Biography Of "Lal Bahadur Shastri"

Birth and Early Life

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born in 1904 in Mughalsarai (Uttar Pradesh) to Munshi Sharda Prasad Srivastava. His father was a teacher in primary school: all called him Munshi. Later, he joined the Revenue Department as a clerk. Lal Bahadur's mother's name was Ramdulari. Due to being the youngest in the family, the boys used to call Lal Bahadur as little in love with the family. Unfortunately the father passed away when he was eighteen months old. Her mother Ramdulari went to her father Hazarilal's house in Mirzapur. After some time, his maternal grandfather is no more. Her father Raghunath Prasad helped her mother very much in raising a child without a father. She received her primary education while living in a nanihal. He was then educated at Harcherndra High School and Kashi Vidyapeeth. After receiving the title of Shastri from Kashi Vidyapeeth, he removed the caste-related term, Srivastava, from birth forever, and put 'Shastri' in front of his name. Its repentant Shastri word became synonymous with the name of Lal Bahadur.

In 1928, he was married to Lalitha, daughter of Ganesh Prasad, a resident of Mirzapur. She had six children from Lalita Shastri, two daughters - Kusum and Suman and four sons - Harikrishna, Anil, Sunil and Ashok. Out of his four sons, Anil-Anil Shastri and Sunil Shastri are still left, the remaining two have been disabled. Anil Shastri is a senior leader of the Congress party, while Sunil Shastri has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Political Life

After finishing his graduation in Sanskrit language, he joined the Bharat Sevak Sangh and started his political life from here, taking a fast of service. Shastriji was a true Gandhian who spent all his life in simplicity and used it to serve the poor. He was actively involved in all the important programs and movements of the Indian freedom struggle and as a result he had to stay in jails many times. Among the movements he played an important role in the freedom struggle, the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921, the Dandi March of 1930 and the Quit India Movement of 1942 are notable.

Seeing England getting badly entangled in the Second World War, as soon as Netaji gave the Azad Hind Fauj the slogan of "Delhi Chalo", Gandhi ji, sensing the exaggeration of the occasion, "Leave India" to the British from Bombay on the night of 8 August 1942. And issued a "Do or Die" order to the Indians and under government protection, Yerwada went to the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. On August 9, 1942, Shastriji reached Allahabad cleverly and shouted the Gandhian slogan of this movement, "Do not die!" And unexpectedly made the claim of revolution fierce in the whole country. After running this movement while remaining underground for eleven days, Shastriji was arrested on 19 August 1942.

 

Shastriji's political guides included Purshottam Das Tandon and Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, besides Jawaharlal Nehru. After first coming to Allahabad in 1929, he started working with Tandonji as Secretary of the Allahabad unit of Bharat Sevak Sangh. His proximity to Nehru grew while staying in Allahabad. After this, Shastriji's stature continued to grow and after successively climbing the steps of success, he rose to the rank of Home Minister in Nehru's cabinet. And not only this, after Nehru's death, he also became the Prime Minister of India.

Shastri JI as Prime Minister

It was because of his clean image that he was made the Prime Minister of the country in 1964. He said in his first press conference that his top priority was to stop food prices from rising and he was successful in doing so. Their activities were purely practical and according to the needs of the public, not theoretical.

 

If seen objectively, the reign of Shastriji was extremely difficult. The capitalists wanted to dominate the country and the enemy countries were in a position to attack us. In 1965, Pakistan suddenly launched airstrikes on India at 7.30 pm. As per tradition, the President called an emergency meeting in which the heads of the three defense organs and members of the Cabinet were involved. Incidentally, the Prime Minister arrived a little late in that meeting. Discussion started as soon as they arrived. The three chiefs, explaining the whole situation to them, asked: "Sir! What is the order?" Shastriji immediately replied in one sentence: "You protect the country and tell me what we have to do?"

 

Shastriji gave the nation superior leadership over Nehru in this war and gave the slogan of Jai Jawan-Jai Kisan. This boosted the morale of the people of India and united the whole country. Pakistan had never imagined this in a dream.

During the Indo-Pak war, on September 9, the 15th infantry unit of India, under the leadership of Major General Prasad, a World War II veteran, stoutly fought a major Pakistani attack on the western side of the Ichogil Canal. The Ichogil Canal was the de facto border of India and Pakistan. In this attack, Major General Prasad's convoy also suffered a fierce attack and had to leave his vehicle and retreat. The Indian Army succeeded in crossing the canal near Barki village by retaliating with double power. This brought the Indian Army within range to attack the Lahore airport. Fearing this unexpected attack, the US appealed for a ceasefire for some time to evacuate its citizens from Lahore.

Eventually Shastriji was stressed by the collusion of Russia and America. He was summoned to Russia under a well-planned conspiracy which he accepted. His wife Lalita Shastri, who always accompanied him, was persuaded to persuade her not to go to Tashkent, the capital of Russia with Shastriji and she agreed. Mrs Lalitha Shastri regretted this mistake till death. When the negotiation of the negotiations went on, Shastriji had the same insistence that he accepts all other conditions but it was not acceptable to return the won land to Pakistan. After a lot of struggle, international pressure was signed on Shastriji and the document of Tashkent agreement was signed. They signed it saying that they are signing it, but this land will be returned only by another Prime Minister, not they. He died on the night of 11 January 1966, a few hours after signing the ceasefire agreement with the President of Pakistan Ayub Khan. To this day it remains a mystery whether Shastriji really died due to a heart attack? Many people consider poison as the reason for his death.

Even today the whole of India remembers Shastriji for his simplicity, patriotism and honesty. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in the year 1966.

Mysterious Death

Facing the invasion of Pakistan, the Indian Army attacked Lahore. Seeing this unexpected invasion, America demanded a ceasefire for some time to evacuate American citizens living in Lahore. The Prime Minister of India was called to Russia's Tashkent Pact after the walk of Russia and America. Shastri ji accepted all the terms of the Tashkent agreement but it was absolutely unacceptable to return the territories won by Pakistan. Under international pressure, Shastri had to sign the Tashkent Agreement but Lal Bahadur Shastri himself refused to return this land during the Prime Minister's tenure. Lal Bahadur Shastri died a few hours after signing a ceasefire with Pakistan Prime Minister Ayub Khan. The then Prime Minister of the country died on the night of 11 January 1966.

He died the same night after signing the Tashkent Agreement. The cause of death was stated to be a heart attack. Shastriji's funeral was done with full state honor in front of Shantivan (Nehru's tomb) on the banks of the Yamuna and the site was named Vijay Ghat. Gulzari Lal Nanda remained the acting Prime Minister until the Congress Parliamentary Party chose Indira Gandhi as the legitimate successor of Shastri.

Various speculations were made about Shastriji's death. Many people, including his family members, believe that Shastriji died not from a heart attack but from poisoning. The first inquiry was conducted by Raj Narayan, which ended up with no results. Interestingly, there is no record of him in the Indian Parliamentary Library today. It was also alleged that Shastriji's post-mortem was also not done. When this question was raised in 2009, it was answered by the Government of India that RN Chugh, private doctor of Shastriji and some doctors of some Russia, together investigated his death but the government has no record of it. Later, when the Prime Minister's Office was asked for this information, he also expressed his helplessness.

The entire conspiracy of possible conspiracy in Shastriji's death was opened by a magazine called Outlook. In 2009, when Anuj Dhar, author of the book CIA's Eye on South Asia (English: CIA's Eye on South Asia), said on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office on the information sought under the Right to Information, "the documents of Shastriji's death are public Doing this can spoil the international relations of our country and as soon as this secret is exposed, there is a lot of uproar in the country besides reaching parliamentary privileges. TI is. It can not be an answer to this question so many reasons. "

The first Karun Katha of Shastriji's death in a Hindi book Lalita Ke Tears published in 1978, was naturally told through his wife Lalita Shastri. At that time (in nineteen seventy-eight) Lalitaji was alive.

Not only this, in another English book published some time ago, writer journalist Kuldeep Nayar, who had gone with Shastriji in Tashkent at that time, has elaborated on this incident cycle. Last year in July 2012, Sunil Shastri, Shastriji's third son, also demanded the removal of the curtain on this secret from the Government of India.