Thread by @RavikanthS_

#LalBahadurShastriJayanti #LalBahadurShastri

Today is Lal Bahadur Shastri Birthday
I always feel one of the greatest son of India and his contributions to India gets short changed as Oct 2nd is all about Mohan Das Gandhi

Nehru Gandy ensured we forgot everyone and only remember them
Gandy stayed in Aga Khan palace and acted as if he is so simple and poor
Once Sarojini Naidu said it cost lots of Money to keep Gandhi poo
And about Nehru the less said the better.

He lived like Maharaja on public money and no one asked where do you get that money from ?
In 1963 Ram Manohar Lohia published a pamphlet which said India spent Rs.25000 a day on royal life of Nehru while average indian lived on 3 anna per day (18.75 paisa)

Nehru said it was 15 Annas per day but Lohia proved it in Parliament that his number was right as few rich Indians increased the average
It is called as Teen Anna Pandrah Anna debate

Next year in 1964 when Lal Bahadur Shastri became PM he didnt have a car
He bought a Fiat Car and it costed 12000 and he had only 7000 so he took a loan of 5000 from Punjab national bank for it. He reminded his wife to repay the loan even when he was in Tashkent.

After his death the bank said we will write off the loan but his wife repayed the loan in installments completely
Compare that to what is happening today everyone wants to evade bank loans and all big corporates evaded loans worth billions of dollars

Durin the 1965 war with Pakistan, the then US President Lyndon B Johnson sent a tough missive demanding that India stop the war and warning that if India did not relent then the US would stop providing wheat to the country under the PL-480 agreement. India used

to import wheat at that time to meet the domestic requirement.
The same day, Shastriji told his wife not to cook food for the family in the evening. When she inquired as to what was the cause, he explained that he wanted to know whether his family

members could withstand hunger for half-a-day. I must know how it feels before asking the countrymen to forgo one meal everyday to meet the situation,
The next day Shastriji addressed the nation on the All India Radio exhorting the people to skip one meal a day. “We

may go hungry, but not bow before the US,” he said
I narrated these two incidents to show how selfless Shastrji was and also how daring he was
Nehru who was a very self centred short tempered, spiteful and very cowardly man. Hence he did so many blunders

and lost Kashmir to Paxtaan in 1948 and Arunachal and Aksai chin to China in 1962
Shastriji was strong willed and humble man
Paxtaan attacked India in 1965 as they thought we were very weak after recent defeat in China war and death of Nehru

But Shastriji turned the tables on them and showed how great a leader he was
If Shastriji was alive and continued as India’s PM we would have become a strong nation like China or Korea in 1960s and 70s
But we missed the bus by his controversial death in 1965.

PS - Modi who spends his own money on his kitchen even in PM house today and Lal Bahadur Shastri are the most honest and simple PM we got