The Boy Who Swam to School

The river was wide, and the boy had no money for the boat.

That is how one of the best-loved stories about Lal Bahadur Shastri begins. It is often told that, as a schoolboy, he swam across the Ganga to reach his lessons on the other side, holding his books and clothes above the water, because he could not spare the few paise for the ferry and did not want to ask anyone for them.

Nobody can now say for certain how often it happened, or exactly where. But the story has lasted because it sounds so much like the man he became: quiet, stubborn, and too proud to be a burden on anyone.

A small boy without a father

Lal Bahadur was born on 2 October 1904 in Mughalsarai, near Varanasi, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. His father, Sharada Prasad, a schoolteacher, died when Lal Bahadur was not yet two years old.

His mother, Ramdulari Devi, took her children to live with her own family. Money was always short. The boy was sent to relatives in Varanasi so that he could go to a better school, and he grew up small, thin and serious, with very little to call his own.

His family's surname was Srivastava, a name that showed their caste. While still young, he chose to drop it. He believed that a person should not be judged by the family he was born into.

The freedom movement

In 1921, Mahatma Gandhi called on Indians to stop cooperating with British rule, and to leave government schools and colleges. Lal Bahadur was sixteen. He answered the call, though his family worried about his future.

He went on to study at the Kashi Vidyapith, a new national college in Varanasi set up by the freedom movement. When he finished, in 1925, he was given the title "Shastri", a degree meaning a learned scholar. It stayed with him for the rest of his life.

He married Lalita Devi in 1928. It is often told that the only dowry he would accept was a spinning wheel and a few metres of homespun cloth.

Over the next twenty years he was arrested again and again for taking part in the struggle for independence. Altogether he spent around nine years in British prisons. He used the time to read and to teach himself.

A minister who resigned

After India became independent in 1947, Shastri held important posts, first in Uttar Pradesh and then in the central government in Delhi. He was known as a patient, careful worker who listened more than he spoke.

As Railway Minister, in 1956, he offered his resignation after a serious railway accident in which many passengers died. Nobody said the accident was his fault. But he believed that the minister in charge should take moral responsibility. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru accepted his resignation and praised him for it in Parliament.

It was an unusual act then, and it is an unusual act now. People remembered it.

The Prime Minister

When Nehru died in May 1964, the Congress party chose Shastri to lead the country. On 9 June 1964 he became India's second Prime Minister. He was short and soft-spoken, and many people did not expect much of him.

The country was facing hard times. There was a shortage of food. In 1965, war broke out with Pakistan. Shastri gave India a slogan that is still remembered: "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan", "Hail the soldier, hail the farmer". It honoured both the people who defended the country and the people who fed it.

To save grain, he asked Indians to give up one meal a week. It is often told that he first made sure his own family could do it, and that his household kept the fast before he asked anyone else to.

He lived very simply, even as Prime Minister. It is often told that he bought the family's car with a bank loan, and that after his death his widow, Lalita, paid off the rest of the loan from her pension.

Tashkent

In January 1966, Shastri travelled to Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, to make peace with Pakistan's President, Ayub Khan. On 10 January the two leaders signed the Tashkent Declaration, agreeing to withdraw their armies.

That same night, in the early hours of 11 January 1966, Shastri suffered a heart attack and died. He was sixty-one. He had been Prime Minister for less than two years.

India mourned him deeply. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest honour, after his death. His memorial in Delhi is called Vijay Ghat.

He was born on the same day as Mahatma Gandhi, 2 October. Every year, India remembers them both.

Want to read more?

C. P. Srivastava, who worked closely with him, wrote Lal Bahadur Shastri: A Life of Truth in Politics, a detailed and admiring account. Sandeep Shastri's Lal Bahadur Shastri: Politics and Beyond is a more recent, balanced biography.