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The great conciliator : Lal Bahadur Shastri and the transformation of India

By: Publication details: New Delhi: Bloomsbury India, 2025.Description: xviii, 369p., note., bib., ind., 24 cm X 16 cmISBN:
  • 9789356408852
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 954.035
Summary: Summary:Lal Bahadur Shastri, a man of slight stature, took a larger-than-life stand as India's prime minister. A man of few words, his correspondence was to the point, his speeches succinct. His silence, which some understood as willingness to acquiesce, was both a strength and a weakness. But in fact, during his short term of just about eighteen months, he established institutions that brought India on the path of self-sufficiency and helped defend against external aggression. Prime Minister Shastri galvanized the nation with his slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan', recognizing the farmers for contributing to both food and national security. He is credited with laying the foundation of the Green Revolution, providing an institutional format to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and the Food Corporation of India, and establishing the National Dairy Development Board. Shastri is also strongly etched in public memory as the first Indian prime minister to direct the army to cross the border. To his leadership therefore goes the credit for the first 'surgical strike'. He established key national and domestic security organizations like the Border Security Force and the Central Bureau of Investigation. In The Great Conciliator, Sanjeev Chopra draws on meticulous research to turn the spotlight on an often overlooked figure in Indian politics and makes a case for reassessing the legacy of India's unassuming second prime minister.
List(s) this item appears in: New Arrivals 1 Sep 2025
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Summary:Lal Bahadur Shastri, a man of slight stature, took a larger-than-life stand as India's prime minister. A man of few words, his correspondence was to the point, his speeches succinct. His silence, which some understood as willingness to acquiesce, was both a strength and a weakness. But in fact, during his short term of just about eighteen months, he established institutions that brought India on the path of self-sufficiency and helped defend against external aggression. Prime Minister Shastri galvanized the nation with his slogan 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan', recognizing the farmers for contributing to both food and national security. He is credited with laying the foundation of the Green Revolution, providing an institutional format to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and the Food Corporation of India, and establishing the National Dairy Development Board. Shastri is also strongly etched in public memory as the first Indian prime minister to direct the army to cross the border. To his leadership therefore goes the credit for the first 'surgical strike'. He established key national and domestic security organizations like the Border Security Force and the Central Bureau of Investigation. In The Great Conciliator, Sanjeev Chopra draws on meticulous research to turn the spotlight on an often overlooked figure in Indian politics and makes a case for reassessing the legacy of India's unassuming second prime minister.

Contents
1. Mughalsarai: Circa 1900
2. The Glamour of Pax Britannica
3. Benares, Harishchandra High School and Nishkameshwar Mishra
4 . Kashi Vidyapeeth: 1921-25
5. Servants of the People Society
6. Grihastha Ashram
7 . Allahabad
8. The Youngest General Secretary of UPPCC
9. Shastri as a Legislator
10. Lull Before the Storm: Individual Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement
11. The Quit India Movement
12. Parliamentary Secretary and Minister under G.B. Pant
13. New Delhi
14. The Helmsman of the Railways
15. Three Portfolios in Nehru's Third Ministry
16. India's Dangerous Decades
17. Dragon at the Doorstep
18. The Kamaraj Plan
19. Minister Without Portfolio
20. The End of Nehru's Era
21. Shastri's India Versus Ayub's Pakistan
22. Jai Kisan
23. The White Revolution and Shastri
24. The Difficult Reconciliation on Language
25. On the World Stage
26. Administrative Reforms and Institutional Innovations
27. No Confidence Motions
28. Rann of Kutch and the Formation of the BSF
29. Foiling the Infiltration
30. Towards Lahore
31. Chinese Checkers
32. Ceasefire: Shastri's Moral and Semantic Victory in the UNSC
33. The Finest Hour
34. The Tashkent Agreement
35. Tragedy follows Triumph

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