Lal Bahadur Shastri
Lal Bahadur Shastri (pronounced [lɑːl bəˈhɑːd̪ʊɾ ˈʃɑːst̪ɾi] ; born Lal Bahadur Srivastava; 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the second prime minister of India from 1964 to 1966. He previously served as the sixth home minister of India from 1961 to 1963.
For the 2014 comedy film, see Lal Bahadur Shastri (film).
Lal Bahadur Shastri
himself
2 October 1904
Mughalsarai, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India
(present-day Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India)
11 January 1966 (aged 61)
Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union
(present-day Uzbekistan)
6; including Anil Shastri, Hari Krishna Shastri and Sunil Shastri
Bharat Ratna (1966; posthumous)
Nanhe
Shastri was born to Sharad Prasad Srivastava and Ramdulari Devi in Mughalsarai on 2 October 1904. He studied in East Central Railway Inter college and Harish Chandra High School, which he left to join the non-cooperation movement. He worked for the betterment of the Harijans at Muzaffarpur and dropped his caste-derived surname of "Srivastava". Shastri's thoughts were influenced by reading about Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant. Deeply impressed and influenced by Gandhi, he joined the Indian Independence movement in the 1920s. He served as the president of Servants of the People Society (Lok Sevak Mandal), founded by Lala Lajpat Rai and held prominent positions in the Indian National Congress. Following independence in 1947, he joined the Indian government and became one of Prime Minister Nehru's key cabinet colleagues, first as Railways Minister (1951–56), and then in numerous other prominent positions, including the Home Minister.
As prime minister, Shastri promoted the White Revolution – a national campaign to increase the production and supply of milk – by supporting the Amul milk co-operative of Anand, Gujarat and creating the National Dairy Development Board. Underlining the need to boost India's food production, Shastri also promoted the Green Revolution in India in 1965. This led to an increase in food grain production, especially in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. He led the country during the Second India–Pakistan War. His slogan "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" ("Hail to the soldier; Hail to the farmer") became very popular during the war. The war formally ended with the Tashkent Declaration on 10 January 1966; Shastri died the next day.
Early years (1904–1920)[edit]
Shastri was born on 2 October 1904 at the home of his maternal grandparents in a North-Indian Kayastha Hindu family.[1] Shastri's paternal ancestors were in the service of the zamindar of Ramnagar near Banaras, and Shastri lived there for the first year of his life. Shastri's father, Sharad Prasad Srivastava, was a school teacher who later became a clerk in the revenue office at Prayagraj, 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).[2][3]
In April 1906, when Shastri was hardly 18 months old, his father, who had only recently been promoted to the post of deputy tahsildar, died in an epidemic of bubonic plague. Ramdulari Devi, then only 23 years old and pregnant with her third child, took her two children and moved from Ramnagar to her father's house in Mughalsarai and settled there for good. She gave birth to a daughter, Sundari Devi, in July 1906.[4][5] Thus, Shastri and his sisters grew up in the household of his maternal grandfather, Hazari Lalji.[6] However, Hazari Lalji himself died from a stroke in mid-1908. Thereafter, the family was 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.[7]
This situation was fairly standard for the time, where the Indian Joint family system was a thriving reality; the sense of family relationship and responsibility it fostered was the primary social security of the time. Nor should it be surmised from these circumstances that Shastri grew up in an under-privileged manner, or that his education and comforts were compromised. On the contrary, since he was a rank student, he received a better education than some of his cousins.[8] Bindeshwari Prasad, on the limited salary of a school teacher, with many dependents, nevertheless managed to give a good education to all the children in his care.
In 1917, Bindeshwari Prasad 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.
Political Career (1947–1964)[edit]
State minister[edit]
Following India's independence, Shastri was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home state, Uttar Pradesh.[24] 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 a minister at the 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 water jets, whose instructions was given by him, instead of lathis to disperse unruly crowds.[25] 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.[26]
Family and personal life[edit]
Shastri was 5 ft 2 inches tall[51] and always used to wear a dhoti. The only occasion on which he wore pyjamas was a dinner in honor of the Queen of the United Kingdom in 1961 in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.[52] On 16 May 1928, Shastri married Lalita Devi who was from Mirzapur.[53] The couple had four sons and two daughters. Hari Krishna Shastri is the eldest son; The eldest daughter is Kusum Shastri. Suman Shastri is the next eldest, whose son, Siddharth Nath Singh is a spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Minister of Health, Government of Uttar Pradesh. Anil Shastri is the youngest and is a member of his father's Congress Party; his son Adarsh Shastri gave up his corporate career with Apple Inc to contest the General elections of 2014 from Prayagraj on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket.[54] He lost that election but was elected in 2015 as a member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly.[55][56] Sunil Shastri who is a member of the Indian National Congress and Ashok Shastri, the youngest son who worked in the corporate world before his death at the age of 37,[57] his wife Neera Shastri was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party national executive.[58] Other members of the family, have also been involved in the corporate and social life of India.
In popular culture[edit]
Shastri's life and death, in particular, have been a subject of Indian popular culture. Homage to Lal Bahadur Shastri is a 1967 short documentary film directed by S. Sukhdev and produced by the Films Division of India which pays tribute to the former prime minister.[96] Apne Shastri Ji (1986) was also made as a homage to him.[97]
Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language biographical drama film by Milan Ajmera, titled after the popular slogan by Shastri it portrays his entire life from birth to death where he is portrayed by Akhilesh Jain. Lal Bahadur Shastri's Death, a 2018 television documentary film by Jyoti Kapur Das reconstructs his death and covers various conspiracy theories around it, including interviews with his son Sunil Shastri.[98] A film titled The Tashkent Files (2019), directed by Vivek Agnihotri revolves around the mystery of the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri.[99]
Pradhanmantri (lit. 'Prime Minister'), a 2013 Indian documentary television series which aired on ABP News and covers the various policies and political tenures of Indian PMs, dedicated the entire seventh episode "Lal Bahadur Shastri" to his term as the country's leader with Akhil Mishra in the role of Shastri.[100]
The 1967 Bollywood film Upkar by Manoj Kumar, which is based on the 1965 war, was dedicated to Shastri.[101] It also eulogised him in the song Mere Desh Ki Dharti when the hero exclaims, Rang Lal hai Lal Bahadur se.[102] Lal Bahadur Shastri, a 2014 Indian Malayalam-language comedy film by Rejishh Midhila is titled after the prime minister but has no apparent connection with his life.[103]