India celebrates its second Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s 116th birth anniversary today. Lal Bahadur Shastri shares his birthday with the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, whose sesquicentennial is also being celebrated all over the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and political leaders across the spectrum paid their tributes to the former Prime Minister at Vijay Ghat, New Delhi.
Born as Munshi Lal Bahadur Shastri on 2nd October, 1904 in Mughalsarai, UP, he was the youngest amongst his siblings born to mother Ram Dulari and MP Srivastava. Lal Bahadur Shastri had a hard childhood and educated himself while living in difficult circumstances. He used to swim to Kashi Vidyapeeth, who later conferred him with the title of Shastri, after seeing him master the intricacies of Sanskrit.
Lal Bahadur Shastri’s desire to liberate the nation came when he saw India living in difficult circumstances under the Imperial Rule under the Britishers. He was impacted by the first World War and also experienced the suffering the women, children and men of India were going through.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was a Gandhian and both of them together spearheaded the crucial movements which led to our Independence from the colonial rule. He along with Mahatma Gandhi participated actively in the British Quit India Movement from Gandhi to Non-Cooperation Movement from 1921 to 1942. Despite being arrested several times, being subjected to police action and being lodged in jail, he remained dedicated to his path and led India to its freedom in 1947.
Shastri moved to New Delhi in 1951 and took several charges departments of the first Union cabinet. Under first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet he held several portfolios like Minister of Railways, Transport and Communications Minister, Commerce and Industry Minister, and Home Minister.
His slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ became the war cry of millions of people when India was at war with China in 1962. During the Sino-Indian war of 1962, it was this cry that highlighted the importance of farmers and soldiers to the rest of the country.
Lal Bahadur Shastri died in the year 1966, at the age of 62, in Tashkent, 12 hours after signing a peace treaty with Pakistan.
