During the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, there was a lot of food shortage in India. The United States, at the time, supplied wheat to India. Wheat is an essential staple grain; many Indians can’t live without it. Consequently, shortages of wheat were a very sensitive political issue.
The United States threatened to stop all wheat supplies if India did not stop the war. Despite these threats, Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minister of India, decided to stay hungry instead and keep the country’s honour.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was only the second prime minister of India after Jawaharlal Nehru. After Nehru’s death, he had big shoes to fill. Shastri made his entire family go without food for a day to see how it affected their health. Just so you know, he also went without food that day.
The next day, he asked the people of the country to be hungry for a day each week so that the food shortage would be less. That way, the country would not have to bow before the United States, which was trying to dictate terms.
Making people go hungry was not enough. People would still need food grains. Shastri then coined the term “Jai Jawaan Jai Kisan.” With this, he tried to promote domestic agriculture and simultaneously boosted the military’s morale.
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