Lal Bahadur Shastri was a politician and statesman from India who served as the country’s second Prime Minister.
Early Life
Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1904, in Mughalsarai, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India (now Uttar Pradesh). Lal Bahadur Shastri’s father was Sharada Prasad Srivastava, who was a school teacher before becoming a clerk in the revenue office at Allahabad. His mother was Ramdulari Devi. He was the second child. to He had an elder sister Kailashi Devi and a younger sister Sundari Devi.
When Lal Bahadur Shastri was six months old, his father died in an epidemic of bubonic plague. Lal Bahadur Shastri and his sisters grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather Munshi Hazari Lal after his father died. Shastri started his education at the East Central Railway Inter college in Mughalsarai at the age of four, under the tutelage of a maulvi, Budhan Mian. He was a student there until the sixth grade.
Shastri began seventh grade at Harish Chandra High School in Varanasi.
Family
Shastri married Lalita Devi, a Mirzapur native, on May 16, 1928. Kusum Shastri, Hari Krishna Shastri, Suman Shastri, Anil Shastri, Sunil Shastri, and Ashok Shastri were the couple’s four sons and two daughters.
The entire Shastri family continues to participate in social initiatives and is actively involved in shaping relevant forums in India to aid in the country’s growth and advancement.
Independence Activism
Shastri became interested in the freedom movement after being inspired by a patriotic and well-respected teacher named Nishkameshwar Prasad Mishra at Harish Chandra High School. He started to research its history and the works of many notable figures, including Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, and Annie Besant.
He attended a public meeting in Banaras organised by Gandhi and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in January 1921, when he was in the tenth grade. Shastri withdrew from Harish Chandra High School the next day, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s call for students to withdraw from government schools and join the non-cooperation movement. He joined the local branch of the Congress Party as a volunteer, actively engaging in picketing and anti-government demonstrations.
He was quickly apprehended and imprisoned but was later released because he was still a minor. J.B. Kripalani, a former Banaras Hindu University professor who went on to become one of the most influential figures of the Indian independence movement and one of Gandhi’s closest followers, was Lal Bahadur Shastri’s immediate supervisor.
On 10 February 1921, recognising the need for younger volunteers to continue their education, Kripalani and a friend, V.N. Sharma, established an informal school centred on nationalist education to educate the young activists in their nation’s heritage, and the Kashi Vidyapith was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in Banaras.
Shastri was one of the first students to graduate from the Vidyapith with a first-class degree in philosophy and ethics in 1925. The title “Shastri” (Scholar) was bestowed upon him, which was a bachelor’s degree from the university, and later it became part of his identity.
He became a member of Lala Lajpat Rai’s Servants of the People Society (Lok Sevak Mandal) and started working for the betterment of the Harijans in Muzaffarpur under Gandhi’s leadership. He later became the Society’s President.
At Mahatma Gandhi’s request, Shastri joined the Indian National Congress as an active and mature member in 1928. He spent two and a half years in jail. Later, in 1937, he served as the Organising Secretary of the U.P. Parliamentary Board. He was imprisoned for a year in 1940 for providing individual Satyagraha support to the independence movement.
At Gowalia Tank in Bombay on August 8, 1942, Mahatma Gandhi delivered the Quit India address, demanding that the British leave India. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who had just been released from prison after a year, travelled to Allahabad.
In 1937 and 1946, he was elected to the United Provinces legislature.
Political Career
After India’s independence, Lal Bahadur Shastri was named Parliamentary Secretary in his home state of Uttar Pradesh. Following Rafi Ahmed Kidwai’s departure to become a minister at the centre, he became the Minister of Police and Transport under Govind Ballabh Pant’s Chief Ministership on 15 August 1947. He was the first to name female conductors as Transport Minister.
As the minister in charge of the Police Department, he requested that unruly crowds be dispersed using water jets, which he instructed officers to use instead of lathis. During his time as police minister, he was instrumental in putting an end to communal riots in 1947, as well as mass migration and refugee resettlement.
With Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister, Shastri was appointed General Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee in 1951. He was in charge of the candidate selection process and the direction of advertising and electioneering efforts. He was a key figure in the Congress Party’s landslide victories in the Indian general elections of 1952, 1957, and 1962.
In 1952, he ran for the Uttar Pradesh Vidhansabha and won the Soraon North cum Phulpur West seat with over 69% of the votes. On May 13, 1952, Shastri was appointed Minister of Railways and Transport in the First Cabinet of the Republic of India. In 1959, he was appointed Minister of Commerce and Industry, and in 1961, he was appointed the Minister of Home Affairs.
As a minister without a portfolio, Shastri laid a foundation for Mangalore Port in 1964.
When Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on 27 May 1964. Lal Bahadur Shastri was elected as the second Prime Minister of India on 9 June.
During Lal Bahadur Shastri’s time as Prime Minister, the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 took place. Under the Official Languages Act of 1963, it was proposed that Hindi would be the primary official language. To defuse the crisis, Shastri promised that English would remain the official language as long as the non-Hindi-speaking states wanted it. After Shastri’s assurance, the riots and student unrest subsided.
Shastri used central planning to carry on Nehru’s socialist economic policies. He supported the Amul milk cooperative in Anand, Gujarat, and founded the National Dairy Development Board to promote the White Revolution, a national movement to increase milk production and supply. On October 31, 1964, he came to Anand to inaugurate the Amul Cattle Feed Factory at Kanjari.
Shastri maintained Nehru’s non-alignment policy while strengthening relations with the Soviet Union. Shastri’s government agreed to increase the country’s defence budget following the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the establishment of military relations between China and Pakistan.
Shastri and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike signed an agreement Sirima-Shastri Pact or Bandaranaike-Shastri Pact, in 1964 about the status of Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka, which was then known as Ceylon.
Shastri’s crowning achievement came in 1965 when he led India in the Indo-Pak War. The Pakistani army clashed with Indian forces in August 1965, claiming half of the Kutch peninsula. During this time, Shastri used the popular slogan “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” to encourage soldiers to protect India while encouraging farmers to increase food grain production and reduce reliance on imports. The Indo-Pak war ended on September 23, 1965, when the United Nations ordered a ceasefire. Following the declaration of a cease-fire with Pakistan in 1965, Shastri and Pakistani President Mohammed Ayub Khan met in Tashkent for a summit arranged by Alexei Kosygin. Shastri and Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration on January 10, 1966. Shastri travelled to many countries during his time as Prime Minister, including the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, England, Canada, Nepal, Egypt, and Burma.
Lal Bahadur Shastri’s Death
Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death date was 11 January 1966. He died in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, one day after signing a peace treaty ending the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. He was hailed as a national hero, and the Vijay Ghat memorial was named after him.