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Indira Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 10, 2019 | Original: November 9, 2009

The only daughter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was destined for politics. First appointed prime minister in 1966, she garnered widespread public support for agricultural improvements that led to India’s self-sufficiency in food grain production as well as for her success in the Pakistan war, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. After serving three terms, Gandhi was voted out of office for her increasingly authoritarian policies, including a 21-month state of emergency in which Indians’ constitutional rights were restricted. In 1980, however, she was reelected to a fourth term. Following a deadly confrontation at the Sikh’s holiest temple in Punjab four years later, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards on October 31, 1984, ushering her son Rajiv into power and igniting extensive anti-Sikh riots.

Indira Gandhi: Early Life and Family

Born on November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, India, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was the sole child of Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru . As a member of the Indian National Congress, Nehru had been influenced by party leader Mahatma Gandhi, and dedicated himself to India’s fight for independence. The struggle resulted in years of imprisonment for Jawaharlal and a lonely childhood for Indira, who attended a Swiss boarding school for a few years, and later studied history at Somerville College, Oxford. Her mother passed away in 1936 of tuberculosis.

Did you know? One of Indira Gandhi’s most unpopular policies during her time in office was government-enforced sterilization as a form of population control.

In March 1942, despite the disapproval of her family, Indira married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer (unrelated to Mahatma Gandhi), and the couple soon had two sons: Rajiv and Sanjay.

Indira Gandhi: Political Career and Accomplishments

In 1947, Nehru became the newly independent nation’s first prime minister, and Gandhi agreed to go to New Delhi to serve as his hostess, welcoming diplomats and world leaders at home and traveling with her father throughout India and abroad. She was elected to the prominent 21-member working committee of the Congress Party in 1955 and, four years later, was named its president. Upon Nehru’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the new prime minister, and Indira took on the role of Minister of Information and Broadcasting. But Shastri’s leadership was short-lived; just two years later he abruptly died and Indira was appointed by Congress Party leaders to be prime minister.

Within a few years Gandhi gained enormous popularity for introducing successful programs that transformed India into a country self-sufficient in food grains—an achievement known as the Green Revolution.

In 1971, she threw her support behind the Bengali movement to separate East from West Pakistan, providing refuge for the ten million Pakistani civilians who fled to India in order to escape the marauding Pakistan army and eventually offering troops and arms. India’s decisive victory over Pakistan in December led to the creation of Bangladesh, for which Gandhi was posthumously awarded Bangladesh’s highest state honor 40 years later.

Indira Gandhi: Autocratic Leadership

Following the 1972 national elections, Gandhi was accused of misconduct by her political opponent and, in 1975, was convicted of electoral corruption by the High Court of Allahabad and prohibited from running in another election for six years. Instead of resigning as expected, she responded by declaring a state of emergency on June 25, whereby citizens’ civil liberties were suspended, the press was acutely censored and the majority of her opposition was detained without trial. Throughout what became referred to as the “Reign of Terror,” thousands of dissidents were imprisoned without due process.

Anticipating that her former popularity would assure her reelection, Gandhi finally eased the emergency restrictions and called for the next general election in March 1977. Riled by their limited liberties, however, the people overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Janata Party and Morarji Desai assumed the role of prime minister.

Within the next few years, democracy was restored, but the Janata Party had little success in resolving the nation’s severe poverty crisis. In 1980, Gandhi campaigned under a new party—Congress (I)—and was elected into her fourth term as prime minister.

Indira Gandhi: Assassination

In 1984, the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, was taken over by Sikh extremists seeking an autonomous state. In response, Gandhi sent Indian troops to regain the temple by force. In the barrage of gunfire that ensued, hundreds of Sikhs were killed, igniting an uprising within the Sikh community.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated outside her home by two of her trusted bodyguards, seeking retribution for the events at the temple.

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7 Facts About Indira Gandhi

Her life involved politics from a young age

Almost from the moment she was born in 1917, Indira Nehru's life was steeped in politics. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru , was a leader in the fight for India's independence from British rule, so it was natural for Indira to become a supporter of this struggle.

One tactic of India's nationalist movement was to reject foreign — particularly British — products. At a young age, Indira witnessed a bonfire of foreign goods. Later, the 5-year-old chose to burn her own beloved doll because the toy had been made in England.

When she was 12, Indira played an even bigger role in India's struggle for self-determination by leading children in the Vanar Sena (the name means Monkey Brigade; it was inspired by the monkey army that aided Lord Rama in the epic Ramayana). The group grew to include 60,000 young revolutionaries who addressed envelopes, made flags, conveyed messages and put up notices about demonstrations. It was a risky undertaking, but Indira was happy to be participating in the independence movement.

Her marriage wasn't widely supported

Indira's father was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi . However, the fact that Indira ended up with the same last name as the iconic Indian leader wasn't due to a connection with the Mahatma; instead, Indira became Indira Gandhi following her marriage to Feroze Gandhi (who wasn't related to the Mahatma). And despite the fact that Indira and Feroze were in love, theirs was a wedding that few people in India supported.

Feroze, a fellow participant in the struggle for independence, was Parsi, while Indira was Hindu, and at the time mixed marriages were unusual. It was also out-of-the-norm not to have an arranged marriage. In fact, there was such a public outcry against the match that Mahatma Gandhi had to offer a public statement of support, which included the request: "I invite the writers of abusive letters to shed your wrath and bless the forthcoming marriage."

Indira and Feroze wed in 1942. Unfortunately, though the pair had two sons together, the marriage was not a great success. Feroze had extramarital liaisons, while much of Indira's time was spent with her father after he became India's prime minister in 1947. The marriage ended with Feroze's death in 1960.

A refugee crisis put pressure on her

In 1971, Indira faced a crisis when troops from West Pakistan went into Bengali East Pakistan to crush its independence movement. She spoke out against the horrific violence on March 31, but harsh treatment continued and millions of refugees began to stream into neighboring India.

Taking care of these refugees stretched India's resources; tensions also mounted because India offered support to independence fighters. Making the situation even more complicated were geopolitical considerations — President Richard Nixon wanted the United States to stand by Pakistan and China was arming Pakistan, while India had signed a "treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation" with the Soviet Union. The situation didn't improve when Indira visited the United States in November — Oval Office recordings from the time reveal that Nixon told Henry Kissinger the prime minister was an "old witch."

War began when Pakistan's air force bombed Indian bases on December 3; Indira recognized the independence of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) on December 6. On December 9, Nixon directed a U.S. fleet to head for Indian waters — but then Pakistan surrendered on December 16.

The war's conclusion was a triumph for India and Indira (and, of course, for Bangladesh). After the conflict had ended, Indira declared in an interview, "I am not a person to be pressured — by anybody or any nation."

Millions were sterilized when she declared a state of emergency

In June 1975, Indira was found guilty of electoral malpractice. When rivals began advocating for her removal as prime minister, she opted to declare a state of emergency. Emergency rule would be a dark moment for India's democracy, with opponents imprisoned and press freedoms limited. Perhaps most shockingly, millions of people were sterilized — some against their will — during this period.

At the time, population control was seen as necessary in order for India to prosper (Indira's favored son and confidant, Sanjay, became particularly focused on reducing the birth rate). During the Emergency, the government directed its energies toward sterilization, with a focus on the simpler procedure of vasectomies. To encourage men to undergo the operation, incentives such as cooking oil and cash were offered.

Then government workers began to be required to meet sterilization quotas to get paid. Reports came out that vasectomies had been performed on boys, and that men were being arrested, then sent to be sterilized. Some began sleeping in fields so as to avoid sterilization teams. According to a 1977 article in TIME magazine, between April 1976 and January 1977, 7.8 million were sterilized (the initial target had been 4.3 million).

At the beginning of 1977, Indira called for elections, ending her Emergency rule. She'd expected to win this vote, but the fear and worries brought on by the sterilization policy contributed to her defeat at the polls, and she was kicked out of office.

She clashed with her daughter-in-law

In 1982, a disagreement between Indira and daughter-in-law Maneka led to a showdown. Practically from the moment Maneka wed Sanjay and entered Indira's household, the younger woman didn't fit in. After Sanjay died in 1980 (he was killed in a plane crash), tensions rose further. Things came to a head when Maneka defied Indira to attend a rally of Sanjay's former political allies (which didn't help the political interests of Rajiv, Sanjay's brother).

As punishment, Indira ordered Maneka to leave her house. In return, Maneka made sure the press captured her bags being unceremoniously left outside. Maneka also publicly decried her treatment, stating, "I have not done anything to merit being thrown out. I don't understand why I am being attacked and held personally responsible. I am more loyal to my mother-in-law than even to my mother."

Though the prime minister got Maneka to move out, she paid a price as well: Maneka took her son, Varun, with her, and being separated from a beloved grandson was a blow for Indira.

She was close with Margaret Thatcher

As a female leader in the 20th century, Indira Gandhi was a member of a very small club. Yet she had one friend who could understand what her life was like: the Iron Lady herself, Britain's Margaret Thatcher .

Indira and Thatcher first met in 1976. They got on well, despite the fact that Indira was engaged in her undemocratic Emergency rule at the time. And when Indira was temporarily out of power after her electoral defeat in 1977, Thatcher didn't abandon her. The two continued to have a good rapport after Indira returned to power in 1980.

When Thatcher came close to being killed by an IRA bomb in October 1984, Indira was sympathetic. Following Indira's own assassination a few weeks later, Thatcher ignored death threats to attend the funeral. The note of condolence that she sent to Rajiv stated: "I cannot describe to you my feelings at the news of the loss of your mother, except to say that it was like losing a member of my own family. Our many talks together had a closeness and mutual understanding which will always remain with me. She was not just a great statesman but a warm and caring person."

Her son succeeded her after her death

One significant factor that buoyed Indira's political career was her heritage. As the daughter of India's first prime minister, the Congress Party was happy to put her in a position of leadership, then later selected her to become prime minister.

After Indira's 1984 assassination, her son Rajiv succeeded her as prime minister. In 1991, he was also assassinated, but the Nehru-Gandhi clan still wasn't done with politics: though Rajiv's widow, Sonia, initially declined the Congress Party's request to step into a leadership role, she eventually became its president. By the 2014 election, Rajiv and Sonia's son Rahul had joined the Congress Party as well; however, the party went on to experience a big loss at the polls. At a press conference, Rahul admitted, "The Congress has done pretty badly, there is a lot for us to think about. As vice president of the party I hold myself responsible."

Yet not all Gandhis fared poorly in the 2014 election — as members of the victorious Bharatiya Janata Party, Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun are now in power, with Maneka serving as minister of women and child development (though considering her acrimonious relationship with Maneka, this development likely wouldn't thrill Indira). And despite their poor showing in 2014, the Congress Party refused to accept Sonia and Rahul's resignations. It seems that various members of Indira's family will continue to play a role in Indian politics for the foreseeable future.

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Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( November 19 , 1917 – October 31 , 1984 ) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress . She was the 3rd prime minister of India and was also the first and, to date, only female prime minister of India . Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru , the 1st prime minister of India. She served as prime minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father.

As prime minister, Gandhi was known for her political intransigency and unprecedented centralisation of power . She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan , which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh , as well as increasing India's influence to the point where it became the sole regional power of South Asia . Citing separatist tendencies , and in response to a call for revolution , Gandhi instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 where basic civil liberties were suspended and the press was censored . Widespread atrocities were carried out during the emergency. In 1980, she returned to power after free and fair elections . After Gandhi ordered military action in the Golden Temple in Operation Blue Star , her own bodyguards and Sikh nationalists assassinated her on 31 October 1984.

• 1.1 The Mitrokhin Archive
• 1.2 Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972
• 2 Quotes about Indira Gandhi
• 3 External links

Quotes [ edit ]

• "Martin Luther King" , speech at the presentation of the Jawaharial Nehru Award for International Understanding to Coretta Scott King in New Delhi, India (January 24, 1969). Published in Selected Speeches and Writings of Indira Gandhi, September 1972-March 1977 (New Delhi : Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984. pp. 312-313).
• 1980 to Roy Jenkins < [1]
• Jul 29 1982 [2]
• "Preface, 4th Five Year Plan" , Government of India Planning Commission (July 18, 1970).
• Press conference, New Delhi (October 19, 1971), quoted in "Indian and Pakistani Armies Confront Each Other Along Borders" by Sydney H. Schanberg , The New York Times (October 20, 1971), page 6C.
• First global conference on the human environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm in June 1972 by UN.
• Letter to Richard Nixon (December 15, 1971) [3] .
• Referring to the fundamental rights of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" in the United States Declaration of Independence in a letter to Richard Nixon (December 15, 1971). [4] .
• Address to Parliament announcing the victory of Bangladesh-India Forces over the Pakistan Army, (December 16, 1971) [5] .
• "The Embattled Woman Who Relishes Crosswords, Children...and Running India," People (June 30, 1975).
• Quoted in "Indira's Coup," profile by Oriana Fallaci , The New York Review of Books (September 18, 1975).
• "True Liberation Of Women" , speech, inauguration of the All-India Women's Conference Building Complex in New Delhi, India (March 26, 1980). Published in Selected Speeches and Writings of Indira Gandhi, September 1972-March 1977 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984, pp. 417-418).
• 28 January 1981, as quoted in Towards a New India (1994) by Shankar Dayal Sharma , p. 16.
• Speech, Bhubaneswar, India (October 30, 1984), quoted in "Death in the Garden," by William E. Smith, Time (November 12, 1984) [6] .
• In: Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi: January 1, 1982-October 30, 1984 , Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1986, p. 495.
• Her last speech delivered in Orissa on 30 October 1984 before she was assassinated.

The Mitrokhin Archive [ edit ]

• From 1967 to 1973 Haksar , a former protégé of Krishna Menon, was Mrs Gandhi’s most trusted adviser. One of her biographers, Katherine Frank, describes him as ‘a magnetic figure’ who became ‘probably the most influential and powerful person in the government’ as well as ‘the most important civil servant in the country’. Haksar set out to turn a civil service which, at least in principle, was politically neutral into an ideologically ‘committed bureaucracy ’. His was the hand that guided Mrs Gandhi through her turn to the left , the nationalization of the banks and the split in the Congress Party. It was Haksar also who was behind the transfer of control of the intelligence community to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. His advocacy of the leftward turn in Mrs Gandhi’s policies sprang, however, from his socialist convictions rather than from manipulation by the KGB . But both he and Mrs Gandhi ‘were less fastidious than Nehru had been about interfering with the democratic system and structure of government to attain their ideological ends’. The journalist Inder Malhotra noted the growth of a ‘courtier culture’ in Indira Gandhi’s entourage: ‘The power centre in the world’s largest democracy was slowly turning into a durbar.’
• In the early 1970s, the KGB presence in India became one of the largest in the world outside the Soviet bloc. Indira Gandhi placed no limit on the number of Soviet diplomats and trade officials, thus allowing the KGB and GRU as many cover positions as they wished. Nor, like many other states, did India object to admitting Soviet intelligence officers who had been expelled by less hospitable regimes. The expansion of KGB operations in the Indian subcontinent (and first and foremost in India) during the early 1970s led the FCD to create a new department. Hitherto operations in India, as in the rest of non-Communist South and South-East Asia, had been the responsibility of the Seventh Department. In 1974 the newly founded Seventeenth Department was given charge of the Indian subcontinent.
• The KGB, in Kalugin’s view, was more successful than the CIA , partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption which became endemic under Indira Gandhi’s regime. As Inder Malhotra noted, though corruption was not new in India: People expected Indira Gandhi’s party, committed to bringing socialism to the country, to be more honest and cleaner than the old undivided Congress. But this turned out to be a vain hope. On the contrary, compared with the amassing of wealth by some of her close associates, the misdeeds of the discarded Syndicate leaders, once looked upon as godfathers of corrupt Congressmen, began to appear trivial.
• Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to the Prime Minister’s house. Former Syndicate member S. K. Patil is reported to have said that Mrs Gandhi did not even return the suitcases... The Prime Minister is unlikely to have paid close attention to the dubious origins of some of the funds which went into Congress’s coffers. That was a matter which she left largely to her principal fundraiser, Lalit Narayan Mishra, who – though she doubtless did not realize it – also accepted Soviet money. On at least one occasion a secret gift of 2 million rupees from the Politburo to Congress (R) was personally delivered after midnight by the head of Line PR in New Delhi , Leonid Shebarshin. Another million rupees were given on the same occasion to a newspaper which supported Mrs Gandhi. Short and obese with several chins, Mishra looked the part of the corrupt politician he increasingly became. Indira Gandhi, despite her own frugal lifestyle, depended on the money he collected from a variety of sources to finance Congress (R). So did her son and anointed heir, Sanjay , whose misguided ambition to build an Indian popular car and become India’s Henry Ford depended on government favours.
• The greatest successes of Soviet active measures in India remained the exploitation of the susceptibility of Indira Gandhi and her advisers to bogus CIA conspiracies against them.
• India under Indira Gandhi was also probably the arena for more KGB active measures than anywhere else in the world, though their significance appears to have been considerably exaggerated by the Centre, which overestimated its ability to manipulate Indian opinion.

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972 [ edit ]

• They say that [I am icy, hard] because I’m sincere. Even too sincere. And because I don’t waste time in flowery small talk, as people do in India, where the first half hour is spent in compliments: »How are you, how are your children, how are your grandchildren, and so forth.« I refuse to indulge in small talk. And compliments, if at all, I save for after the job is done. But in India people can’t stomach this attitude of mine, and when I say, »Hurry up, let’s get to the point,« they feel hurt. And think I’m cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there’s another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don’t put on an act. I don’t know how to put on an act; I always show myself for what I am, in whatever mood I’m in. If I’m happy, I look happy; if I’m angry, I show it. Without worrying about how others may react. When one has had a life as difficult as mine, one doesn’t worry about how others will react. And now go ahead. You can ask anything you like.
• But we couldn’t do otherwise. We couldn’t keep ten million refugees on our soil; we couldn’t tolerate such an unstable situation for who knows how long. That influx of refugees would have stopped—on the contrary. It would have gone on and on and on, until there would have been an explosion. We were no longer able to control the arrival of those people, in our own interest we had to stop it! That’s what I said to Mr. Nixon, to all the other leaders I visited in an attempt to avert the war. However, when you look at the beginning of the actual war, it’s hard not to recognize that the Pakistanis were the ones to attack. They were the ones who descended on us with their planes, at five o’clock that afternoon when the first bombs fell on Agra . I can prove it to you by the fact that we were taken completely by surprise.
• I made the trip knowing I was like the child putting his finger into the hole in the dike. And there are things that ... I don’t know ... one can’t ... oh, why not! The truth is that I spoke clearly to Mr. Nixon . And I told him what I had already told Mr. Heath, Mr. Pompidou, Mr. Brandt. I told him without mincing words that we couldn’t go on with ten million refugees on our backs, we couldn’t tolerate the fuse of such and explosive situation any longer. Well, Mr. Heath , Mr. Pompidou , and Mr. Brandt had understood very well. But not Mr. Nixon. The fact is that when the others understand one thing, Mr. Nixon understands another. I suspected he was very pro-Pakistan. Or rather I knew that the Americans had always been in favor of Pakistan —not so much because they were in favor of Pakistan , but because they were against India .
• However, I had recently had the impression they were chang­ing—not so much by becoming less pro-Pakistan as by becoming less anti-India. I was wrong. My visit to Nixon did anything but avert the war. It was useful only to me. The experience taught me that when people do something against you, that something always turns out in your favor. At least you can use it to your advantage. It’s a law of life—check it and you’ll see it holds true in every situation of life. ... And do you know why I won this war? Because my army was able to do it, yes, but also because the Americans were on the side of Pakistan.
• As for the position they held in this war ... well, I think they’ve been more skillful than the Americans. Certainly they’ve had a lighter touch—had they wanted to, they could have done more for Pakistan. Isn’t that so? It was the Americans who sent the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal , not the Chinese.
• India had barely become independent , in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir , which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The mahara­jah fled, and the people of Kashmir , led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help . Lord Mountbatten , who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn’t be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population. So our leaders decided to sign a document by which they bound themselves to go to war with Pakistan. And Mahatma Gandhi , apostle of nonviolence , signed along with them. Yes, he chose war. He said there was noth­ing else to do. War is inevitable when one must defend somebody or defend oneself.
• Look, I don’t see the world as something divided between right and left . And I don’t at all care who’s on the right or left or in the center . Even though we use them, even though I use them myself, these expressions have lost all meaning. I’m not interested in one label or the other—I’m only interested in solving certain problems, in getting where I want to go. I have certain objectives.
• I’m not for nationalization because of the rhetoric of nationalization, or because I see in nationalization the cure-all for every injustice. I’m for nationalization in cases where it’s necessary.
• In India, women have never been in hostile competition with men-even in the most distant past, every time a woman emerged as a leader, perhaps as a queen , the people accepted her. As something normal and not exceptional. Let’s not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti . Not only that—the struggle for inde­ pendence here has been conducted in equal measure by men and by women. And when we got our independence , no one forgot that. In the Western world, on the other hand, nothing of the kind has ever happened—women have participated, yes, but revolutions have always been made by men alone.
• Yes, it’s true. It’s true that Joan of Arc was my dream as a little girl. I discovered her toward the age of ten or twelve, when I went to France . I don’t remember where I read about her, but I recall that she immediately took on a definite importance for me. I wanted to sacrifice my life for my country. It seems like foolishness and yet ... what happens when we’re children is engraved forever in our lives.
• Happiness is such a fleeting point of view—there’s no such thing as continual happiness. There are only moments of happiness—from contentment to ecstasy. And if by happiness you mean ecstasy ... Yes, I’ve known ecstasy, and it’s a blessing to be able to say it because those who can say it are very few. But ecstasy doesn’t last long and is seldom ever repeated. If by happiness you mean an ordinary contentment, then yes—I’m fairly contented. Not satisfied—contented. Satisfied is a word I use only in reference to my country, and I’ll never be satisfied for my country. For this reason I go on taking difficult paths, and between a paved road and a footpath that goes up the mountain, I choose the footpath. To the great irrita­tion of my bodyguards.

Quotes about Indira Gandhi [ edit ]

• Hannah Arendt , quoted from Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide. ch 16
• Ali Bhutto , in an interview to Oriana Fallaci . Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972. Oriana Fallaci. (2011). Interview in : Interviews with history and conversations with power. New York: Rizzoli.
• Hamid Dalwai (Muslim social reformer, thinker, activist) in Muslim Politics, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 363
• Nanaji Deshmukh, Quoted in Friends Of Saffron Outlook Magazine, 27 April 1998
• Michael Foot , ‘ Prison Does Concentrate the Mind Wonderfully ’, Literary Review (June 1992)
• Hitchens, C. (2012). The missionary position: Mother Theresa in theory and practice.
• Jacqueline Kennedy in 1964, as quoted in Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (2011)
• Neil Kinnock , speech in the House of Commons (31 October 1984)
• Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal in: Transforming India , Harvard University Press, 16 September 2013, p. 28.
• B.K.Nehru in: 1975: Gandhi found guilty of corruption , BBC News, 12 June.
• Nuclearweaponarchive.org , "India's Nuclear Weapons Program" , (November 8, 2001).
• David Owen , speech in the House of Commons (31 October 1984)
• Sidhartha Shankar Ray in: SACRIFICIAL GOATS SCAPEGOATS and GUINEA PIGs: Misadventures and Misrepresentations , AuthorHouse, 2007, p. 79
• Her ardent follower coined this sentence during Emergency .
• Margaret Thatcher , speech in the House of Commons (31 October 1984)
• Margaret Thatcher , The Path to Power (1995), p. 385

External links [ edit ]

• Selected speeches - 'True Liberation Of Women'
• Selected speeches - 'Martin Luther King'
• Selected speeches - 'What Educated Women Can Do'

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Indira Gandhi Wiki, Age, Death, Husband, Family, Biography & More

Indira Gandhi was a prominent Indian Politician. She was a member of the Indian National Congress and also served as the President of the Party. She was the first and only female Prime Minister of India. Her father, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi had also served as the Prime Minister of India after her death. In 1999, she was named “Woman of the Millenium” in a survey conducted by BBC.

Wiki/Biography, Caste

Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was born in a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 ( Age: 66 years, at the time of death ) in  Allahabad, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India (Now, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India). Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru was an activist of Indian Independence Movement. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the leading figures in the political struggle for Independence. Her father was often away and she was brought up by her mother who was mostly bed-ridden due to her illness. She used to support Gandhian philosophy since childhood.

Indira Gandhi sitting beside Mahatma Gandhi

She was homeschooled until matriculation in 1934. She intermittently attended many schools in India and Europe; Modern School in Delhi, St Cecilia’s and St Mary’s Christian convent schools in Allahabad (Now, Prayagraj), the International School of Geneva, Switzerland, the Ecole Nouvelle in Bex, Switzerland, the Pupils’ own school in Poona and Bombay.

Childhood photo of Indira Gandhi

She along with her mother, Kamla Nehru moved to Belur Math headquarters of Ramakrishna Mission where Swami Ranganathananda was her guardian. Later, she went to Visva Bharti University, Shantiniketan, West Bengal where Rabindranath Tagore named her Priyadarshini in an interview. Meanwhile, she had to leave her study to join her ailing mother in Europe where she decided to continue her study at Oxford, England. After her mother died of tuberculosis, she attended the Badminton College before being admitted into Somerville College in 1937 to study history. In the entrance exam of the University of Oxford, Indira failed in her first attempt with poor marks in Latin, however, she cleared the exam in her second attempt. While at Oxford, she performed well in history, political science, economics, etc. However, her performance in Latin remained bad. While her study in England, her health deteriorated and she had to move to Switzerland in 1940, at that time, the German forces conquered Europe and she was about to go to England again but it was very difficult to reach England at that time. Somehow, she managed to reach England and from there she came to India.

Physical Appearance

• Height (approx.): 5′ 4″
• Eye Colour: Black
• Hair Colour: Salt & Pepper

Indira Gandhi was born to Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamla Nehru. She had one brother but died in his infancy.

Indira Gandhi with her father, Jawaharlal Nehru

While she was studying in England, she used to make visits to her future husband, Feroze Gandhi. She knew him from Allahabad. He belonged to the Zoroastrian (Parsi) community of Gujarat. At that time, Feroze Gandhi was studying at the London School of Economics. Gradually, they fell in love and decided to get married. The marriage took place in Allahabad in 1942.

Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi at their wedding in 1942

Their first son, Rajiv Gandhi was born in 1944 and Second son, Sanjay Gandhi was born in 1946. Rajiv Gandhi would later become the Prime Minister of India and was assassinated in 1991. Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash in 1980. Sonia Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi are her daughters in law.

Indira Gandhi with her sons, daughters in law and grandchildren

Rahul Gandhi , Priyanka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi are her grandchildren.

Indira Gandhi with her grandchildren, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi

Robert Vadra is her grandson in law.

Nehru Gandhi Family Tree

In the 1950s, Indira served as the assistant of the Prime Minister of India (then her father- Jawaharlal Nehru) unofficially.

Indira Gandhi with Jawaharlal Nehru

In the late 1950s, she became the President of the Indian National Congress (INC). She was instrumental in dismissing Communist led Kerala government in 1959. After the demise of her father in 1964, she was appointed as a member of Rajya Sabha and was made the minister of Information and Broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s government. After the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966, the members of the Congress Party elected Indira Gandhi as their leader over Morarji Desai. K. Kamaraj played a key role in making Indira Gandhi as the leader of the Indian National Congress.

Indira Gandhi and K. Kamaraj

In the 1967 General Election, the Indian National Congress won the elections and Indira Gandhi was elected to the Lok Sabha from Raebareli constituency. Her first term as the Prime Minister was highly criticized as she was referred to as ‘goongi gudiya’ (Hindi word for ‘dumb doll’) as she was under the control of Party’s bosses. Her first term faced major problems such as the devaluation of rupee and the import of wheat from the United States fell through due to political disputes.

Indira Gandhi and US President Richard Nixon 1971

In the 1971 General Elections, the Indian National Congress again won the elections and Indira Gandhi won from the same constituency on the basis of ‘Garibi Hatao’ theme (Eradicate Poverty). The biggest achievement of Indira Gandhi’s government came in December 1971 when India defeated Pakistan in the Indo Pak War of 1971 and cleared the way for Bangladesh, a new independent state in South Asia. The leader of Opposition,  Atal Bihari Vajpayee called Indira Gandhi as Goddess Durga.

In June 1975, the Allahabad High Court declared Indira Gandhi’s Election to Lok Sabha in 1971 invalid on the grounds of electoral malpractices and this caused political unrest in the country. The same year, Indira Gandhi ordered to arrest the leaders in opposition who were participating in the unrest and halted the general elections calling President Rule in the country (Also called the Emergency). In 1977, the general elections were held and the Indian National Congress lost the election for the first time. Morarji Desai of Janata Party became the Prime Minister. However, his government only lasted for not more than 3 years as he resigned from the post. In the 1980 General Elections, the Indian National Congress again won the majority and Indira Gandhi was elected the Prime Minister.

Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai

When she was the Prime Minister of India, the Operation Blue Star was conducted by the Indian Army to kill the Sikh militants hidden in Harmandir Sahib (aka Golden Temple), Amritsar. On 31 October 1984, in the act of vengeance, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh while she was delivering her last speech in Orissa. At the time of death, she was 66 years old.

Controversies

• When the Indian National Congress won the 1971 General Elections, Allahabad High Court found her guilty for electoral corruption on 12 June 1975. She was banned from contesting elections for the next six years. However, she ignored the court’s order and appealed to the Supreme Court.
• The biggest controversy of her tenure was the state of Emergency . After she was found guilty for electoral malpractices, this caused unrest in the country and she faced severe criticism in the country. The opposition leaders who were participating in the unrest, were detained by the police. President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declared the state of Emergency on 25 June 1975 and this allowed Indira Gandhi to rule by decree. [1] IndianExpress
• During the Emergency, Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay Gandhi conducted a gruesome campaign to sterilize the poor people due to the imminent population explosion. [2] IndiaToday
• One of the major controversies in her tenure was the Operation Blue Star in which she oppressed Sikh Separatist Movement through military assistance. [3] IndiaToday

Awards/Honour

• Bharat Ratna (1971)
• Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Pacific, Fiji (1981)
• Bangladesh Freedom Honour (posthumously, 2011)

Places/Schemes Named In Her Honour

• The Southernmost Point in India, Indira Point (6.74678°N 93.84260°E)
• Indira Gandhi International Air Port, New Delhi
• Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
• Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration
• Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium, Assam
• Indira Gandhi Stadium, Alwar, Alwar, Vijayawada, Solapur, Una
• Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh
• Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Maldives
• Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Ghats
• Indira Gandhi Zoological Park, Andhra Pradesh
• Indira Gandhi Canal
• Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Chhattisgarh
• Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Tamil Nadu
• Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy
• She was the second longest serving Prime Minister of India after her father. She served as the Prime Minister of India for more than 14 years.
• According to sources, Indira Gandhi had a sexual relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru’s secretary, M.O. Mathai. [4] NDTV
• During her first term as the Prime Minister, she nationalized 14 banks.
• Her bodyguards fired around 30 bullets at her; 23 clearly passed through her body and 7 were trapped inside her. [5] IndiaToday
• One of her assassins, Beant Singh got wounded by a bullet when he was shooting at Indira Gandhi. Later, he died due to his unrecovered wound. Another assassin, Satwant Singh was hanged at Tihar Jail, New Delhi.
• When she was Prime Minister, India joined the club of Nuclear Weapons in 1974.
• Her yoga guru, Dhirendra Brahmachari helped her while making stiff decisions. He executed certain political tasks on her behalf, especially during the emergency.
• She was named Indira   Priyadarshini Nehru  by Rabindranath Tagore. She adopted her husband Surname after Marriage, Gandhi. However, her husband’s real name was  Feroze Jehangir Ghandy  but he was very inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and changed his surname from Ghandy to Gandhi. Thus Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was changed to Indira Gandhi.
• Her Husband, Feroze Gandhi died of Heart Attack in 1960.
• When the Janata Party came to power in 1977, then Home Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh ordered the arrest of Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay Gandhi on several charges. She was accused of planning to kill all opposition leaders in Jail during Emergency.
• In 2012, Gandhi was ranked 7 in Outlook India’s poll of the greatest Indians.
• In 2017, a woman named Priya Singh Paul claimed to be Gandhi’s grand-daughter as Sanjay Gandhi’s biological daughter. According to her, she was given away for adoption and Indira Gandhi hid her and her mother for political reasons. [6] Patrika
• Her blood group was O-negative. [7] India Today

References [+] [−]

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The ‘Gandhi’ in Rahul Gandhi’s surname: The remarkable life and career of Feroze Gandhi

Feroze gandhi was a freedom fighter, mp, and husband of indira gandhi. he was the one who exposed the mundhra scandal in parliament, and was perhaps among the first people to call his wife a 'fascist'..

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks over his last name.

PM Modi, replying to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in the Rajya Sabha last week, had said: “If we miss out on mentioning (Jawaharlal) Nehru anywhere, they (the Congress) get upset. Nehru was such a great person, then why do none of them use the Nehru surname ? What is the shame in using the Nehru name?”

Gandhi hit back on February 13, saying , “I asked the Prime Minister some questions. I asked him about his relationship with Mr Adani. I asked how Mr Adani has grown so fast. The Prime Minister did not answer a single question. His response to my questions was that why are you not called Nehru, why are you called Gandhi. Because generally in India… maybe Mr Modi doesn’t understand this… But generally in India our surname is the surname of our father.”

The ‘Gandhi’ in Rahul Gandhi ’s name comes from Feroze Gandhi, his paternal grandfather, freedom fighter, journalist, and Member of Parliament from Raebareli. He passed away in 1960, a few days before he would have turned 48.

From Feroze Ghandy to Gandhi

Feroze Gandhi was born Feroze Jehangir Ghandy on September 12, 1912 in Bombay. His parents, Ratimai (née Commissariat) and Jehangir Faredoon Ghandy, were Parsis, and Jehangir worked as a marine engineer.

A young Feroze moved to Allahabad after his father passed away, to live with his aunt Shirin Commissariat, a surgeon at the Lady Dufferin Hospital. Feroze was a student at the Ewing Christian College when, at the age of 18, he had his brush with the two forces that would change his life forever – the freedom struggle, and the Nehru family.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s wife Kamala Nehru, who would later become Feroze’s mother-in-law, was among the satyagrahis picketing outside Ewing Christian College. Kamala fainted in the heat and crowds, and Feroze jumped to her aid. From then on, Feroze dropped out of the British-staffed college and threw himself into the freedom struggle, spending a lot of time at Anand Bhawan, the Nehru family home and important political centre. It was also around this time that he changed his surname from Ghandy to Gandhi, in honour of Mahatma Gandhi.

Marriage to Indira Gandhi

This was the period when Feroze first came in contact with Indira Priyadarshini, Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter, five years his junior. He first proposed to Indira when she was only 16, but Kamala Nehru objected, saying her daughter was too young.

Journalist Sagarika Ghose writes in her book Indira: India’s Most Powerful Prime Minister  that over the next few years, as Kamala’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, Feroze remained a dependable friend to the Nehrus, even visiting Kamala at the Badenweiler clinic in Germany.

When Indira joined Oxford in 1937, Feroze was studying at the London School of Economics. Ghose writes that the young people fell in love then, with Indira becoming involved in the radical political movements Feroze was linked with, including the India League, led by VK Krishna Menon.

In 1941, they returned to India, both having dropped out of college and determined to get married. The Nehru family was not thrilled about Indira’s choice, as Feroze did not come from a similarly aristocratic lineage, but after Mahatma Gandhi blessed their union, the couple got married on March 26, 1942, on Ram Navami, at Anand Bhawan.

Feroze Gandhi as MP and journalist

After Independence, Feroze was elected MP from Raebareli. The Congress then had virtually no opposition. However, Feroze, even from the treasury benches, regularly raised his voice against the government and the party when he did not agree with them.

It was Feroze Gandhi who, in 1958, proved in Parliament that the Life Insurance Corporation’s (LIC) had, at the behest of high-ups in the government, invested hugely in six ailing companies owned by Haridas Mundhra , a dodgy businessman. Then Finance Minister T T Krishnamachari had to resign as a consequence of Feroze’s campaign.

Three years before that, he had exposed the financial manipulations by what was known as the Dalmia-Jain or DJ Group. His revelations led to the nationalisation of the country’s life insurance industry.

He was also the one who introduced a Private Member’s Bill making it possible for journalists to report on proceedings inside Parliament.

By now, Indira and Feroze’s marriage was deteriorating. Ghose writes that Feroze had been unfaithful, while Indira’s increased involvement with her father’s political and social life created more distance between the couple.

Journalist Coomi Kapoor, in her book The Emergency , has written that the couple’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, was devoted to Feroze, and “believed that his father had been abandoned and that the neglect of his well-being had led to his early death from a heart attack.”

But apart from personal differences, Feroze also disagreed with his wife politically, displaying a firmer commitment to democracy and federalism than the more authoritarian Indira.

A particularly bitter confrontation between the couple occurred over the Centre’s decision to dismiss the democratically elected Communist government of Kerala in 1959. This was when Nehru was still alive, and Indira was the Congress president. The government of EMS Namboodiripad was bringing in land and educational institutes’ reforms, which was witnessing major opposition. The central government used this unrest as a reason to dismiss the government. Among the most strident critics of this move was Feroze, who even called her wife a ‘fascist’ over this.

Swedish journalist Bertil Falk, in his book Feroze The Forgotten Gandhi , writes, “According to Janardan Thakur, well-known political correspondent: ‘It was her husband who perhaps first called her a “fascist”… The [Kerala] issue had come up at breakfast table at Teen Murti, and there had been quite a row between Indira and Feroze, with Nehru looking on very distressed. “It is just not right,” Feroze had said, “you are bullying people. You are a fascist.” Indira Gandhi had flared up. “You are calling me a fascist. I can’t take that.” And she had walked out of the room in rage.’”

On September 8, 1960, Feroze Gandhi died of a heart attack. Hindustan Times reported about his funeral that “verses from the Gita and the Ramayana, and from the Quran and the Bible were chanted. A special prayer was conducted for the departed soul by Parsi priests”.

Feroze Gandhi’s grave is in the Parsi cemetery at Allahabad, where his life had found a new direction.

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A look at Rahul Gandhi, who is trying to wrest power from India's most powerful man

Two of the most consequential races in India's elections involve one man: the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.

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