Lal Bahadur Shastri

Lal Bahadur Shastri.Camera Press/Globe Photos

Lal Bahadur Shastri,  (born Oct. 2, 1904, Mughalsarai, India—died Jan. 11, 1966Tashkent, Uzbekistan, U.S.S.R.), Indian statesman, prime minister of India (1964–66) after Jawaharlal Nehru.

A member of Mahatma Gandhi’s noncooperation movement against British government in India, he was imprisoned for a short time (1921). Upon release he studied in the Kashi Vidyapitha, a nationalist university, where he graduated with the title of shastri (“learned in the scriptures”). He then returned to politics as a follower of Gandhi, was imprisoned several more times, and attained influential positions in the Congress Party of the state of the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh state.


Shastri was criticized for failing to deal effectively with India’s economic problems, but he won great popularity for his firmness on the outbreak of hostilities with neighbouring Pakistan (1965) over the disputed Kashmir region. He died of a heart attack after signing a “no-war” agreement with Pres. Ayub Khan of Pakistan and was succeeded as prime minister by Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter.