R K SINHA, MP (Rajya Sabha)
Even after 51 years of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death, mystery surrounding ‘death due to cardiac arrest’ in Tashkent remains unanswered till date. It was in 1966, January 10 when the then Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadyr Shastri passed away few hours after signing the historic Tashkent Agreement after the Indo-Pak war of 1965.
The then Prime Minister of Soviet Union Aleksey Kosygin had taken initiative to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries after the war so as to restore normalicy in South Asia.
The then Pakistan President Ayub Khan flew down to Tashkent and Lal Bahadur Shastri joined in the pease talks. An agreement was signed on Janaury 10, 1966 known as Tashkent Agreement. Even before the people back home in India could know much about the agreement, Shastriji died in the wee hours of Janaury 11, 1966.
I still remember, when Shastriji was brought ‘dead’ from Tashkent, many Ministers present at the Delhi Airport and family members of Shastriji were shocked to see blue rash like patches on his face, mother of the former prime minister cried saying her son was poisoned. The suspicious circumstances undere which Shashtriji died raised hue and cry in India with demand of inquirty into his death.
Briefly, I retrace reports that appeared in the Press about Shastriji’s death. The agreement was signed around 4 p.m.
That evening Shastriji had light meal as he was a frugal eater. The meal was cooked by one Jan Mohammad who was cook of T N Kaul, then India’s Ambassador to Moscow. Before going to bed Shastriji had a glass of milk. The glass of milk was also served by Jan Mohammad. At midnight Shastriji complained of ‘uneasiness’. He died at 2.a.m on January 11.
Surprisingly, when Shastriji was feeling uneasiness, he had to walk out of his room to tell his staff to inform his personal physician R N Chug that he was feeling bad. By the time Dr Chug attended him Shastriji was collapsing and breathed his last remembering God – name of Lord Ram. Dr Chugh could hardly do anything to revive the former Prime Minister.
What had come to light then was the room in which Shastriji was housed had no telephone not even a inter-com device. How it is that the host country Soviet Union failed to provide this minimum facility to a visiting Prime Minister of India.
Some Soviet Union officials then had whispered that the Indian Prime Minister was ‘poisoned’. This view was shared even by the KGB, the secret service of Soviet Union.
Eleven years later in 1977, Dr Chugh, his wife and his son died in a road accident. A Truck was the killer.
Guljari Lal Nanda was officiating Prime Minister after Shastriji’s death. One thing that would have cleared the air was to order post-mortem of Shastriji’s body before cremation. It would have established beyond doubt if the former Prime Minister actually died a natural death or he was poisoned and killed by a high profile conspirators that might have included some insiders from India, the host country and Pakistan President Ayub Khan. But Guljari Lal Nanda did not think of an autopsy of the body of the former Prime Minister.
In the United States of America, four American Presidents were murdered including Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy. In each case posr-mortem was carried out. Back home, when Rajiv Fandhi died in Serampedur on May 21 1991 by a human bomb killer, his body was torn into pieces. Before the cremation, mutilated body of Rajiv Gandhi was sent to All India Instsitutte of Medical Sciences in Delhi for post-moretm. When Indira Gandhi, a serving Prime Minister was shot dead by her personal security guards on October 31, 1984, her body was also sent to AIIMS for post-mortem. Why it was that Shastriji body was not sent for post-mortem when family members of the former Prime Minister suspected that he was poisoned to death.
Generally, it was felt that India succumbed to the pressure of Soviet Union which was a strong ally of India then. Though Nanda was officiating Prime Minister then, Indira Gandhi who was a minister in the Shastri Government is said to be calling the shot.
It is a sad commentary, that a Prime Minister like Lal Bahadur Shastri who set example of integrity and honesty while holding the office of Prime Minister and even as a Cabinet Minister in the Nehru Government should have died in a foreign land and that too under suspicious circumstances. Lal Bahadur Shastri is born only once not in hundred but in thousand years.
(The writer is a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha)