protesting the imposition of Hindi. These included strikes, dharnas, hartals and burning of effigies, Hindi books as well pages of the Constitution. Hindi signboards were also blackened in many places. There were pitched battles between the police and the agitators. The Central government had to soon take note of these protests. The Congress itself was divided between pro-Hindi and anti-Hindi camps. Some felt that the unity of the country was at stake.

Finally, when things seemed to be going out of hand, Shastri, though he supported the pro-Hindi stand, made a series of concessions to assuage the feelings of the anti-Hindi camp. These included among others, the right of each state to have a language of its own, which could be the regional language or English, communications could be in regional languages with English translations, English would continue to be the communication language between the centre and the states and that the civil service exams would be conducted in English rather than Hindi alone.

Here again, we see how a popular social movement forced the government of the day to reconsider the official position. The prime minister in both cases went out of their way to ensure that things were within control, despite not being personally in favour of the stand by the agitationists. It was clear for both Nehru and Shastri; the unity of the nation came first over personal standpoints.

The debate regarding the developmental strategy was not simply an economic one but also had political implications. While Nehru and the left of centre group within the Congress favoured the state-controlled and institutional strategy in agriculture, there was right of centre faction which was opposed to state control. They constantly criticised these programmes and attempted to water down the proposals. Since this group was most powerful at the state level, they also ensured that most radical plans were not implemented properly.

Once it became clear that the existing strategy was not increasing food production, there was a shift to a different strategy between the years 1964-67. This attempted to secure the cooperation of the state governments as well as increase food production. In a way, it also reflected the changes in economic policy after Nehru’s death and also the changes in economic thinking.