Disclaimer: I want to clarify one thing here. I am not claiming anything. I am just amused at what I have heard. If anyone finds this blog post offensive in anyway, feel free to contact me.
The kinds of topics my dad and me end up talking are pretty weird. Today was the turn of Indira Gandhi. It started with dad reading a particular piece of fact on one of the channel tickers. It said that eight US Presidents have died while in office out of whom four were assassinated. He called me and wanted to know about those four guys. My information was limited to Abraham Lincoln and J.F. Kennedy (I am not sure though). This raised the similar question about our head of the states.
The only example that came to my mind was Lal Bahadur Shastri. He is one of the few Indian Prime Ministers who actually impress me with their deeds. I have read little about him, but whatever I have read tells me that he is the kind of PM India needs today. To tackle Pakistan and to tackle other problems we face.
And when you are talking about Lal Bahadur Shastri, you cannot avoid talking about his death under mysterious conditions. We defeated Pakistan, we went to Russia in Tashkent to discuss Ceasefire, and what we got in return was a dead Prime Minister. It was a war where we totally torn apart Pakistan’s morale but the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri changed a lot. Indira came to power and as far as I know, hell broke loose. It is lack of information on things like these that makes me want to dive into history books. And maybe I will. What if Shastri had stayed on? I guess India would have been a very different nation with perhaps no tension of Pakistan hovering around.
Something that could have affected even more considering the money spent on the defense budget could have gone into better areas. But well, history is as cruel as present is and we have to live with what we have. And Mr. Manmohan Singh with his funny cabinet containing Laloo Prasad Yadav and the likes is what we have…
And as dad said, we talk only good stuff about dead people. Happened with Indira Gandhi and happening with Veerappan!