LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI
K. ISWARA DUTT
“The leadership which
democracy requires is a leadership that is itself democratic, a leadership of
persuasion and friendly guidance, and not a leadership of force and domination.
It is the leadership, not of dictators nor of spellbinders, but of those who
seek the collaboration of the led.”
–A. BARRATT
Few men in history were
more widely loved when alive or more widely mourned on their death, than India’s
Lal Bahadur Shastri. It was also his singular
distinction in life to have achieved something extraordinary while he was true
to type as the proverbial common man. Here was a rare being – one who, with no
adventitious aids and utterly devoid of personal ambition, rose to great
heights by sheer gravitation, as it were, and passed out of mortal ken, after
having established himself as the undisputed leader of his nation and as an
apostle of goodwill and peace on the international plane.
If his rise to India’s
premiership as Nehru’s successor, registered one of democracy’s greatest
triumphs, his sudden death at Tashkent in the wake of an historic agreement,
tended to highlight his supreme concern for international values and peace on
earth. It is one of history revelations how a man so unambitious
and so unassuming and of such mediocre gifts as Lal Bahadur could have at all
touched greatness. If yet he did, that too with an effortless
ease, it was all because of his simple life and selfless service. His
was a life full of lessons to posterity.
The passing of Jawaharlal
Nehru on May 27, 1964 set the world by its ears with intense curiosity about
the succession – an issue which had long been debated in his own lifetime with
his nonchalance, if not unconcern, in stubborn evidence. By a process of
elimination it was generally believed that of all his colleagues, Mr. Lal
Bahadur stood the best chance. And when Jawaharlal Nehru, in the wake of his
near-collapse at Bhubaneswar, sought to summon Mr.
Lal Bahadur to his aid from the vasty Kamaraj deeps, it seemed that the dice was rather
purposefully loaded in his favour. When ultimately
the Congress Parliamentary Party had to elect its leader for the “crown of
thorns”, Mr. Lal Bahadur’s potential rivals were put
to fight, by vox popupli
(the voice of the people).
It was more than a mere
political triumph: it was a moral victory for one who, in a party where every
second man was controversial, with a sense of natural ease, rose above
contention and made himself the most acceptable. He had a firm hold on the
organisation, without ever passing for a boss. He had varied ministerial experience.
At the centre, he worked in close, indeed intimate, colleagueship with
Jawaharlal Nehru and enjoyed his confidence. Above all, more than anyone else
in the offing, he was instinctively trusted to go the Nehru way, without
deviating by a hair-breadth from the paths laid down by the departed leader.
More than of the party, he was the choice of the people.
Few men achieved so much
with more obvious limitations or less spectacular gifts. May be, in appearance
he was not arresting, but he was
A square-set man and
honest, and his eyes
An
outward sign of all the warmth within.
And he was a man of deeper
qualities than his urban appearance suggested. Without any loss of his modesty
of bearing he carried himself not only with ease and dignity but with a natural
graciousness that sprang from a kindly heart. While he was not brilliant, he
had a quick grasp of things, a keen sense of understanding and a certain clarity of mind.
Mr. Lal Bahadur was never
known to manoeuvre for any position or use his
undoubted influence to satisfy personal ambition or humour
private grudge. As in the case of the Canadian Premier Mackenzie King, things
came his way. And having always succeeded in almost everything he had put his
hand to and grown equal to his opportunities, he steadily advanced in stature.
Mr. Lal Bahadur had
neither social advantages nor academic distinctions. Even for a politician, his
integument was singularly thin. Glamour of any kind he had none while by the
side of Nehru he was almost lamentably pedestrian. As a speaker he was mediocre
and as a writer negligible. Cast in no heroic mould, he was seldom swayed by
the vision beatific that seized one with a sense of frenzy over the gleam on
the far horizons. He was emphatically not cut out for the role of a Colossus. Yet....
Seldom had nature and
events made a man a nation’s leader out of more modest material or (as Omar Khayyam would have it) common substance. Least
demonstrative of politicians, Mr. Lal Bahadur was plain to the point of
homeliness; indeed, he was extraordinarily homespun. His greatest asset was his
freedom from pretension. He, however, knew more than he professed to know. His
mind was, if limited, very orderly and sound while his outlook was sober, even
enlightened. His public spirit was unimpeachable and his personal integrity
unassailable. He had a horror of intrigue; he loathed dusty strife. He worked
for harmony all around. He was a born smoother. But he was conciliatory without
being necessarily compromising, and he could put up a stiff back when he felt
he must. There was universal testimony to his higher qualities as a statesman.
He was “balanced practical and entirely dependable,” like Sir Robert Peel in his
day. His unruffled demeanour, imperturbability and
cool brain were precious possessions which any Prime Minister in the world
could envy.
If few had his generosity
of mind in pouring oil on troubled waters–or administering soothing syrup to
frayed nerves–fewer had his genius for handling tangled threads or unravelling difficult knots. Again
and again Mr. Lal Bahadur proved to be the rescue man for the Congress party in
a crisis and sometimes its very life-belt when it was in her waters. The
greatest thing about him was the goodwill that he earned even beyond the party,
by his self-effacing service to the country and his modesty and humility which
became legendary even in his own day.
Few men in our annals had
within recent years so handsomely risen to eminence with less self-propulsion
or more detachment. There was, indeed in him, a touch of the noble Lord Grey of
Fallodon whose political career was described by
Herbert Sidebotham as “the expression not of
ambitions, nor even of views, so much as of character”. His merits were more of
the heart than of the head and his good nature was infectious. He was neither a
demagogue nor a doctrinaire. His power of persuasion was compelling because his
words were as serviceable as his motives are disinterested. He wanted nothing
that the other man could share, out of the common good he worked for. If he,
however, lacked the capacity to inspire the multitude to heroic deeds, he had a
singular capacity to win their confidence by his devotion to the country and
dedicated service.
Mr. Lal Bahadur, truth to
tell, started on his Prime Ministership under one
stupendous handicap. He came on the scene after a giant among men. Indeed, he
had till then grown, so to say, under the shadow of a
superman, with little inclination and less opportunity for taking any
initiative. It was none too enviable a setting for the ascendancy of a
political leader who found himself entrusted with the responsibility of
negotiating a huge vessel, tossed on the high seas, to happy shores, smiling in
secular sweetness and socialist plenty. He may not be a daring pilot but there
was no more skilful a steersman.
It was the nation’s good
luck that there was a man who could be trusted to keep his head cool and hand
steady, in the roughest of weathers, as was evidenced during the dark days of
the Indo-Pakistan conflict. With his horror of strife, he never wanted it or
liked it. But when he felt he was dragged into it, he was resolved to carry his
country through it with fortitude and courage. And he did carry the nation, so
to say, on his shoulders, by his moving appeals to its better sense.
On one occasion he
said:
The supreme need of the
hour is national unity – unity not of the word but of the heart.
On another:
This is a testing time ...
Be united, feel the pride of belonging to a great nation, carry out your tasks
with true dedication.
And he propounded too a
most sensible doctrine when, addressing a mass gathering, he said:
It is not an army alone
that fights a war but a whole people. The real strength of an army depends on
the extent to which the nation is behind it.
If in her deadly conflict
with Pakistan, India stood as one man, it was not a little due to the fact that
she had at the helm of affairs a man who was the very soul of sincerity and who
was never prepared to lower her flag or betray her interests. It was Mr. Lal Bahadur’s unique privilege to have upheld the cause of
India in war and also led her in the field of peace. Tashkent was his crowning
victory. It raised him to the level of an international statesman. But alas,
ere he returned home with the laurels thickening on his brow, he died of heart
attack too suddenly. It seemed that the very gods were jealous of him. There
was, however, the consolation that Mr. Lal Bahadur died at the height of his
fame.
There was universal sorrow
because of the goodwill he so instinctively evoked wherever he went or was
known. A devoted disciple of Gandhiji, a true friend of Jawaharlal Nehru, a
great gentleman in public life in the line of Rajendra Babu
and a dedicated servant of the nation and of humanity, Lal Bahadur left behind
him an imperishable memory.