A Tale of Two Noble Souls

 From the Director’s desk….

Dear Reader,

By an uncanny coincidence two of India’s stalwarts were born on this day, the 2ndOct, though 35 years apart. The older one was anointed the Mahatma, or Bapu, Father of the Indian nation while the younger, LalBahadur, inscribed in the nation’s memory for his unforgettable inspirational slogan, “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” rose from a simple lower middle class Kayasthhousehold of UP to be India’s 2nd Prime Minister (and the 6thHome Minister), succeeding the venerable Jawaharlal Nehru. Though born ‘Srivastava’ he shedthe family name early in life to own the honorific ‘Shastri’ (or Pundit) to his name, having mastered Sanskritlanguage and literature at the KashiVidypith, Benaras.

MohanchandKaramchand Gandhi, born to a KathiawariBania family, appeared on the Indian political scene as a Satyagrahi from South Africain 1915 after his 21-year sojourn and fresh from his laurels of having protected the Asian community from the ravages of the British masters who he was tofightthereafteron a larger theatre. Gandhi caught the country’s imagination with hissimple and austere ways and ethicality in leadership which counted him out from the rest of the leaders in the CongressParty until he rose to be the President in 1924, and never looked back since. Legions of followers jumped into the Indian freedom struggle under his leadership and personality, Shastri being one among the many millions.

Both were diminutive and slender-framed, yet they bore the nation’s responsibility, one before India achieved independence and the other after. LalBahadur came on the political scene in a big way in the wake of a nation-wide crisis as the country mourned the loss of its first Prime Minister while it was thickin the process of nation-building following Nehru’s socialist path. The first Railways Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet in 1951, Shastri went on to become the Minister of Industrial Development and the Home Minister before he was unanimously selected to lead the nation..

The Mahatma had led the Indian people on the path of peace and nonviolence to challenge a mighty imperial power. The sun finally set upon the Indianempire and with it began the process of decolonisation all over the world. Gandhi’s morality in thought, action and belief wastranscribed into India’s foreign policyand India soon after independence, and even before that,sought the moral high ground under the impetus of Nehru’s non-alignment policy. That stayed India’s pole position emulated by scores of developing, newly liberating,countriesthroughout the world who struggled to fight colonial powers of Europe wanting to stayaway from the newly formed power blocs, the capitalist under the US and communist under the SovietsUnion in their fight in the Cold War.

As Indiawas emerging as apowerful force to be reckoned with in the comity of newly emerging non-aligned nations, the nation was carving out a strong socialistic path of development under both Nehru and Shastri. To Shastri goes the credit of pioneering both the Whiteand Green revolutions. He set up the National Dairy Development Board following the example of the Anand Milk Cooperative model in Gujarat under Dr Kurien’s guidance while the production of wheat, rice and other crops accelerated in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab and UP. To him also goes the creditof successfully warding off the danger on the western front in the form of the 22-day 2nd Indo-Pak warin July-August1965 which India successfully repulsed. Yet the peace agreement carried out under Soviet mediation in the Uzbek capital between Shastri and his PakcounterpartAyub Khan proved to be the Indian PM’s nemesis. His inert body was carried back to India the very next day of the Tashkent Agreement, on January 11, 1966 with the official cause being cardiac arrest. The nation mourned an able warrior, amidst conspiracy theories (as the reason of his death was neverknown nor was an examination of his dead body carried out) and political turmoil. An unassuming and determined leader breathed his last on foreign soil, one who had throughout his life espoused the cause ofpeace, unity and brotherhood and championed freedom and prosperity for all, and called for maintenance of world peace and friendship with all nations. 

While both Gandhi and Shastri have left behind large legacies, Gandhi has understandably outshone Shastri with his sheer brilliance, charisma and outstandingleadershipqualities. It was in Gandhi that India, as if, regained her lost soul, her identity and an elevated position in the family of the non-aligned nations.

Today, if regressive and violent forces have caused apushback against the ideals which these noble souls enshrined in their lives, thatshould not be taken as adefeat of the causes they stood for. As Gandhi was seen telling Dr Martin Luther King in an iconic Times of Indiacartoon , “The problem with assassins, Dr King, is that they think they have killed you”. Both were felled by bullets in two different lands for wrong causes. Gandhi was grossly misunderstood even while he was painstakingly striving for communal harmony in his last days asHindu fanatics were conspiring to do away with himfor the cause of a greater Hindu nation. It was not onlya  huge loss but an act of utter devilry and the most tragic loss of the century. Shastri, on the other hand, never had the opportunity in his 19-month tenure of office as the PM to fulfil his aspirations, to see the country develop atruly socialist model by putting an end to poverty and inequality. After Shastri came leaders who followed his path but for their own agenda, not for the nation’s welfare.

Today both the heroes are proudly remembered throughout the country while their assassins are, except for afew bigoted and misguided fanatics who are condemned to a bad memory, thrown aside. The Mahatma in his martyrdom has shone a new light to the nation which can never be extinguished. The force of theirpersonalities in two different epochs, contexts and histories have made India great, beckoning us to a time, more instant than distant, when we shall need such elevated souls and their enervated ideas to guide and inspire us.

(Malay Mishra)