Homeless home minister

People used to call him the homeless Home Minister because he did not have a house of his own. He had rented a small house in Allahabad. Even when he was a minister, he used to stay in that house when he went to Allahabad. After a few days the owner of the house let it out to another family. When Shastriji resigned as minister he vacated the government quarters and he did not have a place to line in!

'Force will be met with force'

But friendly words cannot tame a serpent. There is but one way to do it - to remove the serpent's fangs.

Even before the ink with which they had signed the Kutch agreement dried up, Pakisthan raised its hood to strike again. Pakistani soldiers entered Kashmir in disguise. In September 1965 there was a large-scale invasion of the territory by Pakistani soldiers in the Chhamb area. War broke out all along the Cease-fire Line on the Kashmir border.

Five yards of khadi cloth as dowry

He graduated from the nationalist university, Kashi Vidyapeeth, in 1925 and was given the title, 'Shastri', meaning one who is learned in the scriptures. The next year, he joined the `Servants of the People Society' started by Lala Lajpat Rai and plunged into the freedom movement. Shastri married Lalita Devi, the youngest daughter of Ganesh Prasad, in 1928. He did not believe in the dowry system and refused to take dowry. However, on the insistence of his father-in-law he took five yards of khadi cloth as dowry.

Early Childhood

Born at Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh on October 2, 1904, Lal Bahadur Shastri had spent his early childhood at his maternal uncle, Raghunath Prasad's house. His father, Sharada Prasad, died when Shastri was hardly one-and-a-half years old, leaving his mother, Ramdulari Devi, to take care of their three children. After the death of her husband, Ramdulari Devi shifted to her father's house in Mirzapur. She played a vital role in shaping Shastri's life by imbibing the right values in him.