(June 1964 – January 1966)

It is generally accepted that a group within the Congress, formed in 1963, which came to be known as the Syndicate and included the president of the party, K. Kamaraj, and some

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others, guided the succession to the prime minister’s post after Jawaharlal Nehru. The choice was between Morarji Desai and Lal Bahadur Shastri. The former was the senior and experienced Congressman who was known for his administrative skills and honesty but also considered to be conservative, somewhat rigid and leaning towards the ‘right’; the latter was seen to be mild, soft-spoken and flexible even though a man of integrity and of incorruptible nature. Shastri was supported more widely across the party than was Desai. In the end, Shastri was chosen by the party as the next parliamentary leader, hence the prime minister, as Desai decided not to contest.

Early Life

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on October 2, 1904, in Uttar Pradesh (known as United Provinces at the time). Firmly opposed to the caste system, he decided to leave out his surname of Srivastava. ‘Shastri’ was a title he got on completing his graduation at Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi, in 1928. When he married Lalita Devi in 1928, Lal Bahadur Shastri, very much opposed to the idea of dowry, is said to have accepted just five yards of khadi and a spinning wheel on the insistence of his father-in-law to accept something.

Swayed by Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri joined the freedom movement; in the Non-cooperation Movement of 1921 he was arrested for taking part in a demonstration but, as he was then a minor, he was let off. Later he was part of the major movements of the struggle against the British rule, such as the Salt Stayagraha and the individual satyagraha movement and then in the 1942 Quit India Movement. Imprisoned several times, he made use of his time in prison reading the works of the social reformers and western philosophers.

Shastri was very much part of the Congress political organisation, becoming the secretary of the local unit of the party and later the president of the Allahabad Congress Committee. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces in 1937.