Lal Bahadur Shastri Monument Tashkent
Tashkent as a city has a tragic connection to India other than the historical past. It is this very city that the former Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri died while in office when he had gone there for a peace summit along with representatives from Pakistan and USSR. To honor the late Prime Minister, the USSR built a Lal Bahadur Shastri Monument in Tashkent.
Death Of Lal Bahadur Shastri In Tashkent
There have been several newspaper articles, books, online posts, and even a recent cinema that tried to decipher the mystery behind the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri during his trip to Tashkent. His death caused a political storm and conspiracy theories started floating around.
As per records in the early morning hours of the 11th of January 1966, he died as a result of cardiac arrest. As per his personal physician who had traveled with him to Tashkent the Prime Minister while in bed suffered a cardiac arrest. Mast midnight he had called for his personal assistant to alert his personal physician to inform him of his ill health. Conditions deteriorated and before anything could be done his heart stopped beating. The doctor had tried to resuscitate him but unfortunately, the doctor could not revive him.
Due to the height of the Cold War, conspiracy theories started flying wild. There was tight security at the venue, so much so that as per reports KGB had two agents tasting every food and water served to him just to ensure that there was no chance of poisoning.
Just the day before on the 10th of January, Lal Bahadur Shastri had signed the Tashkent Declaration along with Muhammad Ayub Khan the then-President of Pakistan. The meeting was moderated by the Premier of the Soviet Union, Aleksei Kosygin.
The declaration was discussed and signed by both India and Pakistan but back in their homeland, the agreement was criticized. Somehow it was felt that it was never a win-win situation for both the countries.
Even after signing the declaration, Lal Bahadur Shastri was distressed as he was already getting feedback from India about it not being favorable. This caused him a lot of distress according to the people who had seen him one last time that evening.
While the Russian and Indian medical team had agreed to call his death natural, back in India especially his family members contested this theory and believed that he was poisoned.
This conspiracy theory still lingers on as most of the files related to his death in Tashkent are still classified and the Government of India has refused to release them to the public to date.
Lal Bahadur Shastri Monument in Tashkent
To honor the late Prime Minister the USSR government built a memorial to Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent. Not only a monument but the road in front of the monument was renamed as Shastri Street.
The memorial was unveiled in the year 1976 around a decade after his death. The monument features a long marble plinth featuring a bust of Lal Bahadur Shastri made out of bronze. The bust was sculpted by Yakov Iosifovich Shapiro who is very famous in Uzbekistan and was instrumental in creating many such masterpieces.
This is a very popular tourist destination for Indian tourists coming to Tashkent. The monument is right at the corner of a crossroad and is very easy to spot. The monument is well looked after as I could see a neat row of flowers lining both sides. I am sure it is cleaned regularly as I found it to be clean.
Personally, for me, it was a true honor standing over there to see this in a foreign land.
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