QUIET FORCE
The soft-spoken, austere second prime minister of India
Lal Bahadur Shastri was the person who personified the independence movement and also the transfer of power and was a key that could fit in any lock as far as India was concerned. When Jawaharlal Nehru had a stroke, I told Shastri that he was next in line and should get ready to take over but he was sure Indira would be next in line. When the time came, all politicians rallied around Shastri because he was soft-spoken, didn’t annoy anyone, he would see the mood of the public and act accordingly and he was simple, austere and served the purpose he was put there for. Just to give you an example of his simple nature, I was attending a meeting with him once in Delhi in the Qutub Minar area and on our way back he spotted a sugarcane juice vendor. Even though he was home minister at the time, he stopped the car and got out to buy the juice without so much as a thought and even insisted on paying for it. He was simple and power didn’t dazzle him so he kept his feet firmly on the ground.
He is best remembered for his role in the Tashkent Agreement of 1966. The one thing about the Tashkent Agreement that stands out is that at the time, Shastri met Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan and was adamant that the final agreement should say that in future the problem between India and Pakistan will be solved peacefully without using weapons. So when the final document was ready, Shastri asked the Pakistani president why he had not spelled out his key condition. Ayub had to write it in his own hand and is it still with our archives.
On our last day in Moscow before he died under mysterious circumstances in 1966, Shastri was upset that while the Tashkent Agreement was signed, a large number of media people and politicians were unhappy because two key posts were surrendered to Pakistan. Shastri said they had to be returned because they had been conquered in war but most felt that he bowed to Russian pressure.
I was with him the night he died till quite late. Shortly after I returned to my room, I had a premonition that all was not well and there was a knock on my door and a Russian woman said, your prime minister is dying. By the time I reached the dacha he was dead. I was the last person to leave and see him alive and the first person to see him dead. If he had lived longer, things might have been different. He would have introduced simplicity and austerity across India.
(As told to Prachi Bhuchar) (The author was press secretary to Shastri when he was home minister)