Four things to know about Lal Bahadur Shastri: From ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ to resignation over railway accident

Here are four things you need to know about the second prime minister of India.

#1: Rise from a humble background

Shastri was born in Mughalsarai in 1904. Unfortunately, his father passed away a few years after he was born, and he spent most of his childhood living with his maternal relatives in a lower-middle-class environment. According to some accounts, he owned only two kurtas and dhotis.

At an early age, Shastri displayed the beginnings of a social consciousness and dropped his birthname “Varma”. In the biography Lal Bahadur Shastri: A Life of Truth in Politics, author and retired bureaucrat CP Srivastava (who also worked with Shastri) wrote that when Shastri was in Class VI and set to enrol in a school, his name was given as Lal Bahadur Varma. Stating his opposition to caste differences, he told his family he did not wish to keep the surname ‘Varma’. And so, he became known as Lal Bahadur.

“‘Shastri’ was added to his name in 1925, after he acquired the degree of ‘Shastri’ (one who knows the Shastras) from the Kashi Vidyapeeth in Benaras”, Srivastava wrote.

#2: Resignation and taking responsibility for a train accident

Shastri soon became interested in public service and the freedom movement and became associated with the Indian National Congress. After independence, he became the Union Minister for Railways and Transport in 1952. A serious accident occurred in August 1956 at Mehboobnagar of present-day Telangana, in which 112 lives were lost.

Distressed at the tragedy, Shastri owned responsibility for the accident and submitted his resignation to the prime minister. However, PM Nehru did not accept it. But another accident soon took place in November 1956, in Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur that saw the death of 144 passengers. Shastri resigned again, accepting moral responsibility.
Srivastava wrote: “This was the first instance of a cabinet minister accepting moral responsibility for a mishap within his ministry and resigning from government.”

To bid farewell to the retiring chairman of the then Rajya Sabha, Dr. Radhakrishanan (left), Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri were present at the Parliament House on May 11, 1962. (PTI Photo)

Nehru said at the time, “No man can wish for a better comrade and better colleague in any undertaking — a man of highest integrity, loyalty, devoted to ideals, a man of conscience and a man of hard work.”

Srivastava added, “Shastri’s resignation increased his moral stature nationally. He had set a new precedent for political conduct. And, paradoxically, by giving up high office he had moved even closer to Nehru.”

#3: When Shastri gave the slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’

Within a year of his resignation, Shastri was back in the Union Cabinet and would go on to take the roles of the Home Minister and the Commerce and Industry Minister. In the former, he helped solve rows over the government’s official language policy. When southern states were apprehensive of Hindi domination, he assured that English would continue as an official language alongside Hindi.

Upon Shastri’s selection within the Congress as Nehru’s successor after his death in 1964, The Guardian wrote: “Shastri’s name, until recently, has rarely been in Western headlines, but in India forever… He is still… a compromise candidate — more acceptable to the left wing of Congress than Morarji Desai and more acceptable to right than Krishna Menon.”

The Indian Express said in an editorial, “The capacity to listen patiently and to act decisively is the hallmark of democratic leadership. It is in the latter capacity that Shastri has still to be tested, and it is the ability to act decisively after due deliberation and consultation, which India expects to discover in her new Prime Minister.”

Still reeling from the effects of economic stagnation and lack of growth, besides defence – given how India was taken by surprise in the 1962 attack launched by China – India had to focus on its low levels of food production and increasing demand.

It was then that Shastri asked Indians in a radio address in 1965, for the farmer to produce more, the trader to market supplies at fair prices, and the consumer to exercise greater restraint on consumption. “He reminded the nation that dependence on food imports undermined the country’s self-confidence and self-respect. This is when he gave the nation a new slogan—‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan (Hail the soldier, hail the farmer!)’”, wrote Srinivasan.

#4: At the helm during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, and his death shortly after the Tashkent Agreement

The 1965 war with Pakistan began when the Pakistan Army began to wage an undeclared war in Jammu and Kashmir in August of that year, believing India would not be able to fight back after its 1962 loss to China. On September 1, Pakistan launched an attack in the Akhnoor sector near Jammu.

In retaliation, the Indian Army launched an attack across the International Border in Punjab after Shastri gave a go-ahead for it. The United Nations also attempted to persuade the two nations to declare a ceasefire. Finally, Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin invited Shastri and Pakistan President General Ayub Khan to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

It is here that the Tashkent Declaration for fostering long-term peace between the neighbours was signed on January 10, 1966, expressing the parties’ “firm resolve to restore normal and peaceful relations between their countries and to promote understanding and friendly relations between their peoples.”

But the next day, Shastri passed away due to a heart attack. Srivastava, who was in Tashkent with him, wrote, “Since it was known that Shastriji had had two heart attacks earlier, one in 1959 and die other in June 1964, no one present in Tashkent at that time as a member of the Indian delegation had any reason to entertain any doubts about the report…”

In the epilogue, he responded to the speculation around his sudden death: “Some expressed the apprehension that Shastri was bullied and ‘forced’ by the Soviet leaders to sign the Tashkent declaration against his will. This is totally false. Shastri signed the Tashkent declaration freely and with a feeling of great achievement… It can be said that doubts have arisen because no postmortem examination was carried out.”

However, he stated that based on the available evidence, “It is clear that Shastri died of a heart attack and, as there is nothing to indicate the intervention of any external factor, it would best serve his memory if the suspicions on this matter are laid to rest.”