Prof.(Dr) R.D.Gupta
Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1904 and, thus, he shares his date of birth with Mahatma Gandhi. He became a staunch follower of latter’s path of truth and nonviolence. This has really proved true, when he was the Railway Minister and owned his moral responsibility for a train accident in South India, and resigned in 1956. As a Railway Minister, he created a number of facilities to the passengers, especially in the third class compartments. It was during his tenure that fans were provided for the first time for these compartments.
Lal Bahadur Shastri, did not even possess a house of his own, when he was the Home Minister. Many of the people usually used to call him the “homeless Home Minister”. He became the Home Minister after the demise of Govind Vallabh Pant during, 1961.
Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister of India after the death of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. He tackled several problems such as food shortage, unemployment and poverty. To overcome the acute food shortage, he initially imported food grains and distributed them throughout the country. He also drew long term plans to render the country self sufficient in food grains production. In 1965 during India-Pakistan War, Lal Bahadur Shastri gave a slogan “Jai Jiwan Jai Kissan”. He also gave a call to the people of the country to keep fast at least once in a week either on Monday or Tuesday. It was resorted to lessen the burden on food grains. Impact of this call was so great that even many of the people still keep this fast particularly in North India.
Lal Bahadur Shastri revealed his mettle during Indo-Pak war which broke out during June and September, 1965. He made it very clear to Pakistan and whole of the world that India would not take it lying down, if Pakistan carried on to encourage cross border terrorism. He was the first Prime Minister of India, who gave full freedom to the Armed Forces to retaliate. The Military bases in Lahore and Sailkot were assaulted on 5th and 8th September, 1965 respectively. It was in response to the attack made by the Pakistan Army in Runn of Kutch and then in Chhamb Sector with a number of Pattan Tanks. It was a terrible attack and was subdued only by using superior air power.
On opening the Lahore border on 5th of September early in the morning. I recall that day when our forces advanced in the Pakistan Border and reached Ashogul Nahir at about 12:00 Am on the said date. On this development. Ayub Khan the Prime Minister of Pakistan made a hue and cry and gave a statement on Pakistanis Radio about this happening. Similarly, our forces advanced in the Sailkot Border with effect from 8th September, 1965. Borders of Rajasthan area were also opened by the Indian Army. The United Nations Organization then passed a resolution demanding ceasefire and accordingly ceasefire took place on 23rd September, 1965.
In the end, this war had established the supremacy of India and brought Ayub Khan on to his feet. After ceasefire, the Russian Prime Minister Kosygin, offered to become a mediator and both Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan began to negotiate at Tashkent. An agreement on no war between India and Pakistan was signed on January 10, 1966 and, thus, peace was restored. But it was a bad luck of India that on the same night Lal Bahadur Shashtri suffered from a fatal heart attack and died. His dead body was brought in India and last rituals were performed on January 12, 1966 with full honours in Delhi. It is worthwhile to mention that lakhs and thousands of people from all over India including those of Jammu and Kashmir took part in his death funeral ceremony. Not only this Government representatives including Prime Ministers and Presidents /Vice President of a large number of countries came to India for participating in the funeral procession of Lal Bahadur Shastri. He was awarded the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1966.
(The author is Ex Associate Dean Cum Chief Scientist KVK, SKUAST, Jammu )
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