Skip a Meal Idea

The chronic food shortage in the country was a worrying fact. Also, during the 1965 war with Pakistan, Lyndon B. Johnson, the then President of the U.S., tried to put pressure on India by warning that if India did not stop the war the U. S. would stop providing wheat to the country under the PL-480 agreement. (India needed to import wheat at that time to meet its food grains requirement.) Shastri refused to be budged. “We may go hungry, but not bow before the US,” he told the Indians.

Shastri motivated the people to voluntarily give up one meal a week so that food could be saved to be distributed to the people who required it. However, before asking the public to do so he got his family members to first try the system. Surprisingly, the public response was huge with even restaurants closing down on Monday evenings.