Lal Bahadur Shastri: Farmer’s PM, Epitome of ethics, integrity, honesty, hard-work, simplicity & austerity
Lal Bahadur Shastri doing office work while being in flight & even while posing for a portrait painting
In the history of Indian politics which
is dominated by dynasty, corruption, wealth & raw power, one figure
with ethics, integrity, simplicity & austerity stood out as an odd
man, like an oasis within a desert. He was Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Born on the same day of the year as that
of the Mahatma (2nd Oct) in 1904, Shastri unfortunately lost his
parents at a very young age. A few inspirational anecdotes from his
childhood were shared here. (Mahatma Gandhi was born in 1869).
Deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s
call for independence movement, Shastri joined the bandwagon and became a
disciple of Gandhi. During freedom struggle, he demonstrated exemplary
characteristics of honesty which had impressed even the British
officials. While he was jailed under the British, he was informed that
his daughter was sick. He requested for 15 days to visit her and was
granted under the condition that he must not participate in freedom
struggle in those 15 days. Unfortunately, by the time he reached his
home, his daughter had died. After performing the funeral & last
rites for 3 days, he immediately returned to jail inspite of having 12
more days of freedom from jail!!
Similarly, in another event, while in
jail, he was informed of his son’s serious sickness and this time he got
a permission of 7 days of leave from jail. He stayed with his son all
the 7 days and although his son had still not recovered, Shastri went
back to jail to keep up with his words!! (Fortunately, his son survived)
After the freedom struggle &
independence, politics was inevitable & he became the Railway
minister under Nehru and went on to take up other roles including that
of Home Minister. Such was his moral stanards at his job that
immediately after a train accident, he took moral responsibility and
submitted his letter of resignation!! (However, Nehru did not accept his
resignation)
A rare photo of Shastri when he was a railway minister
After the death of Nehru in 1964, he was
given the responsibility of taking up the PM position which he took
with great dedication & determination but was initially met with
skepticism since he was in contrasting terms compared to Nehru. While
Nehru was an English educated intellectual and part of the elite club
(son of Motilal) with vast network of contacts in the global scene,
Shastri was a simple, soft spoken activist with farming background.
However, within the next few weeks, his efficiency, ethics, simplicity,
hard work proved his caliber, and over the next few months, he surprised
everybody with his courage followed by triggering of a slew of reforms
& revolutions which transformed India & instilled confidence
among Indians.
One of the first challenges he faced was
the provocation & tension at Indo-Pak border which led to the
inevitable i.e A war against Pakistan. One of the reasons for the
provocation was that Pakistan underestimated the caliber of Shastri and
assumed that India would quickly decay after Nehru’s death and hence
thought it was the right time to strike. When Pakistan army crossed the
International border with 100 battle tanks, Shastri surprised everybody
by taking the challenge upfront and asked his army chief to retaliate
with full force. During the independence day speech, he said “Hathiyaron
ka jawab hathiyaron se dange. Hamara desh rahega to hamara tiranga
rahega (Weapons will be replied with weapons. Our national tricolor flag
will survive only if our nation survives). This was a great morale
booster for the whole of India and he also further played a great role
in motivating the army (which was morally depressed after the
humiliating defeat by China in 1962). The way in which he led the war to
victory made him an overnight hero in India and it left Pakistan
trembling for the next few years.
Shastri motivating Indian Army
Around the same time, Shastri had begun
to observe a revolutionary movement in a village in Gujarat in the form
of milk cooperatives while Amul was still in infancy. He personally
invited Kurien, who was the General Manager at Amul & was leading
the milk revolution in Gujarat, and requested him to replicate it across India
as well and ensured him full support. This triggered the White
Revolution (also called “Operation Flood”) which drastically increased
milk production throughout India through the means of several
cooperatives which were administered by villagers themselves, thereby
producing large scale employment as well.
Shastri with Kurien (White Revolution)
The next major challenge was that of
food crisis. India was facing a severe drought situation in 1965 &
literally “begging” for grains from USA. This was the time when Shastri
took up the challenge upfront & created large teams of agricultural
scientists & motivated them to come up with solutions. In the
meantime, Shastri gave up one meal every day so that it could be given
to the needy and motivated his countrymen also to do the same. For long
term solution, had personally identified M.S.Swaminathan’s pioneering
work in agriculture & requested him to head the team and ensured him
full support. This triggered the Green Revolution which made India self
sufficient in grains within a decade!!
Shastri with M.S.Swaminathan (Green Revolution)
Farmers who were ignored till then (As
Nehru was more interested in factories & dams) got their due respect
& importance. A series of reforms by Shastri helped them
participate in the Green Revolution & Shastri did everything
possible to motivate them including the conceptualization &
popularization of the slogan “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan”. Also, he had
cleaned up his backyard & converted it into a mini farmland where he
grew his own crops. When news of the “Prime Minister growing his own
crops” reached the common man & farmer, he became a role model and a
source of inspiration for the nation which had all the resources to
solve it’s food problems but was lacking a political will & a sense
of direction which was solved by Shastri. That is one of the reasons he
was called “India’s farmer PM”.
The next major challenge for Shastri was
in administration which was neck deep in corruption. By his hard work
& austerity, he had already motivated his high level team to work
towards eliminating corruption, but that was not sufficient because
corruption existed everywhere in India, right from top officers,
trickling down even to levels of clerks & peons in Govt offices. So,
he setup a committee to look into ways of stopping corruption and
started departments to deal with corruption.
Shastri
was seriously considering the appointment of a Lokpal to curb
corruption but he could not stay long enough to implement it. Within the
next few days, Shastri breath his last in Tashkent during a treaty. The
reason for his death is still unknown to the common man. My friend, Anuj, had filed an RTI requesting for information & reason for Shastri’s death but was surprisingly his request was rejected by the Govt citing security reasons.
Excerpt from Kuldip Nayar’s book: “Beyond the Lines”
Unfortunately, the Congress party did
not show sufficient courtesy to perform his last rites & wanted his
body to be taken to Allahabad for cremation. It was only after his wife,
Lalita Devi, fought with the party, they finally agreed to cremate him
with national honors at Vijay Ghat.
At the time of his death, Shastri had no
money for his family. All that he had was an old car which was
purchased on monthly installment. He was born in a poor family, led a
simple personal life, austere family life, ethical professional life
& finally died a poor man. He was one of the rare breed of
politicians who made no money.
Shastri with family (Image courtesy: LIFE magazine)
Looking back in hindsight, one can say
that although Shastri was in power for just 17 months, the kind of work
and inspiration he instilled among Indians could not have been possible
by any other PM even if they were given 17 years. He was truly “Farmer’s
PM”, deserves to be called the architect of self-sufficient India and
is the epitome of ethics, integrity, honesty, hard-work, simplicity
& austerity.
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