Praveen Davar
January 11 will mark the 50th death anniversary of India’s second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who had succeeded Pt Jawaharlal Nehru in June 1964. Shastri died in Tashkent soon after signing the Tashkent agreement with President Ayub Khan of the Pakistan with the Soviet Prime Minister Alexi Kosygen playing the mediatory role.
Few months ago, on 26 Sept 2015, in an interview to a TV channel Anil Shastri, senior Congress leader and the elder surviving son of Lal Bahadur Shastri, demanded a thorough probe into the death of his illustrious father. Earlier, his younger brother Sunil wrote to the Union Home Minister to make public the files relating to the circumstances leading to the sudden death of their father. Simultaneously members of Subash Chandra Bose family also revived the controversy of Netaji’s death in an air crash in 1945. The controversy has since picked up momentum with some files expected to be declassified later this month. Nobody so far has cared to place in public domain the evidence given by the survivors of plane crash confirming the death of the INA hero.
The suspicion of Shastriji dying an unnatural death is as ridiculous as the non existence of Netaji’s air crash. The family members of Shastri family only need to read the accounts of Tashkent talks by the persons who had accompanied Shastriji to the capital of Uzbekistasn. A day to day account of the Tashkent parlays and Shastriji engagements has been recorded in great detail in books authored by C P Srivastava, Shastriji’s information advisor and Kuldeep Nayyar who, along with Inder Malhotra and Prem Bhatia, was among the eminent journalists who were part of the Indian entourage to Tashkent.
Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent on Jan 11, 1966 at 1.32 a.m. (2.02 a.m. IST). According to Srivastava on 10 January Shastriji seemed to be particularly pleased with everything that had happened. At 4 p.m. he had signed the Tashkent declaration with Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan.
Srivastava left Shastriji at 10.30 p.m. to attend a press conference which had been convened by the Indian delegation to explain the Tashkent declaration to Indian and foreign press correspondents. After the press conference, he had just returned to his room when a call came from PM’s PA Jagannath Sahai informing him that the prime minister had been taken seriously ill. When he reached there, the prime minister was already dead.
In order to secure a first-hand version of what had happened in the prime minister’s villa after his departure at 10.30 p.m. and his passing way at 1.32 a.m. – that is, just three hours later – Srivastava had long and detailed conversation with Jagannath Sahai and M.M.N. Sharma, members of his personal staff, who were both present and were attending on Shastriji until the moment of his death.
According to Srivastava’s account, Jagannath Sahai left Shastriji’s room at about 11.30 p.m. and then Ram Nath, the personal attendant, brought some milk which the prime minister drank. Ram Nath stayed on in Shastri’s bedroom until half past midnight and left the room when the prime minister, who was already lying in bed, said that it was time for him to sleep. Jagannath Sahai and Sharma were about to retire when, suddenly at 1.20 a.m., the prime minister appeared at the door of their bedroom and asked : ‘Where is the Doctor?’ Jagannath Sahai answered: ‘Babuji he is asleep right here. You may kindly return to your bedroom. I will bring the doctor immediately.’ Sharma and Kapur got up to accompany Shastriji back to his room. They both held the prime minister’s arms but the prime minister walked back on his own. When about half way there, he began to cough and thereafter went on coughing incessantly. When they got to his bed, Sharma and Kapur asked the prime minister to lie down, which he did.
Dr Chugh and Sahai came running in, the doctor carrying his medicine cases. He checked the prime minister’s pulse and gave him an injection. At the same time the doctor uttered the following words in deep anguish and despair: Babuji, aap ne mujhe mouka nahin diya.’ (Babuji, you did not give me a chance). Dr Chugh continued massaging his chest and gave him artificial respiration, but nothing proved of any avail. The prime minister passed away at 1.32 a.m.
Now let us hear Mr Kuldip Nayar’s side of the story. He met Shastri for the last time on 10 January 1966 at the reception given by the Indian embassy in the prime minister’s honour. Shastriji told him that the return journey would be early because Ayub had invited him to have tea with him at Islamabad.
Writes Kuldip Nayar in his autobiography : ‘Shastri had asked me to ascertain the reaction of the Indian press to the Tashkent Declaration. I noticed some anxiety on his face. Some of it was understandable because two or three Indian journalists at the press conference held earlier in the day had been ‘rude’ in their questioning. They asked why he had agreed to hand Hajipir and Tithwal back to Pakistan. What took place at the press conference weighed heavily on him.’ In India leading opposition stalwarts like Ram Manohar Lohia, A.B. Vajpayee and Acharya Kriplani had strongly condemned the agreement.
Kuldip Nayyar further states that Jagan Nath asked Shastri if he should connect him to his residence as he had not spoken to his family for two days. Shastri first said ‘No’, but then changed his mind. This was around 11 p.m. (Tashkent time, half an hour ahead of New Delhi). First, his son-in-law, V.N. Singh, spoke, but he did not say much. Then Kusum, Shastri’s eldest and favourite daughter, took the phone from her brother-in-law. Shastri asked her: ‘Tum ko kaisa laga? [How did you react to it?]’ She replied: ‘Babuji, hamein achha nahin laga. [I did not like it]’ . He asked about Amma, the word by which Lalita Shastri was referred to in the house. ‘She too did not like it’, was Kusum’s reply. Shastri observed: ‘Agar gharwalon ko achha nahin laga, to bahar wale kya kahengae? [If people in the family did not like it, what will outsiders say?]
The telephone call, according to Jagan Nath, appeared to have upset Shastri. The Indian press too had been rough on him. He began pacing up and down in his room. This was not unusual as Shastri would often do that when talking to people who came to meet him at his residence in Delhi. For one who had suffered two heart attacks earlier, the telephone conversation, the journalists’ attitude, and the walk must have been a strain.
Elaborates Nayyar ‘as days passed, the Shastri family became increasingly convinced that he had been poisoned. In 1970, on 2 October (Shastri’s birthday), Lalita Shastri asked for a probe into her husband’s death.’ Following newspaper reports, the old guard Congress party supported the demand for a probe into Shastri’s death. Nayyar asked Morarji Desai towards the end of October 1970 whether he really believed that Shastri did not die a natural death. Desai said: “ That is all politics. I am sure there was no foul play. He died of a heart attack. I have checked with the doctor and his secretary, C.P. Srivastava, who accompanied him to Tashkent.”
This month, while celebrating the 50th anniversary of 1965 war, the country will recall the outstanding leadership of Shatri during the war and his slogan of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan. It is the best time to bury all such unnecessary controversies forever. That will be the best tribute to a true Gandhian who never thought ill of anybody. He won’t have us think ill of anybody. This is the legacy the Shastri family must preserve.
(The writer is Member, National Commission for Minorities.
The views expressed by him are personal)
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