Lal Bahadur Shastri-A great freedom fighter and statesman
Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1904 at Mughalsarai, a small railway town seven miles from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. His father was a school teacher who died when Lal Bahadur Shastri was only a year and half old. His mother, still in her twenties, took her three children to her father’s house and settled down there.
Lal Bahadur’s small town schooling was not remarkable in any way but he had a happy enough childhood despite the poverty that dogged him. He was sent to live with an uncle in Varanasi so that he could go to high school. Nanhe, or ‘little one’ as he was called at home, walked many miles to school without shoes, even when the streets burned in the summer’s heat.
As he grew up, Lal Bahadur Shastri became more and more interested in the country’s struggle for freedom from foreign yoke. He was greatly impressed by Mahatma Gandhi’s denunciation of Indian Princes for their support of British rule in India. Lal Bahadur Sashtri was only eleven at the time, but the process that was end day to catapult him to the national stage had already begun in his mind.
His Role In The Freedom Struggle
At the age of 17, he was very impressed with Gandhiji’s call for freedom through non – violence and so took part in the Non – co-operation Movement of 1921. He courted arrest but was let off because of his age. But he was not so lucky when he followed Gandhiji in the Satyagraha Movement and spent approximately 8 years in jail over a period of time. Even though he was made to undergo tremendous hardships, he survived with the help of his prayers and physical exercises. He spent this time reading different authors like Hegel, Kant, Marx, Russell and Lenin. He also did some translations and wrote about the Quit India Movement.
Post Independence
He served the Congress in various positions before becoming Prime Minister. He was First General Secretary, and then Home-Minister. In U.P. he made some progressive reforms in the police department, and in 1962, Pandit Nehru invited him to join the Union cabinet as a Minister for railways. A post from which he resigned after taking responsibility for a railway mishap, that happened during his tenure.
Lal Bahadur Shastri showed remarkable abilities of oratorship and courage during the Indo – Pakistan War. He inspired his people through his leadership and offered them a slogan that has been passed down the ages – ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’. The Indo – Pak war would have continued, but fortunately, the Russian Government intervened and both India and Pakistan were forced to sign the ‘Tashkent Agreement’ on January 11, 1966. A day that saw the passing away of this great leader, just a few hours after signing this historic agreement.
He was awarded the ‘Bharat Ratna’ posthumously, in light of the services rendered to the country. His memorial ‘Vijayghat’ in delhi is a constant reminder of a great administrator and a fantastic human being.
Know things about India’s former prime minister that inspire us
- Lal Bahadur Shastri was only 16 when Mahatma Gandhi called upon the countrymen to join the Non-Cooperation Movement. Lal Bahadur Shastri at once responded to the Mahatma Gandhi’s call.
- Lal Bahadur Shastri was deeply influenced by of Mahatma Gandhi. “Hard work is equal to prayer,” he had once said
- During the 1965 India-Pak war, when the country faced food scarcity Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was the Prime Minister then, stopped drawing his salary
- Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ during the 1965 war boosted the morale of the soldiers as well as farmers amid food scarcity
- Lal Bahadur Shastri was a man of tremendous integrity; he resigned from his post of Railways Minister because he felt responsible for a railway accident which had killed many people
- Lal Bahadur Shastri promoted the White Revolution, a countrywide campaign to increase milk production. He supported the Amul milk co-operative at Anand in Gujarat and created the National Dairy Development Board
- To boost India’s food production, Lal Bahadur Shastri promoted the Green Revolution in India in 1965, which led to an increase in food grain production, especially in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
- His tenure as the Prime Minister was only for 19 months. He died in Tashkent on January 11, 1966.
- “True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means, for the simple reason that the natural corollary to their use would be to remove all opposition through the suppression or extermination of the antagonist” – Lal Bahadur Shastri
- “There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the crossroads of history and must choose which way to go.” – Lal Bahadur Shastri.
