He belonged to a humble family, as his father Sharda Prasad was a poor man. He was born on October 2, 1904 at Mughal Sarai in Uttar Pradesh. He joined the Harish Chandra High School at Varanasi where his uncle lived. Even at school, he was known for his intelligence, hard work, honesty and patriotic feelings, though physically he did not have much of an impressive personality, being short stature and thin.
He took an active part in the Non-Cooperation Movement and though he was arrested, he was not sent to jail, being teenaged and weak. He got later education at Kashi Vidyapeeth. He was married to Lalita Devi when he was 24. He did great social work at the instance of Gandhi under whose influence he had come. He later went to imprisonment several times for offering Satyagraha. He studied a number of authors during his prison time.
He joined as Railway Minister in 1962 in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet. But taking moral responsibility for a railway accident, he resigned gracefully. After Jawaharlal’s death in 1964, he became the Prime Minister. He had to fight the war of 1965 with Pakistan. It was the time when his greatest sterling qualities of patriotism, courage and leadership came on the surface.
He won the war and signed the Tashkent Agreement, but unfortunately he died of a massive heart attack on 11th January, 1966 while he was still at Tashkent. He will always be remembered as one of the greatest Indians.