Long relegated to the footnotes of history, Lal Bahadur Shastri is often overshadowed by the towering legacies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But what if Shastri hadn’t died suddenly after signing the Tashkent Agreement with Pakistan? Would Indira Gandhi still have become Prime Minister? And how might India’s political trajectory have changed?

In this episode, host Sandip Roy speaks to Sanjeev Chopra, author of The Great Conciliator, a new biography of Shastri. Chopra, a former IAS officer and former director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, traces Shastri’s rise to power and explores why India’s second Prime Minister deserves a closer look today.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar