Who was more popular among the common people, Jawaharlal Nehru or Lal Bahadur Shastri, as prime minister of India? Why?
PM Nehru after ruling India for 16 years, handed over the leadership to Lal Bahadur Shastri only after his death. This could be a case of elected dictatorship. There was nobody in the country powerful enough to question PN Nehru. PM Nehru was internationalist and more focused on international diplomacy than internal affairs. Almost every year during these 16 years, India faced famine and had to beg for PL-480 wheat aid from USA. Sometime the situation was so dire that India requested USA to redirect wheat air shipment intended for other countries to India and ships at high sea going to other countries delivered wheat at Indian ports. PM Nehru’s priority was international diplomacy to get Noble Peace Prize Nehru handed over a starving country to his successor PM Shastri requested his family to skip one meal every Monday. There is an old saying that charity begins at home. PM Lal Bahadur Shastri appealed to the people to grow wheat or rice wherever they could! He himself started growing ...