Indira Gandhi (Politics)
Indira Gandhi was the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister. Her association with
politics started from her childhood. She was born on 19th November, 1917 in Allahabad. Her maiden name
was Indira Priyadarshini. After her marriage, her name became Indira Gandhi.
She had her earlier education at Delhi and school education at Bombay (Mumbai). After passing her
matriculation she studied for some time at Shanti Niketan and later she went to England for higher
education. She married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi gentleman and gave birth to two sons, Rajiv Gandhi and
Sanjay Gandhi.
Being the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and having close association with Mahatma Gandhi, she could
not avoid entering politics. She became an active member of the Congress in 1942 and participated in the
Quit India Movement. She was jailed. After the death of Kamala Nehru, her mother, Indira Gandhi had to
spend most of her time with her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. Feroze Gandhi, her husband, was a good
parliamentarian and he died young. This in a way made Indira Gandhi to spend her whole time in politics.
As a leader of Congress she organized the women’s wing of the Indian National Congress. She was elected
as President of the Indian National Congress in 1964. Jawaharlal Nehru died in 1964 and Lal Bahadur
Shastri’s cabinet and was in charge of Information and Broadcasting. In 1966 when Sri Shastri died, Indira
Gandhi was elected as the Prime Minister. She was the first women to become the Prime Minister of our
country.
She held this post of Prime Minister from 1966 to 1975 in the first spell. During this period she took many
bold decisions with great courage and firmness. She waged a decisive war against Pakistan in1971 and
gave them a crushing defeat. She nationalized banks. She also abolished the Privy Purses, paid till then to
former rules of princely States.
In 1975, the Allahabad High Court delivered a judgment declaring her election to parliament as invalid.
This was great blow to Indira Gandhi. She took a decision to declare emergency in the country and save
herself. This was an ill-advised decision. All the opposition parties protested against the ill-deeds, carried
on by the Government in the name of emergency. Indira Gandhi was forced to face an election. She lost
the election and her party also fared very badly. The Janata government came to power under the
leadership of Morarji Desai. The Janata Government did not last the full term. Its internal conflicts resulted
in another election in1980, which return Congress to power and Indira Gandhi became once again the
Prime Minister for the second spell.
During her second term as Prime Minister, she avoided the mistakes she committed during emergency.
She introduced the slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ and introduced her 20 point program to benefit the common
man and the poor. She was able to win the hearts of the poor, the Harijans and Girijans once again. But a
terrorist movement started in Punjab. The operation called “BlueStar”; made Indira Gandhi an enemy of
Sikhs and her life was threatened. She was very firm in her decisions. Unfortunately, on 31
October, 1984 she was assassinated by her own bodyguards who were Sikh, which provoked the outbreak
of infamous anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. This day is being observed as National Unity Day. She was awarded
“Bharat Ratna” for her illustrious service to our country.
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