Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri was born in Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh, on October 2, 1904. Lal Bahadur Shastri’s father was a teacher who died when he was only a year and a half old. His mother, who was still in her twenties at the time, moved to her father’s house with her three children.
Despite the poverty that followed him, Lal Bahadur had a joyful childhood.
So that he could attend high school, he was moved to live with an uncle in Varanasi. Nanhe, or ‘little one,’ as he was known at home, walked kilometres to school without wearing shoes, even when the streets were scorched by the summer sun.
Lal Bahadur Shastri’s involvement in the country’s struggle for independence from foreign domination intensified as he grew older. Mahatma Gandhi’s condemnation of Indian princes for supporting British authority in India left a lasting impression on him.
Gandhiji summoned his countrymen to join the Non-Cooperation Movement when Lal Bahadur Shastri was sixteen years old. In answer to the Mahatma’s message, he immediately decided to stop studying. His mother’s aspirations were crushed by the choice. The family was powerless to stop him from embarking on what they saw as a potentially terrible path. Lal Bahadur, on the other hand, had already decided. Those who knew him well understood that once he made up his mind, he would stick to it like a rock.
Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri became a member of the Varanasi-based Kashi Vidya Peeth, one of the several national institutes founded in resistance to British authority. He was influenced by the tutelage of numerous scholars and intellectuals there
He earned a reputation as a trustworthy and capable individual. He was a man of the people who spoke their language, was humble, tolerant, and had immense inner power and resoluteness. He was also a visionary leader who steered the country forward. The political teachings of Mahatma Gandhi affected Lal Bahadur Shastri greatly. He once declared, in an accent eerily similar to his Master’s, that “hard work is comparable to prayer.” Lal Bahadur Shastri embodied the best of Indian culture, following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi.
