AUM
HONEST POLITICIAN NAMED SHASTRI
JI
By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM
Fortyseven years ago tbe second Prime
Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri breathed his last on 11 Jan 1966 at
Tashkent after signing an agreement to end war with Pakistan fought in 1965.
USSR had sponsored the Truce. Shastri Ji's sad demise was termed as mysterious
by many stalwarts, including his widow, Lalita Shastri and three politician
sons. The Indian Nation has not yet been taken into confidence by the
government of India about the cause of death of our beloved Prime Minister, Lal
Bahadur Shastri Ji.
As I recall his image today, I come
across a great man, a clean politician of international stature and a saintly
person who made no money under the table. Shastri Ji worked for Bharat and
succeeded in making the enemy beat a retreat be it battlefield or economic
affairs. Many men, not forgetting women, who came to mock, stayed to pray; so
disarming style of conversation Shastri Ji had.
JAI JAWAN JAI KISSAN - THAT WAS THE SLOGAN HE GAVE TO
ALL iNDIANS TO TIDE OVER PROBLEMS OF DEFENCE AND FOOD SHORTAGE.
Shastri Ji had galvanized the Indian
nation that stood behind him to fight and defeat the age-old enemy,Pakistan.
Shastri Ji was mocked at in the initial weeks of his Prime Ministership but
praised sky high after he beat Pakistan in the 1965 war.
Shastri Ji led the Indian nation so
well during his tenure of 18 months as Prime Minister that the common man
praised his leadership more than that of Jawaharlal Nehru. No wonder the small
time politicians of the Nehruvian Thought demurred in praising Shastri Ji and
giving him a high status. Shastri Ji’s widow, Lalita Shastri had to threaten
the powers that be with a hunger strike if the late second Prime Minister of
India was not cremated on the banks of Yamuna in the area of cremation of
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Lal Bahadur Shastri had a sense of
humour. He was asked before departure for Tashkent to talk Truce with General
Ayub Khan as to how a chat would materialize since the General was so tall and
he was so short. Shastri Ji answered wittily in Hindi:
“ Main sar utha kar baat karunga
aur who sar jhuka kar baat kareinge.” ( I shall discuss with my head held high
whereas the General would bend himself to talk to me.)
Lal Bahadur came of a poor but honest
family of Srivastava Kayasth of Benares-Mughal Sarai area of the eastern UP. He
plunged into the freedom movement against the British rule and gave up his
studies in a govt school to join the Kashi Vidyapeeth from where he graduated
with a first class degree of SHASTRI. Thus he came to be known as Lal Bahadur
Shastri. He was opposed to system of caste in the society and gave up writing
Srivastava. His three sons in politics too write Shastri as a surname although
they never toiled to rec eive that degree.
PATRIOTISM HONESTY AND SINCERITY OF SHASTRI JI
Lal Bahadur Shastri climbed up the
ladder of his political career rung by rung and what pushed him up was his
honesty, sincerity and above all PATRIOTISM. Even in his lifetime Shastri Ji
was known as the politician who never made money under the table. Naturally he
was always SHORT OF CASH TO RUN THE HOUSEHOLD BUT NEVER BEGGED, LEAVE ASIDE
BORROW OR STEAL. Once while he was in a British jail, news came of his
daughter’s serious illness. He was released on parole to be by her sick bed.
However, he could not give his daughter the medicines that she needed because
they were expensiv e and he had no money. He saw his daughter breathe her last
sans proper medical treatment bu7t did not ask the British government for
monetary help as that would have compromised his political stand on freedom
from a foreign power.
GENTLE JACK KILLED BRUTAL GIANTS
Lal Bahadur Shastri was a mild
mannered man who never raised his voice to discuss a problem, domestic or
political. His father had died when he was just one year old and his mother
moved to her mother’s place for sustenance and education of her three sons and
two daughters. Lal Bahadur knew that as he was a fatherless child, he could not
enter in to a fracas with boys who had the support of grown ups in large
families. Nevertheless he had learnt in the school of hardship how to solve
problems and thus cultivated a Pragmatic Approach to Problem Solving. This was
an asset that held him in good stead when he was called upon to solve national
and ticklish problems. Lal Bahadur had won the
confidence of Jawaharlal Nehru and the apostle of Peace, Nehru relied
upon dimunitive Shastri to play the role of Jack the Giant killer to bring back
Peace where strife was thrashing social order. When the holy hair of Prophet
Muhammad, PBUH, was stolen from the shrine in Srinagar, Nehru asked Shastri Ji
to go to Srinagar and restore peace. The small sized problem solver returned
abd reported to Prime Minister Nehru, “ Mission Accomplished.”
I must take you, dear Reader, into
confidence and narrate how unprepared Shastri Ji was physically to go to the
Kashmir valley in winters when snow was there all around and he had no warm
clothes worth the name. Jawaharlal Nehru was aghast. He lent for good his own
mink overcoat to Shastriji and had it altered to fit him same day. The said
borrowed mink coat of Nehru was the only one that Shastriji possessed for a
long time. So simple and self-effacing was our Shastriji.
The common man feels
redeemed a wee bit thatg Shri Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, paid a
visit to the Vijay Ghat to offer a floral tribute to the great son of Bharat
who had been snatched from us as many as 47 years ago by the cruel hands of
death. However, we know not why and how our beloved leader and Prime Minister
breathed his last. Indeed it was an extra-ordinarily unnatural death but alas!
No post mortem was ever carried out to ascertain and determine for posterity
and for good the cause of that sad demise. The Indian Nation is still groping
into the dark and has little option but to pray to Param Pita Parmatma for a SADGATI of soul of self-made man named LAL
BAHADUR SHASTRI.
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