A Great Life

LAL Bahadur Shastri is a man of many enigmas. An inquisitive student of Indian politics often finds in him a troubleshooter who took charge of the nation at a difficult stage and delivered his best to let the country grow.

- Akash Chatterjee

Yet, history books have not been kind to him. Despite an illustrious more than four-decade-long journey in Indian politics and administration combined, not much work has been done to celebrate his legacy.

Perhaps this is what motivated author, historian, former IAS officer, and the former director of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LB-SNAA) Sanjeev Chopra to take up the formidable task of writing his book The Great Conciliator: Lal Bahadur Shastri and the Transformation of India (Bloomsbury), which explicitly covers the socio-political affairs that helped Shastri grow as a politician and an administrator.

From his early days in Mughalsarai (now Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar) to narrating the events that triggered India's second Prime Minister to form the Border Security Force (BSF), and give the stirring slogan of 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan', the book becomes one of its kind to discuss Shastri and his salient achievements.

Excerpts follow.

In your book, you have referenced DR Mankekar's Lal Bahadur Shastri and CP Srivastava's Lal Bahadur Shastri: A Life of Truth in Politics. What new value does your book bring to the pre-existing political discourse? How is it different from the existing ones?

A major difference lies in capturing the time and space that surrounded Shastri's life. Through intensive research, I showcased what Mughalsarai was and what a middle-class Kayastha household of teachers and postmasters, and municipal clerks would have looked like. All of these factors played a significant role in shaping Shastri's personality.