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The Indian economy had been stagnating in the previous few years. There was a slowdown in the rate of industrial growth and the balance of payments problem had worsened. However, at that moment, the most serious problem was the severe shortage of food. Agricultural production had slowed down, there was severe drought in several states in 1965, and buffer food stocks were depleted to a dangerous extent. After the US suspended all food aid because of the Indo-Pak war, the government was compelled to introduce statutory rationing but it covered only seven major cities. The government also created the State Food Trading Corporation in January 1965, but it did not succeed in procuring a significant amount of food-grains. However, one positive development was the initiation of the Green Revolution strategy with the purpose of increasing agricultural output and achieving self-sufficiency in food in the end. In general, Shastri was accused by critics inside and outside the party of being ‘a prisoner of indecision’ and of failing to give a direction to government policies or even to lead and control his cabinet colleagues. He felt so unsure and inadequate under pressures of government and comments of the critics that in a private chat with a newsman early in January 1965 he wondered ‘whether he had been right to offer himself for the Prime Ministership and whether he had the capacity to carry the burden that the office involved.’ With the passage of time, however, Shastri began to show greater independence and to assert himself, so much so that Kamaraj began to complain that Shastri was quite often bypassing him in important decision-making. Shastri also set up his own Secretariat, headed by L.K. Jha, his principal private secretary. Which was a source of information and advice to the prime minister on policy matters, independent of the ministries. The Secretariat, which came to be known as the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) started acquiring great deal of influence and power in the making and execution of government policy. It was, however, with the brief Indo-Pak war in August-September 1965 that Shastri's moment came. The Kashmir issue had been simmering for years, with Pakistan demanding reopening of the question and India maintaining that Kashmir being a part of India was a settled fact. In 1965, the followers of Sheikh Abdullah and other dissident leaders created a great deal of unrest in the Kashmir Valley. The Pakistani leadership thought that the situation there was ripe for an intervention, especially as Pakistan had superiority in arms, having acquired sophisticated US military equipment. |
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