Real Indian Hero - Lal Bahadur Shastri

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on 2 October, 1904 in Mughalsarai, Banaras, United Province, British India now Mughalsarai, Chandali, Uttar Pradesh, India & died on 11 January 1966 in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union, was the second Prime Minister of the Republic of India and a leader of the Indian National Congress party.

His father, Shri Sharada Srivastava Prasad, was a school teacher, who later became a clerk in the Revenue Office at Allahabad. Shastri’s father died when he was only an year old. His mother, Ramdulari Devi, took him and his two sisters to her father’s house and settled down there.

Shastri ji was educated at East Central Railway Enter College in Mughalsarai and Varanasi. He graduated with a first-class degree from the Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. He was given the title Shastri “Scholar”. The title was a bachelor’s degree awarded by the Vidya Peeth, but it stuck as part of his name.

Shastri joined the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. Deeply impressed and influenced by Congress leader Mahatma Gandhi, he became a loyal follower, first of Gandhi, and then of Jawaharlal Nehru. Following independence in 1947, he joined the latter’s government and became one of Prime Minister Nehru’s principal lieutenants, first as Railways Minister (1951–56), and then in a variety of other functions, including Home Minister. Shastri was chosen as Nehru’s successor owing to his adherence of Nehruvian socialism after Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi turned down Congress President K. Kamaraj’s offer of premiership.

Shastri was known for his honesty and humility throughout his life. He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, and a memorial “Vijay Ghat” was built for him in Delhi. Several educational institutes, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (Mussorie, Uttarakhand) are after his name these were some examples. 

The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute was named after Shastri due to his role in promoting scholarly activity between India and Canada. Today Lal Bhadur Shastri Memorial run by Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust is situated next to 10 Janpath his residence as Prime Minister, at 1, Motilal Nehru Place, New Delhi. 

In 2011, on Shastri’s 45th death anniversary, Uttar Pradesh Government announced to renovate Shastri’s ancestral house at Ramnagar in Varanasi and declared plans to convert it into a biographical museum. The International Airport at the City of Varanasi is named after him. A Monument and a street is named after him in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

A stadium is named after him in the city of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh In 2005, the Government of India created a chair in his honor in the field of democracy and governance at Delhi University.

We must be proud for our Real Indian Hero  Lal Bahadur Shastri