INIDRA GANDHI

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was the Prime Minister of

the Republic of India for three consecutive terms from
1966 to 1977 and for a fourth term from 1980 until her
assassination in 1984, a total of fifteen years. She was
India's first and to date, only female prime minister.
She is the world's all time longest serving female Prime
Minister.
LIFE AND CAREER

Indira Gandhi was born into the politically influential

Nehru Family. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru and
her mother was Kamala Nehru. It is a common myth
to relate the name Gandhi with Mahatma Gandhi, but
her surname is from her marriage to Feroz Gandhi. Her
grandfather Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian
nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a
pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement
and the first Prime Minister of Independent India.
In 1934–35, after finishing school, Indira joined
Shantiniketan,[3] a school set up by Rabindranath
Tagore, who gave her the name Priyadarshini
(priya=pleasing, darshini=to look at). Subsequently,
she went to England and sat for the University of
Oxford entrance examination, but she failed,[4] and
spent a few months at Badminton School in Bristol,
before clearing the exam in 1937 and joining
Somerville College, Oxford. During this period, she
was frequently meeting Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew
from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London
School of Economics. She married Feroze in 1942.
Returning to India in 1941, she became involved in the
Indian Independence movement. In the 1950s, she
served her father unofficially as a personal assistant
during his tenure as the first Prime Minister of India.
After her father's death in 1964 she was appointed as a
member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and became
a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister
of Information and Broadcasting.[5]
The then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was
instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the Prime
Minister after the sudden demise of Shastri. Gandhi
soon showed an ability to win elections and
outmaneuver opponents. She introduced moreleft-
wing.economic policies and promoted agricultural
productivity. She led the nation as Prime Minister
during the decisive victory in the 1971 war with
Pakistan and creation of an independent Bangladesh. A
period of instability led her to impose a state of
emergency in 1975. Due to the alleged authoritarian
excesses during the period of emergency, the Congress
Party and Indira Gandhi herself lost the next general
election for the first time in1977. Indira Gandhi led the
Congress back to victory in 1980 election and Gandhi
resumed the office of the Prime Minister. In June 1984,
under Gandhi's order, the Indian army forcefully
entered the Golden Temple, the most sacred Sikh
Gurdwara, to remove armed insurgents present inside
the temple. She was assassinated on 31 October 1984 in
retaliation to this operation.
STUDYING IN EUROPE
While studying at Somerville College, University of
Oxford, England, during the late 1930s, she became a
member of the radical pro-independence London based
India League.[6]
In early 1940, Indira spent time in a rest home in
Switzerland to recover from chronic lung disease. She
maintained her long-distance relationship with her
father in the form of long letters as she was used to
doing through her childhood. They argued about
politics.[7]
In her years in continental Europe and the UK, she met
a young Parsi man active in politics, Feroze Gandhi.[8]
After returning to India, Feroze Gandhi grew close to
the Nehru family, especially to Indira's mother Kamala
Nehru and Indira herself.
MARRIGE TO FEROZE KHAN

When Indira and Feroze Gandhi returned to India, they

were in love and had decided to get married.[9] Indira
liked Feroze's openness, sense of humor and self-
confidence. Nehru did not like the idea of the marriage,
but Indira was adamant and the marriage took place in
March 1942 according to Hindu rituals.[10]
Feroze and Indira were both members of the Indian
National Congress, and when they took part in the Quit
India Movement in 1942, they were both arrested.[11]
After independence, Feroze went on to run for election
and became a member of parliament from Raebareli
Uttar Pradesh in 1952. After the birth of their two sons,
Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, their relationship was
strained leading to a separation. Shortly after his re-
election, Feroze suffered a heart attack, which led to a
reconciliation. Their relationship endured for the few
years prior to the death of Feroze Gandhi in September
1960.
PRESIDENT OF INDIAN NATIONAL
CONGRESS
During 1959 and 1960, Gandhi ran for and was elected
as the President of the Indian National Congress. Her
term of office was uneventful. She also acted as her
father's chief of staff. Nehru was known as a vocal
opponent of nepotism, and she did not contest a seat in
the 1962 elections.
DOMESTICPOLICY
When Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966, the
Congress was split in two factions, the socialists led by
Gandhi, and the conservatives led by Morarji Desai.
Rammanohar Lohia called her Gungi Gudiya which
means 'Dumb Doll'.[12] The internal problems showed in
the 1967 election where the Congress lost nearly 60
seats winning 297 seats in the 545 seat Lok Sabha. She
had to accommodate Desai as Deputy Prime Minister of
India and Minister of Finance. In 1969 after many
disagreements with Desai, the Indian National Congress
split. She ruled with support from Socialist and
Communist Parties for the next two years. In the same
year, in July 1969 she nationalized banks.
FOREIGN POLICY
Gandhi invited the late Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit. After the
near-failure of the talks, the two heads of state
eventually signed the Shimla Agreement, which bound
the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute by
negotiations and peaceful means. Due to her antipathy
for Nixon, relations with the United States grew distant,
while relations with the Soviet Union grew closer.
She was criticized by some for not making the Line of
Control a permanent border while a few critics even
believed that Pakistan-administered Kashmir should
have been extracted from Pakistan, whose 93, 000
prisoners of war were under Indian control. But the
agreement did remove immediate United Nations and
third party interference, and greatly reduced the
likelihood of Pakistan launching a major attack in the
near future. By not demanding total capitulation on a
sensitive issue from Bhutto, she had allowed Pakistan to
stabilize and normalize. Trade relations were also
normalized, though much contact remained
frozen(sealed) for years.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM
A national nuclear program was started by Gandhi in
1967, in response to the nuclear threat from the People's
Republic of China and to establish India's stability and
security interests as independent from those of the
nuclear superpowers. In 1974, India successfully
conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially
code named as "Smiling Buddha", near the desert
village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. Describing the test as
for peaceful purposes, India became the world's
youngest nuclear power.
GREEN REVOLUTION

Richard Nixon and Indira Gandhi in 1971. They had a

deep personal antipathy that coloured bilateral
relations.

Special agricultural innovation programs and extra

government support launched in the 1960s finally
transformed India's chronic food shortages into surplus
production of wheat, rice, cotton and milk, the success
mainly attributed to hard working farmers of majority
Sikh farmers of Punjab. Rather than relying on food aid
from the United States - headed by a President whom
Gandhi disliked considerably (the feeling was mutual:
to Nixon, Indira was "the old witch"),[15] the country
became a food exporter. That achievement, along with
the diversification of its commercial crop production,
has become known as the "Green Revolution". At the
same time, the White Revolution was an expansion in
milk production which helped to combat malnutrition,
especially amidst young children. 'Food security', as the
program was called, was another source of support for
Gandhi in the years leading up to 1975.[16]
Established in the early 1960s, the Green Revolution
was the unofficial name given to the Intense
Agricultural District Program (IADP) which sought to
insure abundant, inexpensive grain for urban dwellers
upon whose support Gandhi—as indeed all Indian
politicians—heavily depended.[17] The program was
based on four premises: 1) New varieties of seed(s), 2)
Acceptance of the necessity of the chemicalization of
Indian agriculture, i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, weed
killers, etc., 3) A commitment to national and
international cooperative research to develop new and
improved existing seed varieties, 4) The concept of
developing a scientific, agricultural institutions in the
form of land grant colleges.[18] Lasting about ten years,
the program was ultimately to bring about a tripling of
wheat production, a lower but still impressive increase
of rice; while there was little to no increase (depending
on area, and adjusted for population growth) of such
cereals as millet, gram and coarse grain, though these
did, in fact, retain a relatively stable yield.
CORRUPTION CHARGES & VERDICT OF
ELECTORAL MALPRACTICE

Gandhi meeting with Shah of Iran Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi and Queen Farah Pahlavi

On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared

Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on
grounds of electoral malpractice. In an election petition
filed by Raj Narain (who later on defeated her in 1977
parliamentary election from Rae Bareily), he had
alleged several major as well as minor instances of
using government resources for campaigning.[20] The
court thus ordered her to be removed from her seat in
Parliament and banned from running in elections for six
years. The Prime Minister must be a member of either
the Lok Sabha (lower house in the Parliament of India)
or the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Parliament).
Thus, this decision effectively removed her from office.
Mrs Gandhi had asked one of India's best legal minds
and also one of her colleagues in government, Mr
Ashoke Kumar Sen to defend her in court. It has been
written that Mrs Gandhi was told she would only win if
Mr Sen appeared for her.
But Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans
to appeal to the Supreme Court. The verdict was
delivered by Mr Justice Sinha at Allahabad High Court.
It came almost four years after the case was brought by
Raj Narain, the premier's defeated opponent in the 1971
parliamentary election. Gandhi, who gave evidence in
her defence during the trial, was found guilty of
dishonest election practices, excessive election
expenditure, and of using government machinery and
officials for party purposes. The judge rejected more
serious charges of bribery against her.
Indira insisted the conviction did not undermine her
position, despite having been unseated from the lower
house of parliament, Lok Sabha, by order of the High
Court. She said: "There is a lot of talk about our
government not being clean, but from our experience
the situation was very much worse when [opposition]
parties were forming governments". And she dismissed
criticism of the way her Congress Party raised election
campaign money, saying all parties used the same
methods. The prime minister retained the support of her
party, which issued a statement backing her. After news
of the verdict spread, hundreds of supporters
demonstrated outside her house, pledging their
loyalty.Indian High Commissioner BK Nehru said
Gandhi's conviction would not harm her political career.
"Mrs Gandhi has still today overwhelming support in
the country," he said. "I believe the prime minister of
India will continue in office until the electorate of India
decides otherwise".

OPERATION BLUE STAR &

ASSASSINATION

Indira Gandhi's blood-stained saree and her belongings at the time of her assassination, preserved at
the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi.

Main articles: Operation Blue Star, 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, and Indira Gandhi assassination

In June 1984, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale's Sikh group

occupied the Golden Temple.[25] In response, on 6 June
1984, during one of the holiest Sikh holidays, enacting
Operation Blue Star, the Indian army opened fire,
killing a disputed number of Sikh militants along with
supporters of Bhindranwale. The State of Punjab was
closed to international media, Sikh devotees, human
rights organizations, and other groups during the period.
On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi's bodyguards,
Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, assassinated her with
their service weapons in the garden of the Prime
Minister's residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi
as she was walking past a wicket gate guarded by
Satwant and Beant. She was to be interviewed by the
British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a
documentary for Irish television. According to
information immediately following the incident, Beant
Singh shot her three times using his side-arm, and
Satwant Singh fired 30 rounds[26] using a Sten
submachine gun. Beant Singh and Satwant Singh
dropped their weapons and surrendered. Afterwards
they were taken away by other guards into a closed
room where Beant Singh was shot dead as he tried to
capture one of the guard's weapons. While Satwant
Singh was arrested at the site of assassination, Kehar
Singh was later arrested for conspiracy in the
assassination. Both were sentenced to death and hanged
in Tihar jail in Delhi.
Gandhi died on her way to the hospital, the All India
Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated
on her. Official accounts at the time stated as many as
19 entry and exit wounds and some reports stated 16
bullets were extracted from her body. She was cremated
on 3 November near Raj Ghat. Her funeral was
televised live on domestic and international stations
including the BBC.