Author: D R Mankekar
Publisher: Publications Division
Year: 1973
Language: English
Pages: 232
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
Writing a full-fledged biography of Lal Bahadur Shastri is a labour of love as well as a tribute this author offers to the memory of a unique and fascinating personality that bestrode the Indian political stage after Independence- a bright and shining meteor that flashed across India’s Horizon.
For a long, long time to come, Indians, their children and their children’s children will speak with gratitude of the great little man who so briefly, and yet indelibly, illumined the pages of modern India’s history, in whose light physical frame, gentle nature, humility and strength of character, they saw embodied the Indian ideal of a public servant so completely dedicated to nishkamakarma.
Shastri translated into real, crass political life the biblical phrase the meek shall inherit the earth. He combined a child’s heart that was easily moved to tears by human suffering with a granite will that ordered the Indian Army to march across the international frontier into West Pakistan to punish the latter’s perfidious activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
His great achievement was to have bolstered up the Indian people’s sagging spirits during depressing years and restored self-confidence to them as a nation. He had taught a truculent neighbour to respect India and in the process won the confidence and personal regard of its arrogant dictator.
Contents
The Childhood Days
At High School
Bitten By the Nationalist Bug
In the Grihasthashram
A Plunge into Struggle
Life in Faizabad Jail
Lalitadevi Joins the Battle
The quit India Ultimatum
The Family Travails
A New Chapter Opens
Over To New Delhi
Lal Bahadur Proves His Mettle
Trouble-shooter Par Excellence
At the Home Ministry
The Kamaraj Plan and After
The Banyan Tree Falls
After Nehru Who?
A New Leader Is Elected
A Nose that Wunt Be Led
A True Hindu Wife
A Sea OF Troubles
In the International Arena
Last Straw On Camel’s back
There Is None Other Like Him
INDEX