After Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, it is now Lal Bahadur Shastri's turn to haunt Congress

After rubbing Congress for ignoring freedom icons like Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhai Patel in the quest to portray Jawaharlal Nehru and his family, country's only saviours, it is now the turn of former Prime Minister late Lal Bahadur Shastri, known for his honesty, openness and integrity, to haunt the party and its leaders.

The occasion is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's grandiose plans to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan. Though, the event is planned ostensibly to pump up the national pride, but inclusion of a discussion on the post-war events as well as to bring in Shastri's mysterious death under suspicious circumstances in Tashkent has raised eyebrows in the Congress. Like Subash Chandra Bose's death, Shastri died immediately after signing of an agreement on ceasefire with Pakistan President Ayub Khan. His death has remained in the vortex of suspicious and source to conspiracy theories.

Reports said that no postmortem was conducted on the body of former PM. But his son Sunil Shastri had found blue spots and cut marks on the abdomen, raising questions about these marks, if a postmortem had not been conducted. Two RTIs one by Anuj Dhar, author of several books on the death of Subhas Chandra Bose and another by noted journalist Kuldip Nayar to know the details of Shastri's death were stonewalled by the PMO during the UPA government, "Citing that this could lead to harming of foreign relations, cause disruption in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privileges." Like Bose, successive Congress governments didn't probe or make public the actual causes of Shastri's death.

As per plans to mark the 1965 war, Modi government has ordered tableaux, exhibitions, processions, public lectures and film shows in the heart of the national capital on Rajpath, Janpath and around the India Gate.
Senior Congress leaders, however, see ulterior motive in inclusion of the Tashkent debate to put a question mark on its leaders. Soon after Shastri's death, Indira Gandhi took over as the Prime Minister.

Many even within the Congress question Shastri's decision to go for ceasefire and wanted Indian Army to give a final push to capture whole Jammu and Kashmir and Lahore to teach Pakistan a final lesson. But former union home secretary RD Pradhan, author of then defence minister YB Chavan's diary describes agreeing to a ceasefire a wise decision. He writes that after a fiasco on the Ichhogil canal near Lahore the idea to capture Lahore had to be given up, as Chinese had started pricking India in the North East. "It would not have been wise to tie down a large part of Indian Army inside a city, when the Chinese had already started belligerent moves in the North East. Perhaps, (withdrawal and accepting ceasefire) was a wise decision," says Pradhan, quoting then defence minister.

There are also accusations that at Tashkent India surrendered the strategic Haji Pir pass that the army had captured. The pass links Uri and Poonch on the Indian side but it is today in Pakistan and regularly used by the Pakistani establishment to push terrorists into India. But it had to vacate 640 sq kms of territory from Pakistani forces. "The Indian war aim was to preserve the status-quo in Jammu and Kashmir and to foil Pakistan attempts to grab it. These aims were fully achieved," says Pradhan.

Parrikar to monitor the event
Official sources here said, Modi has asked Defence minister Manohar Parrikar to personally supervise preparations for the events. The event will be used to expose omissions and commissions of the Congress governments and its leaders and also unveiling portions of the official war history written by UP Thapliyal at the behest of the history division of the Defence Ministry.