Lal Bahadur Shastri - The Forgotten Hero

		Yesterday Rahul Gandhi was all praises for the weaver -Faizan - but he and neither any of his fellow Congressmen spared a thought for Lal Bahadur Shastriji on his death Anniversary. Shastri ji was born in Mughal Sarai, United Provinces, British India to Sharada Srivastava Prasad, a school teacher, who later became a clerk in the Revenue Office at Allahabad,and Ramdulari Devi.  There is a very interesting anecdote about Shastriji's
childhood when he was three months old, he had slipped out of his mother's arms into a cowherder's basket at the ghats of the Ganges. The cowherder, who had no children, took the child as a gift from God and took him home. Lal Bahadur's parents lodged a complaint with the police, who traced the child, and returned him to his parents. He became PM of India on June 9, 1964 after death of  Nehru. Shastri shared very little in common with his predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru. While Shastri preferred peace with Pakistan, writing to a friend after the Indo-Pakistani War in 1965 that the problems between both countries should be settled amicably, he had previously displayed a knack for taking quick and decisive actions during the war. He swiftly took the advice of his commanders, and ordered a strike across the Punjab border. This was in stark contrast to Nehru who in a similar situation in 1962, had refused to call in the air force to relieve the pressure on the ground troops. At the end of the conflict, Shastri flamboyantly posed for a photograph on top of a captured Patton tank. He was one of the most upright prime ministers of modern India. When Shastriji took over as  PM , for the country it was a difficult time and the country was facing huge challenges. There was food shortage in the country and on the security front Pakistan was creating problems. In 1965, Pakistan tried to take advantage of India's vulnerability and attacked India. Mild-mannered Lal Bahadur Shastri rose to the occasion and led the country ably. To enthuse soldiers and farmers he coined the slogan of "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan". Pakistan lost the war and Shastriji's leadership was praised all over the world. In January 1966, to broker peace between India and Pakistan, Russia mediated a meeting between Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan in Tashkent, Russia. India and Pakistan signed the joint declaration under Russian mediation. Under the treaty India agreed to return to Pakistan all the territories occupied by it during the war. The joint declaration was signed on January 10, 1966 and Lal Bahadur Shastri died of heart attack on the same night. Mystery surrounding Shastri's Death Lalita Shastri, persistently alleged that her husband was poisoned. Many believed that Shastri's body's turning blue was evidence of his poisoning. Indeed a Russian butler attending to him was arrested on suspicion of poisoning Shastri, but was later absolved of charges. In 2009, when Anuj Dhar, author of CIA's Eye on South Asia, asked the Prime Minister's Office under an RTI plea (Right to Information Act), that Shastri's cause of death be made public, the PMO refused to oblige, citing that this could lead to harming of foreign relations, cause disruption in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privileges. The PMO did reveal however that it had in its possession one document related to Shastri's death, but refused to declassify it. The government also admitted that no post-mortem examination had been conducted on him in the USSR, but it did have a report of a medical investigation conducted by Shastri's personal physician Dr. R.N. Chugh and some Russian doctors. Furthermore, the PMO revealed that there was no record of any destruction or loss of documents in the PMO having a bearing on Shastri's death. As of July 2009, the home ministry is yet to respond to queries whether India conducted a postmortem and if the government had investigated allegations of foul play. We can at least remember this illustrious son of India on his death anniversary .....