STORY OF LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI
This particular
episode deals the afterward story of the country’s first prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru’s demise and in special reference to Lal Bahadur Shastri. It
was few moments before two o’clock of 27th May 1964 when Nehru
breathed his last. It was like an end of a generation. Question was trickling
in every Indians’ mind that who will be the next person after Nehru? And it was
very essential at that point of time to find the right person who will be
leading the nation with equal temperament and quality leadership for upholding
the dignity, integrity and sovereignty of the country. So it was an evident
question that who after Nehru? After two hours of demise of Nehru, IK
Guljarilal Nanda was appointed as the caretaker prime minister of India. It was
only for a temporary period because a government cannot be on power without a
supreme authority. But the question was who will be the permanent option for
the post of prime minister after Nehru? One person was aware of the answer; he
was K Kamraj the chairman of Congress party. He was a known person throughout
the country because of his extraordinary work just before one year. He himself
resigned from the chief minister post of Madras and after him six cabinet ministers
and few chief ministers of some states left their posts to work for the party.
This plan is known as Kamraj Plan. He was in deep stress that he had to choose
one candidate to whom all will be accepting him/her as the leader. Another
problem before Kamraj was how to choose the next leader of the nation without
any internal conflict. People were regularly asking question to Kamraj that who
will be the next PM? But he was saying that everything will happen after the
funeral work of Nehru. During that point of time Morarji Desai was one of the
leading congress leaders cum politician and most importantly he was serving the
nation as the finance minister during the prime ministership of Nehru. When
Gujarat and Maharashtra was happening to be one state, he was once the chief
minister as well. People were also thinking about Lal Bhadur Shastri as the
Legal hire of Nehru from the day he joined Nehru’s cabinet minister without
portfolio. There were another two names which also came to the public sphere
that were Jayaprakash Narayan and Indira Gandhi. And these two names were also recommended
by Lal Bahadur Shastri as well and One of the eminent journalist of all time in
India named by Kuldip Nayar also went to Morarji Desai with these two names to
know his opinion about the proposed names, because Lal Bahadur wanted no
conflict within the party itself but Morarji Desai was not in favour of any of
the proposed names. He wanted himself to be the next prime minister of India
after Nehru. His past records and approach was going against of him and even
Kamraj and his syndicate were against of Morarji Desai. Kamraj has already
decided that Morarji Desai will not be the next prime minister after Nehru
before a long ago, when he went to Tirupati in 1963 to have a meeting with all
other non-Hindi speaking congress leaders and that group I known as syndicate.
So the selection of next prime minister of India was a tough task for Kamraj
because there were few congress leaders who were against of Kamraj and his
syndicate and it was clear on the date 30th May 1964. Morarji Desai
wanted the Parliamentary committee should decide the next prime minister’s name
but Kamraj didn’t want that he was taking the opinion of the congress leaders
and politician from every corner of the nation for selecting the next prime
minister. And most of the leaders of the congress party wanted Lal Bahadur
Shastri as the next prime minister instead of Morarji Desai. And till that
period India was under the purview of the care taker prime minister. Finally,
on 1st June 1964 Kamraj went to the residence of Morarji Desai to
make him aware about the notions other congress leaders throughout the country.
Kamraj didn’t want the voting system because according to that it will affect
the image of Congress party. And finally the time came when Kamraj declared the
name of Lal Bhadur Shastri as the next prime minister of India. With this win
of Lal Bahadur Shastri it was regarded as the true win of democracy in India.
Because he was from a very poor family and his career was full of struggle. And
he came from such precarious condition that once there was no money at his home
and due to that situation he lost his daughter. And even after becoming the
prime minister he had to purchase a car and for that he had to went to bank for
loan. Officially on 2nd June 1964 Lal Bahadur Shatri was elected by
the congress leaders and the nation got its second prime minister. But Kamraj
kept congress party’s interest over prime minister and as a result prime
minister cannot take any big decision without taking the consent of the
congress party. People treated Lal Bahadur Shastri as a weak prime minister
because he did not have the capabilities like Nehru. Few congress leaders also
show low respect to Lal Bahadur Sastri as he didn’t have the hardness like
Nehru. And one of the important events in relation Teennmurti Bhawan was that
few people demanded to make that Teenmurti Bhawan as Nehur’s memorial. Before
Shastri to take any decision on that demand Indira Gandhi sent a letter to
Shastri and in that letter Indira Gandhi mentioned that Shastri to take quick
decision on that Teenmurti issue. And which shocked Shastriji a lot. Shasrti
also prior to that event, he also placed Indira Gandhi as the information and
broadcasting minister. And few days after that letter another letter came in
the name of Shastri that was from Nehru’s sister KM Singh and she also
mentioned about that Teenmurti issue as well. And after reading that letter
Shastri got angry and he decided not to go Teenmurti bhawan anymore. That
showed the differences how Shastri was different from Nehru, because he was
quite disturbed with the Teenmurti issue. And the opposition took advantage
from that situation by imposing No-confidence motion against Shastri’s
government. But the thing was he was always ready for the discussion and he
tried to overcome his lacunas. He was very much spontaneous in his approach.
But in the year 1964-65 nation faced a huge shortage of food and crops due to
drought. So Shastri called up a new dialogue to the masses of the nation that
was one-day starvation in a week. Most importantly he went for starting a
kithchen garden in the lawn of pradhanmantri bhawan. He was about to go through
another big issue that in 1965 Pakistan attacked the Indian camps at Kachh of
Gujrat. And there was no boarder issue in relation to that area. And in
reference to Kachh thing due to international pressure India had to loose it’s
75 square feet soil to Pakistan. And Shastri had to face many critics for that.
Even Bijaya Laxmi Pandit was also criticising Shastri for that loss of India as
well. She alleged that Shastri is failing short of taking decision. After three
years to the India- China war, yet again India was moving forward for another
war with Pakistan. Pakistan was thinking to capture Kashmir at this time
because for them that was the golden opportunity. They were thinking that after
the war with China India army is quite weak in front of them. And at last on 1st
September 1965 Pakistan army fired the Chhamb area of Kashmir and the operation
was named by Operation Grand Slam. And Indian soldiers were not able to face
the attacks of Pakistan at Chhamb. So it was the time for Shastri to take a big
decision. The decision was his cabinet took the big decision that to stop
Pakistan tanker we need to attack from the sky with active help of Indian Air
Force. That helped Indian army to take stand at Chhamb and the situation at there
was getting more dangerous. Then Shastri took one such decision which changed
the pages of the History, that was he ordered the army to forward the front at
both Rajasthan and Punjab boarder and go forward. That decision changed the
angle of the war, a huge war went on from 7th to 20th
September at Sialkot. The situation was India was marching towards Lahore and
it could have captured Sialkot at any moment. But after the interference of UNO
both countries went for ceasefire on 23rd of September. Under the
leadership of Shastri India could captured 700 square feet of Pakistan’s land
and the most important achievement was that capturing Lahore was a matter of
some minute for Indian army. Then people of India realised that we have got a
leader who can take the country away from any issue. People were welcoming
Shastri everywhere. And on 21st October 1964 in Allahabad he announced
a big dialogue and that became one of most popular of all time and it was “JAI
JAWAN JAI KISAAN” by dedicating to all the soldiers and farmers of India. The
reason was to put the spirit of motivation among the people to bet involved in
work and for the safety and security of the nation. The war got stopped and
then Shastri moved his attention towards his own cabinet, where he found two
people who were very much against of him, one was TT Krishnamachari the finance
minister of that time and the other one was Indira Gandhi the minister for
information and broadcasting. One issue was that people claimed that TT
Krishnamachari had accepted bribe and he is a corrupted minister, so Shastri
went to talk over these allegations with TT Krishnamachari. And he said
Krishanmachari that we should go for an investigation, so that things will get
clear and people will get their answers as well. Then TT Krishnamachari
resigned from the post of finance minister. Everything was going in favour of
Shastri, but during that point of time one invitation came from Russia that
Shastri had to go Tashkent. Russia called both India and Pakistan for peace
talk and the date was 4th January 1966. The meeting went on from 4th
January to 10th January under the active presence of leader of
Russia. But finally it was an unfruitful meeting for India because both the
leader of the countries was not willing to accept each of their point. Finally,
it was decided that no country will not interfere in the internal matters of
the other country. India and Pakistan will not use force against each of them.
And both the counties will go for peaceful solution of the issues among each
other. At last it was decided that both the country will back to their normal
stand. And after that meeting a party was held and after taking food Shastri
went to take rest. But on 11th January 1966 Lal Bahadur Shastri left
his last breath in Tashkent. People got stunned and disturbed after getting
that news. After the meeting of Tashkent nation got the dead body of its second
prime minister. No post-mortem was done of Shatri’s Dead body and what was the
real reason behind his demise was a matter of confusion even today. With his
sad and sudden demise yet again the history of India got a new leaf. Shastri
could last only for 18 months but he rendered many things to the country and
one of the most pivotal things were the spirit and motivation which he could able
to ignited in the minds of the Indian masses, even today people are getting
profit out of that.
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