He thought that it was against his self-respect to give it in
writing. The officers knew that he was truthful. Therefore they did not insist.
Lal Bahadur was released for fifteen days.

But his daughter died before he, reached home. After performing the
obsequies he returned to his prison even before the expiry of the period.

A year passed. His son was laid up with influenza this time. Lal Bahadur was
permitted unconditionally to go home for a week. But the fever did not come
down in a week. Lal Bahadur got ready to go back to prison. The boy pleaded
dumbly with his tearful eyes.

In a weak voice he urged his father to stay.

For a moment the father's mind was shaken. Tears rolled down from his eyes.

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But the next moment his decision was made. He bade good bye to all and
left his home for prison. His son survived.

Two qualities, which the leader of any nation must have, are devotion and
efficiency. Lal Bahadur had both the qualities in a large measure. He would
not swerve from his aim, come what may. When the people of India. Were
fighting for freedom he brushed aside all thought of personal happiness and
plunged into the freedom struggle. His daughter'sdeath, his son's illness,
poverty - none of these made him swerve from his selection path. Even when
he became a minister and, later, the Prime Minister he was never attracted
to a life of luxury and comfort.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the leaders of our country
were in a dilemma. When the people of India were slaves how could they
support the cause of Britain?

In the end they decided to launch a 'Satyagraha' against the British

Government for the freedom of thecountry (1940). Satyagraha means
opposition based on Truth. Lal Bahadur was one of those who offered
individual Satyagraha. He was sent to prison for one year for this.

The freedom struggle became more widespread and intense. The prisons
were bursting with political prisoners.

On 8th August 1942, the Indian National Congress which led the fight for
freedom decided at its historic meeting in Bombay to sound the trumpet for
the final struggle against the British in India. It called on the British to 'Quit
India'. The people were determined to 'do or die'.

The government reacted sharply to these calls and arrested many leaders.
Prisons became over-crowded. The government used all cruel methods of
suppression to nip the movement in the bud.

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Lal Bahadur, who had just then come out after a year in prison, traveled from
Bombay to Allahabad by train. He got off at a station, unknown to the police.
For a whole week he used to send instructions to the freedom fighters from
Anand Bhavan, Jawaharlal Nehru's home in Allahabad.

Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the sister of Nehru, lived in Anand Bhavan at the time.
The police came there to arrest her and to take possession of the house. Lal
Bahadur destroyed all-important documents. Luckily, the police arrested only
Vijayalakshmi Pandit and went away.

A few days later Lal Bahadur who was underground came out and shouted
slogans against the government. The police arrested him then.
India got freedom in 1947.Lal Bahadur's administrative ability and skill in
organization came to light in the days following India's freedom. He was an
expert in the art of bringing together people and winning their hearts. Pandit
Govind Vallabh Pant, the leader of Uttar Pradesh, was the first to recognize
this talent of Shastriji and to encourage him. He earned the love of Pant by
his hard work during the elections of 1946 in the provinces. The Congress
Office had become Shastriji's home during that period. The Congress won a
resounding victory in the elections.
When Govind Vallabh Pant became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, he
wished to train able young men to run the government. But it was not easy
to please him. Lal Bahadur did not want any office; yet he was appointed as
Parliamentary Secretary to Pant. Pant praised him as 'likable, hard-working,
devoted, trustworthy and non-controversial'.
Later, in 1947, Lal Bahadur became the Minister of Police and Transport in
Pant's Ministry. He took many steps to bring discipline into the
administration. As Transport Minister he subjected government buses to
discipline. He was the first to appoint women conductors. Usually the
minister in charge of the Police Department will not remain popular for long.
But Lal Bahadur Shastri never allowed the police to resort to lathi charge and
firing. He ordered that using jets of water instead of lathis should disperse
unruly crowds. Though there were many strikes in Uttar Pradesh when he
was in office, there was not a single occasion when people shouted slogans
against him.
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Lal Bahadur was a lover of cricket. Once he was watching a match at Kanpur.
Trouble broke out among the spectators. The Police and young men came to
blows. Since Shastriji was on the spot thesituation did not go out of control.
The young men demanded that the red turbans' (thepolice) should not be
found on the cricket ground and Lal Bahadur agreed. But the police were
there the next day. The young men became angry with Shastriji and
protested. Lal Bahadur laughed and said, "I fulfilled my promise to you
faithfully. You did not want red turbans to be here. You see the police are now
wearing khaki turbans." The spectators laughed and dropped the matter.
In the first General Elections after India became a Republic, the Congress
Party returned to power with a huge majority. Lal Bahadur Shastri worked
hard for this success. He was the General Secretary of the Congress at the
General Secretary of the Congress at the time. The selection of candidates
and the direction of publicity and electioneering were under the direct
guidance of Shastriji. But he did not contest the elections. However, Nehru
did not wish to leave such an able and honest man outside the government.
He persuaded him to seek election to the Rajya Sabha. He was elected to the
Rajya Sabha. He was appointed as the Railways and Transport Minister in the
Central Cabinet (1952).
The railways are among the biggest Central Government undertakings,
transport plays a vital role in the progress of any country. The railways in
India had been badly disrupted after the division of the country. Lal Bahadur
strove hard to set right and regulate the railways. It is not easy to organize
movement ofpassengers and good from place to place without waste of time
and without inconvenience. Lal Bahadur succeeded in this to a large extent.
There were four classes- first, second, intermediate and third in the railways
then. First class compartments offered extreme luxury and were almost
heavenly.But the discomfort ofpassengers in the third class compartments
was beyond description. They did not have even minimum comforts. Lal
Bahadur's efforts to reduce the vast disparitybetween the first and the last
classes cannot be forgotten. The first class that offered royal comfort was
abolished. The old second came to be known as the first class and the
intermediate class as the second class. His idea was to have only two classes
of compartments in course of time - the first and the second. It was he who
provided more facilities to travelers in third class compartments. It was
during his time that fans were provided in the third class compartments. He

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also worked hard to improve the administration of Railways and to eliminate

thefts in the trains.
Lal Bahadur identified himself with the Railways so much that he felt he was
responsible if anything went wrong in his department. When he was the
Railway Minister in 1956, 144 passengers died in an accident that took place
near Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Just three months before this, an accident that
took place near Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Just three months before this, an
accident had occurred at Mehboob Nagar in which 112 people died. Lal
Bahadur was in no way responsible for these accidents. Yet he was very
much pained. He felt he could not escape the moral responsibility for them.
He had submitted his resignation letter to Pandit Nehru when the Mehboob
Nagar accident took place. But Nehru had not accepted it. But when the
Ariyalur accident took place Shastriji said, 'I must do penance for this. Let me
go.' So strong was his sense of responsibility.
Lal Bahadur Shastri's exit from the Central Cabinet was a blessing for the
ruling party. He worked for the party during the General Elections next year.
Then he became the Minister for Transport andCommunications and later the
Minister for Commerce and Industry. He became the Home Minister in 1961,
after the death of Govind Vallabh Pant.

People used to call him the homeless Home Minister because he did not have
a house of his own. He had rented a small house in Allahabad. Even when he
was a minister, he used to stay in that house when he went to Allahabad.
After a few days the owner of the house let it out to another family. When
Shastriji resigned as minister he vacated the government quarters and he
did not have a place to line in!
The greatest danger that India had to face at the time was China's
aggression (1962). The Chinese army crossed the Himalayan border and
moved forward in wave after wave and occupied Indian territory in the north.
But India stood up like one man against China. The Chinese moved back. But
they did not return the areas they had occupied. China stabbed India in the
back and lost the friendship of India.

This was the time when China in the north and Pakistan both in the east and
the west started giving trouble to India. It was absolutely necessary that the
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people of India should forget internal quarrels and that they should unite like
brothers and sisters. Lal Bahadur Shastri strove hard to make the people feel
that they were all one.

People who clung to power sometimes showed their pettiness. To some

people clinging to the minister's seat, rather than uniting the people, is the
aim of life. At this time a plan was carried out to purify the ruling arty. The
Chief Minsters of all states and the senior Ministers at the Centre had to
handover their resignations to the Prime Minister Nehru he was to decide
who should come out of office and work for the party and who should remain
in office. Accordingly they all tendered resignations.
Nehru died suddenly on May 27, 1964.

The ruling Congress Party elected Lal Bahadur unanimously as its leader. He
did not show any interest in the discussions before the election of the leader.
He remained aloof as if it had nothing to do with him. The detachment he
showed then was surprising.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister of India at a crucial time in India's
history. He was physically weak, but he faced the problems confronting the
nation like a hero. The first problem that he had to face after he became the
Prime Minister was one caused by Pakistan. Pakistan took shape by eroding
India's land, and was instigating Indian Muslims. After the Chinese
aggression, when India's confidence in her strength had been shaken,
Pakistan was creating trouble along the borders.

But Shastriji would not yield to the wickedness of Pakistan. He first tried to
earn the goodwill and support of other nations for India. He visited Russia,
Egypt, Canada and Britain and explained to the leaders of those nations
India's stand. He attended a meeting of the non-aligned nations (nations
which were neutral) and explained India's position. He even tried to reason
with President Ayub Khan of Pakisthan. The wicked do not like advice. They
can understand only one language, the language of war.

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It had become Pakistan's habit to provoke India somehow and jump to arms.

Pakisthan had been waiting to swallow Kashmir somehow. She pushed her
forces across the eastern border into the Rann of kuch in Gujarat State in
April-May of 1965. Lal Bahadur was not unnerved by this unexpected attack.
He faced the problem with great tact at that critical moment. The Indian
Army forced the attackers to retreat. Then both countries agreed to stop
fighting
But friendly words cannot tame a serpent. There is but one way to do it - to
remove the serpent's fangs.

Even before the ink with which they had signed the Kutch agreement dried
up, Pakisthan raised its hood to strike again. Pakistani soldiers entered
Kashmir in disguise. In September 1965 there was a large-scale invasion of
the territory by Pakistani soldiers in the Chhamb area. War broke out all
along the Cease-fire Line on the Kashmir border.

The enemies who had managed to enter Kashmir were cunning and
mischievous. Pakistan also tried to incite Indian Muslims. The Pakisthan army
was engaged in forcibly occupying areas, which belonged to India. There was
the danger of the fighting spreading to the eastern border also. In addition to
this, there was the threat posed by the Chinese on the northern borders of
India. Lal Bahadur Shastri faced all these problems with a will of iron. It was
at this time that the country understood the greatness of Lal Bahadur
Shastri. He decided that was the time to teach Pakistan a lesson. He gave full
freedom to the Commander of the Army. 'Go forward and strike' was
Shastriji's command to the generals.

Addressing the nation on 13th August 1965 Shastriji referred to Pakistan's

threats and said, "Force will be met with force." Two days later, during the
celebration of Independence day, he declared from the ramparts of the Red

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Fort: "It does not matter if we are destroyed. We will fight to the last to
maintain the high honor of the Indian nation and its flag."
Just at this time another danger threatened India. China sent a letter, which
said, "The Indian army has set up army equipment in Chinese territory. India
should pull down this equipment. Otherwise it will have to face the wrath of
China."

At that moment India was fighting against the Pakistani army equipped with
the latest weapons supplied in plety by the United States of America. And, at
this very moment how was India to resist China?

China's allegations were a bundle of lies. If India removed the military

equipment she would be admitting that China's charges were true. Also, that
would mean India was afraid of China.

Even the big nations waited breathlessly to see what Lal Bahadur would say
and what India would do.

Lal Bahadur did not take long to give a reply. The letter from China was
received on the morning of 17th September 1965. He made a statement in
the Parliament the same afternoon. He declared: "China's allegation is
untrue. If China attacks India it is our firm resolve to fight for our freedom.
The might of China will not deter us from defending our territorial integrity."

China kept quiet.

India's soldiers had no fear of death and fought most splendidly and
heroically. The army and the air force functioned like the two arms of a single
body. The invaders were beaten. The Pakistani army could not stand against
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the Indian army. It was then that, for the first time, the world came to realize
the supremacy of the Indian army.
Some big nations feared that, if India won a total victory over Pakistan, it
would lower their prestige. The Security Council of the United Nations
Organization called on India and Pakistan to stop fighting.

On the invitation of Kosygin, the Premier of Soviet Russia, Lal Bahadur

Shastri and Ayub Khan met in Tashkent on January 4, 1966. The leaders
agreed that their armies should withdraw to the old Cease-fire Line in
Kashmir and that the two countries should live in peace and friendship.

Many people in India felt that we should not return the territory taken from
Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. They argued that the entire Kashmir belonged to
India. But Shastriji wished to give one more chance to Pakistan to live in
peace and friendship with India. So he signed the treaty of friendship.
Shastriji had suffered heart attacks twice before. And during the period of the
Pakistan war and the following days, his body, already battered, had to bear
a very heavy strain. He signed the joint Declaration on 10th January 1966.
He died the same night.

The news of Lal Bahadur Shastri's death struck India like a bolt from the blue.
The entire nation was plunged in grief. Some people suspected foulplay also.
Gone was the war hero and the messenger of peace, gone was the great
statesman who restored to India her honor and self- respect in the assembly
of nations. A tiny, tidy figure. A soul that had lived in perfect purity of
thought, word and deed. The very embodiment of selflessness, detachment
and simplicity. Such was this man who had lived in our midst. He belongs to
the race of the heroes of India.
Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's son has demanded that the
government should unravel the mystery shrouding his father's death.

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Raising doubts about the dark blue spots and cut marks on the abdomen of
his father's body after his death in 1966,Shastri's son Sunil asked, When the
postmortem was not conducted, then how the cut marks appeared?

The government should clear all doubts about my father's death, he said at
a club function here.

After Shastri's death in Tashkent, USSR, on January 11, 1966 soon after
signing the Tashkent Pact with Pakistan, his wife Lalita had alleged he was
poisoned.

A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar, author of CIA's Eye on South Asia,
under the Right to Information Act about his death but the government had
refused to part with classified information on the issue.

The Prime Minister's Office, while refusing information under the RTI Act on
the cause and circumstances of Shastri's death, had said revealing these
details could harm India's foreign relations and would violate Parliamentary
Privilege.

The government had admitted no postmortem was conducted on Shastri.

However, his personal doctor R N Chugh and some Russian doctors
conducted a medical examination.

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The Russian butler attending on Shastri at the time of his death was arrested
for suspected poisoning but released later.
Prime Minister's address at the inauguration of centenary year
celebrations of late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri

October 2, 2004
New Delhi

Hindi Version
Respected Soniaji, Atalji, Gujralji, Jaipal ji

Friends,

"I am happy to be amongst you to launch the centenary celebrations of a

great Indian patriot, a freedom fighter, a man of the people and a remarkable
Prime Minister: the late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. While it is matter of
coincidence that Shastriji shares a birthday with Mahatma Gandhi, his
abiding commitment to the values and ideals of the Mahatma is truly
significant.

Shastrijis life is aptly described as an illustration of the practical application

of Gandhian principles. While in government, he abided by Gandhijis dictum
that when in office, "always sit light, never tight". Shastrijis innate sense of
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humility, sincerity and simplicity enabled him to establish a deep bond with
people, and to easily strike a chord of understanding.
Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, Railway Minister, has tendered his resignation
following the Ariyalur train disaster. Announcing this in the Lok Sabha on
November 26, Prime Minister Nehru said he proposed to recommend to the
President to accept the resignation. "But I shall ask the Railway Minister to
continue his work for a few days till other arrangements can be made."
Earlier, Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri told the House that the Government had
ordered a judicial enquiry into the rail disaster. He said the Railway Board
had initiated a survey of all railway bridges and catchment areas. Speaking
after Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, Mr. Nehru told the House that there might be
any number of explanations and possible excuses offered for this disaster,
but "in a matter of this kind, no excuse is good enough and the thing that
has moved all of us is that the same type of disaster should occur, broadly
speaking, in the same area or nearby twice within a short period and three
times in the course of a year or two. All of us are very unhappy over the
tragedy but I am sure - in fact I know it - that probably the unhappiest among
all of us is the Railway Minister."
Debates may rage on who was Indias best Prime Minister, but there can be
no question of who has been its most unjustly forgotten Prime Minister: Lal
Bahadur Shastri. This remains so even in this, the centenary year of his birth.
His memory was briefly exhumed on his hundredth birthday, 2 October 2004,
when, at a desultory function in Delhi, he was described by a Union Minister
as a devoted disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and a legendary loyalist of
Jawaharlal Nehru. And that, it appears, was the end of the commemoration
for the yearand perhaps for all time to come.
Shastri was both a disciple of Gandhi and an admirer of Nehru, but he was
also his own man. Born in Mughalsarai, in a Kayasth family of modest means,
he studied first with a maulvi and later at the Kashi Vidyapeeth. His
commitment to the nationalist cause came early, and remained steadfast. He
spent some nine years in jail (in seven stints) while working his way up the
Congress ladder. After Independence, he played a key role in organizing his
partys campaign in the first General Elections of 1952. He then served for
several years as Union Railway Minister, before resigning after a serious train
accident for which he felt he must own moral responsibility.

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Because of his small sizehe was barely five feet talland his self-effacing
nature, Shastri was consistently underestimated by all those around him
whether journalists, officials, or fellow Ministers. But one who properly
appreciated his qualities of head and heart was Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1961
Nehru brought Shastri back into the Cabinet. For the next three years he was
(as one contemporary put it) Indias premier compromiser, conciliator and
co-ordinatorthe most popular man in the Congress party and the main
channel of communication between Nehru and the party organizations.
Among the crises he solved at the Prime Ministers behest were those caused
by language riots in Assam and by the theft of a holy relic in Srinagars
Hazratbal mosque.
In and out of office, Lal Bahadur Shastri acquired a reputation for probity of
character unusual even in those generally honest times. When he was asked
to demit office under the Kamaraj Plain in 1963, Shastri wrote to an associate
of how, without a Ministers salary, his family had decided now to eat one
less vegetable every meal and to wash their clothes themselves.
When Nehru died Shastri was chosen by the Congress to succeed him. These
were difficult years, with the countrys morale affected by defeat in the war
with China, continuing tensions in the borderlands, and serious scarcities of
food. Shastri met these challenges with resolve and fortitude. He called for
the planners to lay a greater focus on agriculture, and himself supervised the
re-organization of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. On the
industrial front, he rejected the prevailing export pessimism, arguing that
India had both the capital and the expertise to begin exporting chemical and
engineering products as well as traditional agricultural commodities such as
tea and rubber. (As it since has.)
Within a year of taking office Shastri had proved himself capable of filling
Jawaharlal Nehrus somewhat outsize shoesthis even Nehrus sister and
daughter were now willing to recognize. But one who persisted in
underestimating the little man was Field Marshal Ayub Khan of Pakistan. In
August 1965 Pakistani-backed infiltrators began fomenting trouble in the
Kashmir Valley. When Indian army units chased them back over the border,
Pakistan mounted a massive offensive in the Chamb sector of Jammu. The
enemy tanks rolled menacingly on. Now Shastri pulled off a master-stroke, by
asking the Indian Army to march into West Punjab. This at once relieved the
pressure on the Jammu sector and took Indian troops tantalizingly close to
the great city of Lahore. A cease-fire was called, to be followed by a peace
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agreement brokered by the Soviet Union, which mandated that both sides
pull back to the positions they had held before 5 August 1965.
His conduct during the 1965 War made Shastri a heroand justly so. His
character comes through best in two speeches he made, one at the onset of
the conflict, the other at its end. On the 13th of August, after the evidence of
mass infiltration into Kashmir had become manifest, the Prime Minister spoke
to the nation on All India Radio. Now that the countrys freedom and
sovereignty were threatened, he said, Indians must set aside their partisan
loyalties, those differences in policies and programmes that, in times of
peace, were such an essential part of our democratic set-up. And he issued
this stern warning to the other side: If Pakistan has any ideas of annexing
any part of our territories by force, she should think afresh. I want to state
categorically that force will be met with force and aggression against us will
never be allowed to succeed.
The other speech was made at a public meeting at the Ram Lila grounds in
Delhi on 26th September, after hostilities had ceased. Here he took issue
with a BBC report that claimed that since Indias Prime Minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri is a Hindu, he is ready for war with Pakistan. Shastri said that while
he was indeed a 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 this all 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. Like Jawaharlal
Nehru before him, Shastri upheld the idea of India as a multi-religious
country where politics and faith were kept in separate compartments.
However great the provocation, at least while he was around India would
never become a Hindu Pakistan.
Lal Bahadur Shastri died on the night of 10/11 January 1966, in the Uzbek
city of Tashkent, hours after signing a peace agreement with Pakistan. He
spent but nineteen months in office, enough to show himself to advantage as
a war leader. That, if at all, is how he is remembered today. But had he been
lucky to enjoy a full term in office his legacy might have been more wide145

ranging. For he had interesting and (to this writer) innovative ideas in the
fields of economic and foreign policy, among much else. He was keen to get
rid of the sloth and waste in government, and to induct talent from outside
one of his suggestions, unfortunately never implemented, was to have top
scientists inducted as Cabinet Ministers.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was a man of some considerable achievement and also,
being a politician, of the odd failure as well. This column has saluted the
achievements; the next one will highlight Shastris one serious failure as
Prime Minister.
And as expected, Pakistani media on Monday termed the meeting between
Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif as a "minor miracle" and noted that the
dialogue held amidst a tense atmosphere yielded "words" but "no action',
reported PTI.

Earlier this year, you may recollect, how Pakistani soldiers indulged in a
barbaric act of beheading the body of two Indian army personnel. The
Central Govt. routinely assured the agitating nation to give a befitting reply
to Pakistani establishment, but cross border infiltration and terrorist attacks
continued regularly posing a serious threat to the national security. In such
moments of crisis, the absence of leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri is felt with
greater intensity by the country.

Yes, today is 109th birth anniversary of countrys second prime minister, Lal
Bahadur Shastri who, for more than anything else, is always remembered not
only for his heroic leadership as far as teaching the real lesson to the then
Pakistani rulers during India- Pakistan war of 1965 is concerned but also for
his extraordinary initiatives to make the country stronger in many respects.

Please see how the modest looking Shastriji roared before 1965 war actually
begun.

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"If Pakistan has any ideas of annexing any part of our territories by force, she
should think afresh. I want to state categorically that force will be met with
force (Hathiyaron ka jawab hathiyaron se denge) and aggression against us
will never be allowed to succeed."

And, India won the war very decisively to the great surprise of all the
countries of the world including the super powers.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on 2nd October, 1904 at Mughalsarai near
Varanasi. His father was a school teacher who died when Lal was only one
year old. He spent his childhood in and around Varanasi. Lal Bahadur joined
Kashi Vidyapeeth and studied philosophy for four years and was awarded the
degree of Shastri in 1926.

Thereafter he actively worked for "The Servants of the People Society", an

organisation which was started by Lala Lajpat Rai. He participated in freedom
movement and was jailed more than once. After the first general election in
1952, he was inducted in union cabinet by Nehru as Minister of Railways and
Transport. He did a lot to improve the facilities for passengers travelling in
lower class and also rationalised the disparity between 1st class and 3rd
class.

Shastriji tendered his resignation as railway minister owning the moral

responsibility of a major train accident. In later years, he handled the
portfolio as minister of Transport and Communications, Minister of Commerce
and Industry, and in 1961 took over charge of Home ministry after the death
of Govind Ballabh Pant. Shastriji proved his calibre and competence during
those trying times of Indo-China war in 1962 by managing the internal
security.

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After the sudden demise of Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the Prime
Minister of the country. The time was very critical as the country was facing
all kinds of challenges including shortage of food. But, as a man of strong
will, dedication, commitment and integrity, he rose to the occasion like a true
statesman and made us proud by addressing major issues of the country.
Acknowledging and complementing the vital role of farmers and soldiers of
the country, he coined the famous slogan JAI JAWAN, JAI KISAN.

His views on some of the important issues as enumerated below give us the
opportunity to know and appreciate his perspective and his action oriented
personality:
Governance

"The basic idea of governance, as I see it, is to hold the society together so
that it can develop and march towards certain goals. The task of the
Government is to facilitate this evolution, this progress. It must provide
proper conditions and a proper climate for this purpose. While governing, the
administrator must, therefore, keep certain trends in view. He should be
aware of the policies which he has to implement and of the methods which
are open to him for their implementation. He should know what the
Government wants and at the same time be attuned to the needs of the
people".

Development

"The economic issues are most vital for us and it is of the highest importance
that we should fight our biggest enemies Poverty, unemployment. Whether
it is agriculture or industrial development, or for that matter, development in
other fields, the basic fact remains that it would serve the largest number
of our people".

148

National Integration

"In this vast country of ours, people profess different religions, speak
different languages, dress differently and observe different customs; but we
are one nation; the history of our struggle for independence and our faith in
our future development are our common bonds".

"Among the major tasks before us none is of greater importance for our
strength and stability than the task of building up the unity and solidarity of
our people. Our country has often stood as a solid rock in the face of
common danger and there is a deep underlying unity which runs like a
golden thread through all our seeming diversity

Truly, if you combine determination, dedication, simplicity, honesty, integrity,

sincerity, austerity and nationality, you get a short heighted, but one of the
tallest leaders named Lal Bahadur Shastri. India is in dire need to have at
least one at this very trying time.
"I am just an ordinary man and not a very bright man."

On October 2nd, 1904 at Mughalsarai, seven miles from Kashi a little baby
boy was born to Sharada Prasad and Ramdulari Devi. They named him Lal
Bahadur Shastri.

Lal Bahadur's parents were agriculturists. Initially his father was a poor
teacher who did not earn much by way of income. Then he became a clerk in
the Revenue Office at Allahabad. Here, too, he earned very little. But, even
though he was poor, he never accepted bribes. He always lived a life of
honesty and integrity.

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When Lal Bahadur was only three months his Mother went to bathe in the
Ganga carrying him along. In the milling crowd at the bathing ghat she lost
the child. He had slipped from his mother's arms into a cowherd's basket.
The cowherd had no children, and he took baby Lal Bahadur to be a gift from
God and celebrated the event with great joy.

But his mother Ramdulari Devi was lost in grief. A complaint was lodged with
the police and they traced the child. The foster parents wept bitterly when
they had to give back the child.

Later in life, there was always a hilarious account of this incident where he
was teased "Lal Bahadur, who was destined to govern the country, narrowly
missed the 'good fortune' of becoming a cowherd".

But things were not happy for long. Tragedy struck the family when baby Lal
was just a year old. His father Sharada Prasad died. Ramdulari Devi was so
divested that she felt as though the skies had come down on her.

But luckily her father, Hazari Lal agreed to give her shelter. At that time she
had two more little girls apart from Lal Bahadur.

Lal Bahadur's grandfather Hazari Lal's family was very large. His brothers,
their wives and children, besides his own children and grand children, lived
under the same roof. It was a small world in itself and Hazari lal was the
fountain of love and affection to all of them. But he was especially fond of
little Lal Bahadur. He always affectionately called him 'Nanhe' which meant
'tiny'.

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Once when he was six years old, he went to an orchard with his friends. He
was standing below while his friends were climbing the trees. Lal Bahadur
plucked a flower from a bush in the garden.

The gardener came in the meantime and saw Lal Bahadur with the flower.
The boys on the trees climbed down and quickly ran away. But Lal Bahadur
was stunned and stood still. The gardener caught Lal Bahadur and beat him
severely.

Lal Bahadur wept and said, "I am an orphan. Please do not beat me."

The gardener smiled with pity and said, "Because you are an orphan, you
must learn better behavior, my boy.

The words of the gardener had a great effect on him. He swore to himself, "I
shall behave better in future. Because I am an orphan I must learn good
behavior."

Lal Bahadur stayed at his grandfather's house till he was ten. By that time he
had passed the sixth standard examination. There was no high school in that
place and since little Lal loved to study, his grandfather sent him to Kashi for
further education.

Courage and self-respect were two virtues, which took deep root in him from
his childhood. While in Kashi, he went with his friends to see a fair on the
other bank of the Ganga. On the way back he had no money for the boat
fare. His self-respect did not allow him to ask his friends for money. He
slipped from their company without their knowledge. His friends forgot him in
their talk and boarded the boat. When the boat had moved away, LaL
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Bahadur jumped into river and as his friends watched breathlessly, he swam
to the other bank safely.

Even as a boy Lal, loved to read books. He read whatever books he came
across, whether he understood them or not. He was fond of Guru Nanak's
verses.

He used to repeat the following lines often:

"0 Nanak! Be tiny like grass; for other plants will whither away, but grass will
remain ever green."

Though he was short for his age he was not timid. All boys were friendly with
him. Like the grass he always looked fresh and smiling. Not only during his
school days but also in his later life he never did hate anyone.

He also loved acting in school plays. He played the role of Kripacharya in the
play 'Mahabharatha' and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

When Lal Bahadur was a student of Harischandra High School at Varanasi,

the freedom struggle was on full swing. Everywhere there was the cry of
'Freedom'!

"Swaraj is our birth right" - Bal Gangadhar Tilak had declared. This had
become the nation's battle cry. Little Lal Bahadur revered Tilak.

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But the greatest influence on Lal Bahadur was that of Mahatma Gandhi. Lal
Bahadur was electrified when he heard a speech of Gandhi at Varanasi. Then
and there he decided to dedicate his life to the service of the country.

Mahatma Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement against the

British Government and declared that the country would not cooperate with
the Government in its unjust rule. Lal Bahadur was only seventeen years old
when Mahatma Gandhi gave a call to the youth to come out of Government
schools and colleges, offices and courts and to sacrifice everything for the
sake of freedom. Lal Bahadur was deeply moved and he left school to join
the freedom movement.

His mother and other relatives pleaded, "Nanhe, please don't give up your
studies."

But Lal Bahadur was firm in his decision. He did not go back to his school. He
became a student of Kashi Vidya Peeth. During his four years' stay there, he
made excellent progress. When he turned 22, he got the degree of 'Shastri'
and left the Kashi Vidya Peeth.

When Lal Bahadur was 23 years old he married Lalitha Devi, who hailed from
Mirzalyur. The wedding was celebrated in the simplest of ways. All that the
bridegroom took as a gift from his father-in-law was a charaka and a few
yards of Khadi!

Three years later, Mahatma Gandhi started the'' Salt Satyagraha'. Lal
Bahadur took a leading role in it i grid called on people not to pay land
revenue and taxes the government. On this account he was sent to prison for
two and a half years.

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From that time onwards, prison became his second home. He was sent to
prison seven times and was forced to spend nine long years in various
prisons different occasions.

He considered going to prison as a blessing if disguise. He had time to read a

number of good book% He became familiar with the works of western
philosophers, revolutionaries and social reformers. He translated the
autobiography of Madam Curie (a French scientist who discovered radium)
into Hindi.

Lal Bahadur's virtues shone even in the prison. He was an ideal prisoner. He
was a model to others in discipline and restraint. Many political prisoners
used to quarrel among themselves and they used to cringe for small favors
before the officials of the prison. But Lal Bahadur used to give up his
comforts for others.

Once when he was in prison, one of his daughters fell seriously ill. The
officers agreed to let him visit his daughter saying, We will let you out for a
short time but on the condition that you should give in writing that you will
not take part in the freedom movement during this period."

Lal Bahadur did not wish to participate in the freedom movement during his
temporary release from prison; but he replied, "I will not give it in writing.
But I shall not take part and I will return".

The officers knew that he was truthful and therefore they did not insist on a
written agreement. Lal Bahadur was released for fifteen days.

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But sadly his daughter died before he reached home. After performing the
final rites he returned to prison even before the expiry of the period.

He passed a year in the prison when news came to him that his son was laid
up with influenza. Lal Bahadur was permitted unconditionally to go home for
a week. But the fever did not come down in a week's time. Lal Bahadur got
ready to go back to prison. The boy pleaded dumbly with his tearful eyes.

In a weak voice he urged, "Father, please stay..." For a moment Lal Bahadur's
mind was shaken. Tears rolled down from his eyes. But the next moment his
decision was made. He bade good-bye to all and left his home for prison.
Luckily his son survived.

Thus, he brushed aside all thoughts of personal happiness and plunged into
the freedom struggle. His daughter's death, his son's illness, and poverty none of these made him swerve from his selected path.

Finally India got her freedom in 1947 when Lal Bahadur was 43. When
Govind Vallabh Pant became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Lal Bahadur
was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Pant.

Pant praised him and said, "I have never seen a more likable, hard-working,
devoted, trustworthy and a non-controversial man."

Later, in 1947, Lal Bahadur became the Minister f Police and Transport in
Pant's Ministry. He took many steps to bring discipline into the
administration. As a transport minister he subjected government buses to
discipline. He was the first to appoint women conductors.

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Also, Lal Bahadur never allowed the police to resort to lathi charge and firing.
He ordered them to use jets of water instead of lathis to disperse unruly
crowds. Though there were many strikes in Uttar Pradesh when he was in
office, there was not a single occasion when people shouted slogans against
him.

Lal Bahadur was also a lover of cricket. Once, when he was watching a match
at Kanpur, trouble broke out between the spectators and the Police. The
young men came to blows. Since Lal Bahadur was on the spot, the situation
did not go out of control.

The young men demanded," The red turbans (the police) should not be found
on the cricket ground tomorrow."

Lal Bahadur agreed to their wishes, but the police were there the next day.
The young men became angry with Shastri and protested.

Lal Bahadur laughed and said, "I fulfilled my promise to you faithfully. You did
not want red turbans to be here. You see the police are now wearing khaki
turbans." The spectators laughed and dropped the matter.

After India became a Republic, he was appointed as the Railways and

Transport Minister in the Central Cabinet.

The railways in the country had ben badly disrupted after the division of the
country. Lal Bahadur strove hard to set right and regulate the railways. There
were four classes- first, second, intermediate and third in the railways then.
First class compartments offered extreme luxury and were considered

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heavenly. But the discomfort of passengers in the third class compartments

was beyond description. They did not have even minimum comforts.

Lal Bahadur made efforts to reduce the vast disparity between the first and
the last classes. The first class that offered royal comfort was abolished. The
old second came to be known as the first class and the intermediate class as
the second class. His idea was to have only two classes of compartments in
course of time - the first and the second. It was he who provided more
facilities to travellers in third class compartments that exists till date.

Lal Bahadur identified himself with the Railways so much that he felt he was
responsible if anything went wrong in his department. When he was the
Railway Minister, 144 passengers died in an accident that took place near
Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Just three months before this, an accident had
occurred at Mehboob Nagar in which 112 people died.

Lal Bahadur though was in no way responsible for these accidents, was very
much pained. He felt he could not escape the moral responsibility for them.
When the Mehboob Nagar accident took place, he submitted his resignation
letter to Pandit Nehru, who was the prime minister then. But Nehru did not
accept it.

But when the Ariyalur accident took place Shastri said, '"I must do penance
for this. Let me go." So strong was his sense of responsibility that he did not
care if he was losing a prestigious post.

He went on to become the Home Minister in 1961.

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People used to call him the "homeless" Home Minister because he did not
have a house of his own. He had rented a small house in Allahabad where he
used to stay whenever he went to the city. But the owner of the house soon
let it out to another family. When Shastri resigned as minister he vacated the
government quarters and for some time he did not have a place to live in!

Then out of the blue, Nehru, the country's prime minister died on May 27,
1964. And the very next day the only question that echoed from Kashmir to
Kanyakumari was After Nehru, who?'

Finally all the leaders came to the decision that Lal Bahadur Shastri was the
only person responsible enough to pilot the nation. Thus he was elected the
Prime Minister of India, when he was 60 years of age.

The first problem that he had to face after he became the Prime Minister was
one caused by Pakistan. Pakistan started to create trouble along the Indian
border in order to capture Kashmir for itself.

Though he was physically weak, Shastri faced the 90 Great Lives - Leaders of
People problems confronting the nation boldly and wisely. He first tried to
earn the goodwill and support of other nations for India. He visited Russia,
Egypt, Canada and Britain and explalned to the leaders of those nations,
India's stand against Pakistan. He even tried to reason with President Ayub
Khan of Pakistan to settle down in peace. His efforts did pay off when both
countries agreed to stop fighting.

When Lal Bahadur was praised for his worthy efforts he just replied, "I am
just an ordinary man and not a very bright man."

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But Pakistan did not remain quiet for long. The Pakistani soldiers entered
Kashmir in disguise and were engaged in forcibly occupying areas, which
belonged to India. An enraged Lal Bahadur gave full freedom to the
Commander of the Army to go forth in war, "Go forward and strike. Force will
be met with force. It does not matter if we are destroyed. We will fight to the
last to maintain the high honour of the Indian nation and its flag."

The army and the air force functioned like the two arms of a single body
under Shastri's guidance and fought the war heroically. The invaders were
beaten. The U.N called on Lal Bahadur and Ayub Khan to sign a treaty of
friendship.

During the period of the Pakistan war and the following days, Shastri's body
was thoroughly battered by the heavy strain both mentally and physically. He
signed the joint Declaration on 10th January 1966.

Sadly, on the very same night he suffered a severe heart attack and died
instantly.

After his death the President of India conferred on him, on behalf of the
nation, the award of 'Bharat Ratna'.

And so was gone the tiny, tidy figure. A soul that had lived in perfect purity
of thought, word and deed. He never sought power. He never worked for it.
And yet power and authority came in search of him. Fame set a crown on his
head. The short man grew into a colossus and a leader who filled the Four
Corners of the world with the fame of India.
Hungarian airmail stamp on Lal Bahadur Shastri

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Hungarian airmail stamps with face value of 5 forints, published in 1955,

caused a considerable stir among philatelists. Mark dedicated to the 20 th
anniversary of the aluminum industry in Hungary, in connection with which it
was printed on specially manufactured thin aluminum foil. This idea has
subsequently been used in other countries. Aluminum is not, however, the
only non-typical material used for printing stamps. In Poland, on the occasion
of 400 anniversary of the Polish Post was released a special unit, printed on
fine silk. Overseas taken more and more attempts to expand the range of
materials for the printing of stamps, but most stamp collectors are not very
sympathetic consideration to such diversions.

In early 1966 took the Tashkent conference of Indian and Pakistan with the
President of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Comrade. Kosygin. The aim
of the conference was the establishment of mutual understanding between
India and Pakistan, what mediated conference organizer the Soviet Union.
The conference ended with complete success. The Indian delegation was led
by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who died of a heart attack on Jan. 10,
1966 in Tashkent. In memory of this Indian statesman, a close ally of
Jawaharlal Nehru, the Hungarian Post released a stamp with his portrait.

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Postage stamps of Hungary for many years are of great interest among
collectors, especially the younger generation. Stamps of this country are
characterized, as a rule, an attractive theme, unpretentious but effective
graphics and careful printing, often in bright colors. Some philatelists accuse
the Hungarian-mail that almost every series she released simultaneously in
tooth and bezzubtsovom variants, which complicates their collection. In
general, however, the Hungarian stamps occupy many prominent collections.
Therefore, they should pay a little attention.

4.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DIFFERENT IMAGES:

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THANK YOU

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