Indira Gandhi : Biography, Marriage, Political Career, War, Awards, Books, and Death

Indira Gandhi
Prime Minister of India
Term of office 14 January 1980 - 31 October 1984
President	Neelam Sanjeevareddy Jnani Jail Singh
Before	Chaudhary Charan Singh
Next	Rajiv Gandhi
Term of office 24 January 1966 -  24 March 1977
President	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Dr. Zakir Hussain VVGiri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Before	Gulzarilal Nanda
Next	Morarji Desai
Union Minister of External Affairs
Term of office 9 March 1984 - 31 October 1984
Before	PV Narasimha Rao
Next	Rajiv Gandhi
Term of office 22 August 1967 - 14 March 1969
Before	Muhammad Ali Kareem Chagla
Next	Dinesh Singh
Union Finance Minister
Term of office 26 June 1970 - 29 April 1971
Before	Morarji Desai
Next	Yashwantrao Chavan
President of Congress
Term 1959
Before	U.N. Deber
Next	Neelam Sanjeevareddy
Term 1978–1984
Before	Dev Kant Barua
Next	Rajiv Gandhi
Personal details
Born	1917 November 19 Allahabad, Union Territories, British India
Death	October 31, 1984 (age 66) New Delhi, India
Nationality	Indian women
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse	Feroze Gandhi
Progeny	Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi
Religion	Hinduism - Adi Dharma

Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( November 19, 1917 - October 31, 1984 ) was the first and only woman Prime Minister of India. She served as Prime Minister for 3 consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977 and for the 4th time in 1980. She was the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. When Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister for the first time, she served as the Prime Minister's Secretary without pay. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1964 after the death of his father. Lal Bahadur Shastri served as the Minister of Broadcasting in the Cabinet.

Motilal Nehru was a renowned lawyer. Motilal's English friends (British), Swadeshi friends used to come and go to that wealthy house. His son Jawaharlal Nehru and daughter-in-law Kamala Nehru. Kamala Nehru came from a traditional Kashmiri Brahmin family and initially had little trouble getting used to her in-laws. Those in the Motilal family are accustomed to the savina tradition.

Indira Priyadarshini was born on November 19, 1917, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru, at Anand Bhavan in Allahabad. She is the granddaughter of Motilal Nehru. Motilal loves grandchildren very much. He was already a member of the National Congress. Yet he did not give up his profession. In 1919, during the Vaishakhi festival in Punjab, thousands of people were killed in a massacre by the British at Jallianwala Bagh. The incident touched Motilal's heart. He immediately quit his profession. He burned all the expensive foreign objects he had. Khaddar started wearing only clothes. Convent school for his daughter.

At such a moment Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came to their house. Talked to Nehru for a long time. Indira was a small spectator of the changes taking place in the house even though she did not understand what they were talking about. From then on their home became a hub for the freedom fighters to design their programs. Both her mother and father jumped into the fray for independence.

Baby Indira also dropped her foreign toys. Nehru, who had hitherto been accustomed to luxuries, bravely faced the hardships he sought and invited but earned them a place in the history of independent India. Their clan gained immense fame.

Indira Gandhi: Private Life

Childhood and Youth 

Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, and his wife Kamala Nehru. The Nehrus are pundit brahmins from Kashmir, one of the highest-ranking jati in the Indian caste system. The family's rise in politics began with Indira's grandfather Motilal Nehru, who was twice President of the Congress Party and, together with his son, played a leading role in the independence movement against British colonial power.

The strong political commitment of her father and grandfather also influenced Indira Gandhi. Motilal and Jawaharlal were among the leaders of the independence movement along with Mahatma Gandhi (who is not related to the Nehru Gandhi family ). Indira's mother, Kamala, was also politically active despite the progressive TB disease. Jawaharlal Nehru sat from 1921 to 1944 repeatedly imprisoned by the British colonial rulers, as Kamala in January 1931. over the family residence Anand Bhavan to have said Indira: "I'm sorry, but my grandfather, father, and mom are in prison." 

Not only the frequent absence of her father and her mother's illness shaped Indira, but also the tense atmosphere in the Nehru family. Kamala and Indira suffered particularly from the humiliating behavior of their widowed aunt Vijaya Nehru. Years later, Indira Gandhi spoke bitterly about her aunt. For a long time, Jawaharlal Nehru did not understand the plight of his daughter and wife. Only with the repeated stays of the Nehrus in Europe from 1926 and the associated separation from the other family members did the situation for Indira and Kamala improve. However, multiple changes of location and school as well as the illness of her mother overshadowed Indira's stay in Europe. During this time she lived alternately in Allahabad, Geneva, Paris, the Black Forest, and London. After her mother's death in February 1936, Indira's health deteriorated. Because of chronic underweight, depression, and tuberculosis, she was in a Swiss sanatorium from spring 1940 to spring 1941.

In addition to the unsteady conditions in her childhood and youth, there was certainly political isolation in her early years: both in a boarding school in Switzerland and in a sanatorium, Indira stood alone with her radical, free political attitude, both among Indian and European supporters of the British colonial rule. The experiences she made in Europe also included the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany and the outbreak of the Second World War.

She studied history at Somerville College, Oxford.

Private life after 1941 

In April 1941, Indira Gandhi, now 24 years old, returned to India. At this point, she was already in a relationship with Nehru's family friend, the Parsen Feroze Gandhi. However, the wedding did not take place until March 1942. The question of whether a Nehru daughter could marry a Parsi was very controversial in the Nehru household, while the media were unanimously against the marriage. The honeymoon in Kashmir turned out to be one of the happiest times in Indira Gandhi's life. In the course of her life, Indira Gandhi returned to Kashmir again and again to seek private and political peace.

The two sons Rajiv and Sanjay were born in 1944 and 1946. As early as 1947, Feroze asked Jawaharlal Nehru to divorce Indira. Nehru then asked his daughter, who spoke out vehemently against a divorce, although she was no longer happy in the marriage and in the following time moved back to her father in Delhi. She became his secretary and hostess. She organized receptions for the then Shah of Iran, King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Eisenhower, Tito, and Nasser, among others. She later said to one of her biographers: “I had to do that because my father did more important work than my husband.” (“Obviously I had to do it because my father was doing more important work than my husband.”)

Indira and Feroze mostly lived separately from each other. Indira's party leadership from February 1955 was described by Feroze in the media as the final stab in the back of their marriage. Indira Gandhi, on the other hand, complained in a letter to her longtime friend Dorothy Norman about her husband's hostilities. Feroze's first heart attack brought the two closer together again; however, Feroze Gandhi died a year later in September 1960.

The feelings of guilt over Feroze's death gave the younger son Sanjay in particular fatal power over his mother; he kept reproaching her for having let her father die of loneliness. After the death of her husband, Indira Gandhi became depressed again. However, she only confided in her pen pal Dorothy Norman, who was physically far away. In the summer of 1961, she wrote: “I have always considered myself a positive person. But now I feel terribly negative. I am not sick, but I am not well. I just don't feel alive. Nobody seems to notice the difference. ” With the end of her father's term in office in mind, Indira, India, and politics planned to finally turn their backs on politics.

However, the death of her father in 1964 brought about a radical change in Indira Gandhi's attitude towards political engagement. Katherine Frank explained this change on the one hand with the feelings of guilt that Indira could have had because she was secretly planning to leave her father and India, on the other hand, it may be that she became aware that she was not meeting her father's expectations had fulfilled his lifetime. Nehru had envisaged a decisive role in the development of India for his daughter. To become more politically active again could be the way to relieve yourself of feelings of guilt and at least posthumously contradict the unspoken judgment of your father.

Indira Gandhi: Political Life

Nehrus Secretary and Congress President 

Indira Gandhi's active political life began with the formation of the Interim Government on September 2, 1946, led by Nehru as Prime Minister.

In early 1955 she was elected President of the Congress Party. Her influence on her father Jawaharlal Nehru is undisputed. For example, on the advice of Indira Gandhi, Nehru granted the 14th Dalai Lamaasylum in March 1959. Over 100,000 Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into exile in India. The Tibetan refugee issue had a lasting impact on diplomatic relations with China. The preliminary low point was October 1962. Chinese troops crossed the border with India and took possession of 50,000 km² of land. When the local government fled, Indira Gandhi flew to the India-China border, reassured civilians, organized emergency rations, and called officers back to work. Clarifying problems personally on-site later remained Indira Gandhi's political style in official offices.

In July 1959, Nehru dismissed the democratically elected communist government of Kerala state. The election of the communists sparked a riot in Kerala as militant supporters of the Congress Party, funded by the CIA, began street battles. Although Nehru initially believed that nothing could be done against a properly elected government, he did take action under pressure from his daughter. Indira herself toured Kerala and organized opposition to the communist government from supporters of the Congress Party and the Muslim League. In February 1960, the coalition won the new elections in Kerala with a large majority.

Indira Gandhi's critics later describe Operation Overthrow as groundbreaking for her authoritarian leadership style and disregard for democratic norms. Katherine Frank interprets the Kerala incident in the light that fear of chaos and loss of control is Indira's major weak point. In contrast to her father Nehru, she had little faith that democratic institutions could survive unstable times.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting 

In May 1964, a few weeks after her father's death, Indira Gandhi became Minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, with responsibility for information and broadcasting. Shastri believed a Nehru in the cabinet would provide stability. In this position, she was fourth in the cabinet behind the Prime Minister. Your actual office was not very eventful. It promoted broadcasting in Urdu. Controversial discussions and opinions in the media were also encouraged. What is remarkable, however, is how they dealt with the so-called language crisis and the outbreak of the second Indo-Pakistani war.

In March 1965, after the government decided to replace English with Hindi as the official language, riots broke out in areas of India where Hindi was not the native language of the population. Indira Gandhi flew to Madras to speak to the local politicians and protesting people. The unrest then subsided, and English remained the official language alongside Hindi. Shastri, who actually wanted to sit out the crisis, was anything but happy about Indira Gandhi's intervention. He complained that Indira Gandhi acted over his head. In this situation, Indira Gandhi's instinct for timing and an implicit awareness of power became apparent for the first time. 

According to her own statements, she saw herself not only as Minister for Information and Broadcasting but also as “one of the leaders of this country”. Verbatim she said, “Do you think this government could continue if I resign today? I'm telling you she wouldn't. Yes, A short time later, war broke out between India and Pakistan. Indira Gandhi was in Srinagar, Kashmir the time. Instead of flying back to Delhi, as she was advised, she flew to the front line and, as the only member of the government, spoke to local people and journalists. In the press, she was then hailed as "the only man in a cabinet of old women" ("the only man in a cabinet of old women").

The war for Kashmir was initially ended with a ceasefire and then Prime Minister Shastri became a folk hero overnight. Indira Gandhi was upset. At this point at the latest, according to Katherine Frank, Indira Gandhi's will to power became apparent. Jed Adams and Phillip Whitehead write: “Indira, however, was greater than her office. She needed new challenges. "

Shastri was just as angry about the freedoms Indira Gandhi took in her political actions as Indira Gandhi was irritated by Shastri's slow and conservative governance. While Shastri realized that Indira Gandhi was more than just a figurehead of the Congress Party, Indira Gandhi publicly questioned him. Before Lal Bahadur Shastri could realize his idea of ​​sending Indira Gandhi to London as ambassador to get rid of her, he died on a trip abroad in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. According to the constitution, the President of India became S. Radhakrishnantemporarily sworn in as prime minister. On the night of his swearing-in, Indira Gandhi called confidants together to test the possibility of their candidacy to succeed Shastri. "Reach for power" ("Make a bid for power") was the advice of Romesh Thapar.

Indira's only serious opponent in the struggle for the office of prime minister was Morarji Desai, an Orthodox Hindu. For the Congress Party, Indira Gandhi was everything that Desai was not: she spoke fluent Hindi and English, she was not only popular among Hindus, but also among Muslims, Harijans, and other minorities. She was urbane and not anchored in any particular region of India. She was a national politician. Above all, they were considered to be manipulable for the purposes of the Congress Party, which turned out to be a fundamental misjudgment. The decision to choose Indira Gandhi as the prime minister's candidate was largely based on the lack of other sustainable candidates within the Congress Party.

Prime Minister

Difficult start 

On January 18, 1966, Indira Gandhi was elected as the first woman group leader of the Congress Party. Gandhi was elected by the Lok Sabha on January 19 to succeed Shastri and on January 24 sworn in as Prime Minister. In the first year of her tenure, her appearance at speeches, especially in the Lok Sabha, was uncertain. She stuttered and gave speeches without liveliness, which was the cause of ridicule by the mostly male Lok Sabha members. 

After the first failed appearances, Indira said to her confidante Pulpul Jayakar that her lack of self-confidence was due to her childhood. “Since I was a child, she did everything to destroy my confidence: she called me ugly, stupid. She broke something in me. In the face of hostility, no matter how well prepared I am, I am speechless and I shy away from it. " 

For the time being, Indira Gandhi solved the Sikhs' problem quickly and efficiently by dividing the previous state of Punjab into two new states, Punjab and Haryana, which together shared Chandigarh as the capital. However, unrest then broke out among the now Hindu minority in Punjab. In Delhi, an angry crowd threatened to burn down the main Sikh temple. Despite her uncertain speeches in the Lok Sabha, Indira Gandhi stood up to the crowd with passion. “... there are no tears in my eyes, there is anger in my heart. Have so many freedom fighters and martyrs lost their lives for this? " 

The problem of food shortages, on the other hand, triggered by the drought in 1965, could be solved less quickly and more sustainably. First, Indira Gandhi dissolved the Food Zones within which food trading was allowed, but not beyond. On a trip to the USA, she asked for food deliveries despite the tense diplomatic relations between the two states. Aid did not start as quickly as planned, but deliveries helped to bridge the second drought of 1966. In addition, Indira Gandhi visited each state personally with a small group of advisors. On the flight, she heard experts explain the local situation to her, and on the spot she spoke to state governments, helped make decisions and promoted the use of high-performance crops and fertilizers in agriculture. Three years later, the Indian population was largely provided for by basic needs ( Green Revolution ).

The first government 

In 1964, Indira Gandhi's father, Jawaharlal Nehru, died. In the same year, Indira was elected deputy of the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) from the INC, and then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri invited Gandhi to enter the cabinet, and she took over as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. After Shastri's death in 1966 in Tashkent, during peace talks with Pakistan, Indira Gandhi becomes the leader of the INC and the Prime Minister of India (the world's second woman prime minister after Sirimavo Bandaranaike ). 

In 1969after her government nationalized India's 14 largest banks, conservative leaders of the INC unsuccessfully tried to expel her from the party. As a result, the right-wing faction withdrew from the INC, which led to a split in the party. After that, Gandhi headed the independent Congress Party, later officially recognized by the Central Election Commission of India as the successor of the INC. The split occurred as a result of Gandhi's intentions to pursue a more socially oriented policy and improve relations with the USSR. In 1971 she won the parliamentary elections under the slogan of fighting poverty. 

In the same year, another Indo-Pakistani war took place  - after the intervention of Indian troops in the struggle for independence East Pakistan, where the Republic of Bangladesh was proclaimed. In this conflict, India was supported by the USSR, which contributed to an even greater improvement in relations between the two countries, as a result of which the "Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation with the USSR" was signed.

As Professor Christopher Andrew notes, in the mid -1950s, at that time, the largest KGB station in India outside the USSR became interested in Indira Gandhi as a person with the ability to influence Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1955, Gandhi received a fur coat as a gift, and later the KGB allocated more than ten million dollars to support her party and anti-American propaganda in India. To Indira Gandhi's ignorance, significant sums transferred to the fund of her party by sponsor Narayan Mishra actually came from Moscow.

Indira Gandhi nationalized banks; during the years of her reign, industry developed rapidly in the country, including heavy, although no sooner than before and after her reign. The first nuclear power plant was launched (in the state of Maharashtra ); in agriculture, the so-called green revolution took place, thanks to which India for the first time in many years became independent of food imports, in particular, in 1981-1982 agricultural years, the grain harvest amounted to 133.06 million tons - 3.5 million tons more than in the previous year. The efficiency of farms increased, landless peasants were endowed with plots.

The aftermath of the war with Pakistan caused a deterioration in the economic situation and an increase in internal tensions, resulting in unrest in the country. In 1975, the Supreme Court of Uttar Pradesh in Allahabad found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral violations in the 1971 elections and ordered her to resign, banning political activity for six years. In Gandhi's response, using Article 352 of the Constitution of India, in June announced the introduction in India, the state of emergency. During the state of emergency, a number of successes have been achieved in the economy; interreligious conflicts have practically stopped. However, not all of the measures taken were popular, such as forced sterilization to curb population growth. In addition, political freedoms were limited, and all opposition newspapers were closed.

In 1977, overestimating her own popularity, Gandhi called parliamentary elections and lost. She and her family were arrested twice, accused of corruption.

Second government 

In 1978, announcing the creation of her party INC (I), Gandhi was again elected to parliament, and in the 1980 elections returned to the post of prime minister.

On April 14, 1980, an attempt was made on her life: a 37-year-old terrorist threw a knife at her, which struck one of the guards. The assailant was detained.

Soon, Indira suffered a grievous personal loss - on June 23, her youngest son and chief political adviser Sanjay died in a plane crash. In the last years of her life, Gandhi paid great attention to activities on the world stage, with the result that in 1983 India became the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement. The second term of her reign was marked by a conflict with the Sikhs, who lived mainly in the state of Punjab. Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale declared the Sikhs to be an independent self-governing community. His followers were also involved in attacks on Hindus in Punjab. They occupied the main shrine of the Sikhs - the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In response, the Indian government launched Operation Blue Star in June 1984, during which the temple was liberated, killing about 500 people. Revenge of the Sikhs was not long in coming.

Third Indo-Pakistani War 

The autonomy movement in the province of East Pakistan (later Bangladesh ), which is spatially separated from the main part of Pakistan, was suppressed by the Pakistani government. The situation escalated when, on March 25, 1971, the Pakistani military and government head Yahya Khan broke off all negotiations with the Awami League and ordered the Pakistani units stationed in East Pakistan to take action against the separatists. Before the turmoil of the civil war that broke out in East PakistanMany people fled to India, including many party leaders of the Awami League, which, from exile in India, proclaimed the independence of East Pakistan under the name of Bangladesh. 

At the height of the refugee movement, there were 150,000 refugees a day crossing the border. The 9 million refugees created a humanitarian and financial emergency for the Indian government. Through their descriptions, the East Pakistani refugees triggered a wave of horror and anger against the Pakistani military regime in the Indian population. Indira Gandhi had also visited the refugee camps and said she was speechless.

After consulting her private secretary and confidants PN Haksar, PN Dhar, and the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, General Sam Manekshwar, the best solution seemed to be to hold back militarily for the time being and to look for other possible solutions. Manekshwar strongly advised against starting armed conflicts before the end of the monsoons. Haksar wanted to wait for the following winter and the impassable passes of the Himalayas to make sure that no Chinese troops would intervene by land to support Pakistan.

Indira Gandhi brought the Pakistani conflict into international politics. She traveled to the Soviet Union, Belgium, France, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, and finally also to the USA to present the case and get international approval for her policy on Pakistan. President Richard Nixon made it clear that under no circumstances would the US support India in the dispute with Pakistan.

In early December, the Indian army brought troops into defensive positions on the border with Pakistan in preparation for the liberation of Dhaka and a counter-attack by Pakistani forces. One day before the planned attack, Pakistan itself opened the war with the bombing of Indian airbases near Amritsar, Agra, Srinagar, and in Kashmir.

The timing was perfect for Indira Gandhi and India as the Pakistani military regime was the aggressor. Nevertheless, US President Nixon condemned India as an aggressor. Indira Gandhi then drafted an open letter to Nixon with Haksar, which was not only a justification for India's military action, but also pointed out provocatively that the war could have been prevented if the international community, above all the USA, had done more than just paying lip service to the aid of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and contributing to a political solution.

The long-awaited and planned war between the two states lasted only two weeks, as the Pakistani troops were far inferior to the Indian troops in numbers and equipment. The war ended with Pakistan's surrender in Bangladesh and a ceasefire agreement. On the day of the surrender, Indira Gandhi ordered a ceasefire, as it was clear to her and her advisors that a continuation of the war could mean the danger of interference by China and the USA to their disadvantage. The armistice was proclaimed against the advice of the defense minister, which it had ignored in the course of the conflict.

With the victory and liberation of Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi had achieved what her father Jawaharlal Nehru and Shastri did not. Indira Gandhi was at the temporary height of her power and popularity. In the elections in March 1972, the Congress Party won 70 percent of the seats in the Lok Sabha.

In June 1972 Indira Gandhi crowned military success with a diplomatic one. At the Simla Summit, the demarcation line through Kashmir, known as the Line of Control, was established and thus in fact a border recognized by India and Pakistan, with India and Pakistan continue to claim full sovereignty over Kashmir.

A national state of emergency and consequences 

In mid-June 1975, Indira Gandhi was convicted of campaigning against a civil servant. In fact, one of her campaign workers had started working for her earlier this month, while his contract with the state ran through the middle of that month. As unimportant as the matter was, it was also illegal. The court ruled that she could remain in office for the time being as long as the judgment was not confirmed in the appeal process. For Indira Gandhi's political opponents, particularly Morarji Desai, the verdict was an opportunity to oust her from office. Desai publicly announced that Indira Gandhi would be placed under house arrest and the Delhi police would be ordered to mutiny. The worsening situation was the culmination of a series of political failures, Naxalites initiated uprisings in Assam, Kerala, Bihar, and Punjab.

Even the annexation of Sikkim as the 22nd federal state of India, which was intended as an appeal to Indian national sentiment, did not improve the mood among the population. On June 26, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared the "National Emergency", which was valid from June 25. On the night of the 25th to the 26th, 600 political opponents were put under security and house arrest, including Desai. The electricity was switched off for the newspapers in Delhi so that nothing could reach the public prematurely. When Indira Gandhi announced the national state of emergency over the radio, there was hardly anyone left who could have opposed it.

Indira Gandhi's pen pal Dorothy Norman asked for a plausible explanation for the state of emergency. The answer she received was brief, but not devoid of self-irony. "Dorothy, my dear, if you can bring yourself to accept a gift from the 'great dictator', here is something I saved for you a few years ago - it is from Bhutan." ("Dorothy dear, if you can bear to accept a gift from the 'Great Dictator', here is something which I had kept for you some years ago - it is from Bhutan. ") Dorothy Norman then stopped correspondence for four years. Indira Gandhi's confidante in Delhi, Pulpul Jayakar, also asked her to comment. In the conversation it became clear

Both Katherine Frank and Adams and Whiteman see the state of emergency more as an answer to Indira Gandhi's mental state than as a real political necessity.

Despite Indira Gandhi's dubious motives for a state of emergency, he was initially welcomed by the population. Life in India was put in order almost overnight. There were no more strikes and protest marches. Trains and buses ran according to plan and authorities and public institutions were actually open during opening times. Notable successes have been achieved against smuggling, tax evasion and crime. Large landowners were partially expropriated; Serfs were released and got work in government infrastructure projects, which could be financed by the significant increase in tax revenue.

The other side of the national state of emergency was a severe restriction on freedom of the press, expression, and assembly. Citizens could be detained for up to two years without charge. Most of the political opposition was in prison. According to Amnesty International, 110,000 people were detained without trial during the state of emergency. 22 prisoners died.

In February 1976 Indira Gandhi postponed the regular elections, among other things on the advice of her son Sanjay, who was increasingly influencing his mother. The state of emergency was extended on the grounds that the positive results had to be consolidated. Her confidante PN Dhar spoke out against an extension of the state of emergency. In November of the same year, Indira Gandhi postponed the elections again, this time for 12 months. Again, it was Dhar who opposed extending the state of emergency, while Sanjay voted in favor. However, Indira Gandhi changed her mind and announced in January 1977 that there would be elections within two months.

Indira Gandhi toured all 22 states in the short election campaign. Nevertheless, the Congress Party clearly lost the March 1977 election. The winner of the election was the Janata Party. Morarji Desai became Prime Minister. If Indira Gandhi had held the elections in February 1976 on schedule, she might even have won. In the following year, however, the restrictions imposed by the state of emergency became more evident in the public consciousness and the mood within the population turned to their disadvantage. The national state of emergency ended on March 21, 1977.

The return 

The Janata Party was divided by ideological and personal dissonances. Only one thing was agreed: Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay had to be brought to justice. As popular as Indira Gandhi was in the early 1970s, she was now fervently hated. The Janata Party set up a commission of inquiry, led by Attorney General JC Shah (the Shah Commission), to investigate the violations of law by Indira and Sanjay Gandhi and others during the national emergency. In the press, there was talk of Indiragate and various anti-Indira books were published. a. Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children.

Even before the Shah Commission began, Indira Gandhi made her political return. She reconciled herself with old political enemies who were no longer in political life and admitted some misconduct during the national state of emergency. An arrest of Indira Gandhi, which was supposed to prevent her from further soliciting popular sympathy, achieved the opposite, as journalists were present when she was taken from her bungalow. The picture was drawn of a woman who was made a victim by the judiciary.

Indira Gandhi refused to testify before the Shah Commission, arguing that she was not legally or constitutionally obliged to do so. Instead, she brought the judge before him by reminding him of an investigation that she had prevented as prime minister to protect him and other judges. The Shah Commission was closed with the Shah Report, but there was little evidence to be found against Indira Gandhi. However, rumors circulating about Sanjay were evidenced therein.

Under the Janata government, those detained under the national state of emergency have been released. The crime rate soared. India seemed to revert to lawlessness. After the murder of most of an entire village of former serfs by landowners, Indira Gandhi visited the crime scene to give courage and comfort to the bereaved.

In June 1979, Morarji Desai resigned as prime minister and handed the post over to his internal party rival Chaudhary Charan Singh, who had been supported by Indira Gandhi since the rifts within the Janata Party had become visible. But even he could not stabilize the government. The president dissolved the Janata government in August 1979. After Indira Gandhi was not elected again as party leader of the Congress party, she founded a new party; the "Indian National Congress I". With this new party, it won the 1980 elections with 351 out of 525 seats.

Operation Blue Star and assassination

One of the most pressing problems after Indira Gandhi took office in January 1980 was the growing separatist movement of extremist Sikhs, the Akali Dal, in the state of Punjab, which they wanted to become the independent state of Khalistan. An important figure was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who had been supported by Gandhi's son Sanjay, among others, to strengthen the Congress base in Punjab.

In 1982 the situation came to a head and there were also riots in Assam and Kashmir. Bhindranwale and his followers holed up in the Golden Temple, the largest sanctuary of the Sikhs. Four attempts at talks failed. In January 1984, Indira Gandhi ordered the temple to be retaken militarily. Operation Blue Star was carried out in June 1984, in which more than 400 soldiers and eyewitness reports, according to reports, killed more than 2,000 Sikhs. The part of the temple in which the Akali Dal had holed up was completely destroyed. The military operation was received not uncritically by the population but was largely positive. Noting that India is a secular once Indira Gandhi refused to dismiss her Sikh bodyguards even after Operation Blue Star stated.

The British broadcaster BBC planned an interview with Indira Gandhi by Peter Ustinov on the morning of October 31, 1984, as part of his documentary series Ustinov's People. While Ustinov waited for the agreed conversation, he spoke freely into the camera: “So here I am in Indira Gandhi's garden. There are birds in the trees. Guardians stand in the corners. It's quiet. ”Suddenly there was a noise, a great excitement. 

Without being able to correctly interpret the situation, Ustinov tried to calm the television viewers. Shortly afterward he spoke into the live camera: “I have to admit: When I said that nothing serious had happened, I didn't believe myself. Indira Gandhi has just been shot. The guards are no longer in the corners. But the birds are still in the trees. ”In fact, on the way to the interview, Indira Gandhi was shot in the front garden of her bungalow by her Sikh bodyguards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. Despite intensive medical efforts, she succumbed to numerous gunshot wounds shortly afterward in the New Delhi hospital. In the days following Indira Gandhi's murder, an estimated 3,000 Sikhs were murdered and around 100,000 fled Delhi to Punjab and camps.

Indira Gandhi: Marriage

April 27, 1941, Indira goes to Dehra Dun prison, where her father is imprisoned, to tell him about her decision to marry Feroze Gandhi. Nehru is reluctant, but ultimately does not oppose marriage, even though this union between a Hindu and a Parsi arouses the indignation of part of Indian society. The marriage is celebrated on March 26, 1942in the presence of Nehru, who was released in December. The couple spends a two-month honeymoon in Kashmir. A first son, Rajiv, was born in 1944, followed by a second, Sanjay, in 1946.

Tensions quickly appear in the couple. Feroze is a fickle husband while leading a career in journalism and honorable policy (he was elected in 1952), can not bear to live in the shadow of Nehru. For her part, Indira would have had a long relationship with her father's private secretary, MO Mathai). Marriage was at its lowest when Feroze suffered a first heart attack in September 1958, and the reconciliation that followed was short-lived. When struck down once again by a heart attack, Feroze died on the morning of September 8, 1960, Indira is at his side.

Indira Gandhi: Controversies 

In the nineteen seventies, Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, implemented a program of compulsory sterilization. A man with two or more children was required to undergo legal sterilization, but a number of unmarried young men, political enemies, and abusive men are believed to have been sterilized during the campaign. The program is still remembered and condemned in India today; On the contrary, it is said to have alienated people from family planning, which has hampered government planning programs for decades.In this clearly shows that eugenic considerations had a philosophical and personal Indira Gandhi intransigence of the proposed studies, possibly because they may have been a member of the Eugenics Society of India 

Indira Gandhi and opinions expressed

• Indira Gandhi's temperament is characterized by self-love, self-loathing, encouraging cheerleaders or hobbies, distrust of truth-tellers, disregard for self-image, contempt for journalists, and decision-making bulldozers. Salman Rushdie
• Salman Rushdie has written about Indira Gandhi declaring a state of emergency in his book 'Midnight's Children'.

Indira Gandhi's Biographer

• Inder Malhotra
• Usha Bhagat (Indiraji Through My Eyes)
• Catherine Frank (Marathi translation - Lina Sohoni)
• Dom Morais (Mrs. Gandhi)
• P.C. Alexander (My years with Indira Gandhi; Indira Gandhi's last feast)
• Pupul Jayakar (Indira Gandhi - Biography, Marathi translation by Ashok Jain)
• Pranay Gupte (Original English, Mother India. Marathi translation: Pandharinath Sawant, Ramesh Dighe)
• Sagarika Ghosh (English, India's Most Powerful Prime Minister)

Indira Gandhi against other books

• Anokhe Maitra (Translated by Sujata Godbole; Original Indira Gandhi Letters to an American Friend)
• Indira Gandhi: A Stormy Festival ( Madhav Godbole )
• The Unseen Indira Gandhi (Translated by Sujata Godbole; Original English by The Unseen Indira Gandhi; Writer - Dr. KP Mathur)

Indira Gandhi: Honors

Postage stamp 

There was a postage stamp with a picture of Indira Gandhi worth five rupees. It has been out of print since September 2015.

The great Indian 

In 2012, Indira Gandhi was ranked seventh in Outlook India's ' The Greatest Indian ' international survey. 

Indira Gandhi: Death

Murder 

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was killed by two of her own bodyguards, who were Sikhs.

In the Indian state of Punjab, since the fall of 1983, the Sikhs have been at enmity with the central government of the INC, demanding the creation of an independent state of Khalistan. The confrontation ended only in November 1985, on October 7, 1987 - the independence of Khalistan was accepted. Gandhi's assassins are members of the separatist group. Gandhi wanted to remove the chief of Indian counterintelligence from the premier's guard on October 30, but Gandhi refused. 

On that day, at about 9 o'clock in the morning, she was scheduled to have a TV interview with Peter Ustinov, an English writer, playwright, and actor. When choosing a dress, I settled on a saffron saree, while removing a bulletproof vest. The road to the reception area, where the film crew was waiting, went through an open courtyard, and was strewn with white rubble. At the edges were two Sikh bodyguards in blue turbans - Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. Coming up with them, she smiled affably, in response, a bodyguard standing on the left drew out a revolver and fired three bullets at Gandhi, and his partner slashed at her point-blank with an automatic burst.

The guards came running to the shots, the Sikhs were immediately detained (one of them was soon shot, and the second was seriously wounded), and the wounded Indira was urgently taken to the Indian Institute of Medicine, where the best doctors arrived. Eight bullets hit the vital organs, the injuries were incompatible with life, and at 15:30, Indira Gandhi died without regaining consciousness. She was 67 years old. On the same day, Indira's 40-year-old son, Rajiv, became the new prime minister. Rajiv was the first in the clan in seniority after his brother Sanjay - he died on June 23, 1980, at the age of 33 in a plane crash of a sports plane.

The country declared 12 days of mourning. The farewell ceremony for Indira Gandhi, attended by millions of people, was held at the Tin Murti Bhavan palace. Two days later, on November 2, she was cremated according to the Hindu rite on the banks of the Jannah. In accordance with the will on November 12, her ashes were scattered over the Himalayas and the slopes of the Hindu Kush near the source of the Ganges.

In her will, Indira wrote that she had donated the Abode of Joy to the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, and bequeathed the copyright, art books, a small farm and a house not far from Mehrawi to her grandchildren Rahul and Priyanka.