Word: shastri
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When Nehru suffered his first stroke, he called on Shastri to take over as deputy prime minister. The new leader insists he was not especially marked for succession, and during Nehru's illness told newsmen, "If the Prime Minister has something in his mind, he has not informed me of it." What, then, focused attention on Shastri? His personal honesty, for one thing, and his deftness at conciliation for another. A secret government poll revealed that Lai Bahadur, next to Nehru, was the best-liked, best-known figure in India...
Under the Maulshree. After his acceptance speech, Shastri returned to his bungalow and submitted to his first press conference, sitting at a desk beneath a spreading, white-blossomed maulshree tree. He was amiable but hardly informative. Would he follow the same principles as Nehru in forming a Cabinet? Shastri blinked, asked slyly, "What was his approach, the late Prime Minister?" Would he engage in peace talks with China about the disputed Himalayan border? "Let me be in office a few days before I answer that...
...office Shastri would immediately have to start thinking about the hard business of running a government. As he huddled with advisers on the makeup of his new Cabinet, it seemed likely that the Foreign Ministry might go to Indira Gandhi, while the defeated Desai was almost certain to be offered a portfolio, even if not the top one he demands. Another likely minister: S. K. Patil...
Perhaps the most accurate prediction was made by Shastri's 85-year-old uncle, Ram Pershad. Gazing at his newly eminent nephew, Ram Pershad said, "Yes, he is now Prime Minister, and now he has just created a thousand enemies...
Freely translated, Lal Bahadur Shastri means "Graduate Brave Jewel." He was born in 1904, the second son of a minor tax collector in the vil lage of Mughal Sarai, near the holy city of Benares. His father died when he was an infant. The child belonged to the Kayasth caste, who were disdained as quislings by other Hindus because they became clerks and officials under the Moslem rule of the conquering Mogul emperors. Their reputation for shrewdness is so great that an Indian saying runs, "If you meet a Kayasth and a serpent, kill the Kayasth first...