On the birthday of Lal Bahadur Shastri, on 2nd October, all of us Indians celebrate Shastri Jayanti. Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on 2nd October 1904 in Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh, in a Kayastha family named Munshiji Sharda Prasad Srivastava. His father was a teacher in a primary school. Everyone called him Munshiji. Lal Bahadur’s mother’s name was Ramdulari. Lal Bahadur was the youngest in his family. When Lal Bahadur was 18 months old, his father died. His mother Ramdulari went to her father Hazarilal’s house in Mirzapur. After some time, his maternal grandfather also passed away. His maternal uncle Raghunath Prasad helped his mother a lot in bringing up his father without his father. While living in maternal grandparents’ house, he received his primary education. His further education took place in Harishchandra High School and Kashi Vidyapeeth. After getting the title of Shastri from Kashi Vidyapeeth, he removed the caste-indicating word ‘Srivastav’, which was in use since birth, forever and added ‘Shastri’ before his name. After this, the word Shastri was added to Lal Bahadur’s name forever.
In 1928, he married Lalita, daughter of Ganesh Prasad, a resident of Mirzapur. Lalita and Shastri had six children, two daughters – Kusum and Suman and four sons – Harikrishna, Anil, Sunil and Ashok. Two of their four sons – Anil and Sunil are still alive by the grace of God, the other two have passed away. Anil Shastri is a senior leader of the Congress Party, while Sunil Shastri is a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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olitical life
Even after completing his graduation in Sanskrit language, he joined the Bharat Sevak Sangh and taking a vow to serve the country, started his political life from here. Shastri was a true Gandhian who spent his whole life with simplicity and devoted it to the service of the poor. He actively participated in all the important programs and movements of the Indian freedom struggle and as a result, he had to go to jail several times. Among the movements of the freedom struggle in which he played an important role are the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921, the Dandi March of 1930 and the Quit India Movement of 1942.
Shastriji’s political guides included Gandhiji, Purushottamdas Tandon and Pandit Ballabh Pant, besides Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 1929, while living in Allahabad, his closeness with Nehru grew. After this, Shastriji’s stature kept on increasing and climbing the ladder of success one after another, he reached the top post of Home Minister in Nehruji’s cabinet. And not only this, after Nehru’s death, he also became the Prime Minister of India.