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Indira Gandhi

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Indira Gandhi
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  • Born: 19 November 1917
  • Birthplace: Allahabad, India
  • Died: 1984 (assassination)
  • Best Known As: Prime Minister of India, 1966-77 and 1980-84

Name at birth: Indira Priyadarshini

Indira Gandhi was the prime minister of India from 1966-77 and 1980-84 and one of the most famous women in 20th century politics. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first prime minister (1947-64), and Indira spent her life amid Indian politics. In 1959 she was elected to the presidency of the Indian National Congress, and in 1964 she was elected to the parliament. When Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died in 1966, Gandhi was chosen as a compromise candidate to replace him. She was elected to the office in 1967 and advanced an ambitious program of modernization. In 1975 she was convicted of violations stemming from the 1971 election and the High Court ordered her to resign. Instead she declared a state of emergency and clamped down on her opposition (the conviction was later overturned). She lost the election of 1977 and was out of office until a comeback in 1980, when she was again elected to be prime minister. In 1984 she used the military to suppress Sikh rebels and ordered an attack on a Sikh shrine in Amritsar; a few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh conspirators.

She was married to Feroze Gandhi (1942-60) and had two sons. Her son Sanjay Gandhi (1946-80) was a controversial figure in her government before he was killed in an airplane crash, and her son Rajiv Gandhi (1944-91) succeeded her as India's prime minister in 1984. Rajiv was killed in a 1991 bombing.

 
 
Political Biography: Indira Gandhi

(b. Allahabad, 19 Nov. 1917; d. 31 Oct. 1984) Indian; Prime Minister 1966 – 77, 1980 – 4 Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was educated at Visva-Bharati and Cambridge. In 1929 she founded Vanar Sena, the Congress children's organization. She joined the Congress in 1938 and married Feroze Gandhi in 1942. After her mother's death (1936), she became closer to her father.

Gandhi was elected to the Congress Working Committee in 1955 and became party president between 1959 and 1960. During this period she masterminded the collapse of the Kerala Communist state government. She was elected to parliament in 1964 and became the Minister for Information and Broadcasting under Nehru's successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Following the death of Shastri (1966), Gandhi was elected as Prime Minister by the Congress party. She led the party to a fourth successive general election victory, though with a greatly reduced majority. In 1969 her nominee for President of India was successfully elected but precipitated a split within the Congress between the parliamentary and organizational wings. The split was followed by a radical left turn which included the nationalization of banks and insurance companies.

In 1971 Gandhi went into a national election on a slogan of "eradicate poverty". Her appeal projected her as a national leader and undermined organizational opposition to her within the party. The successful execution of the Indo-Pak War (1971) under Gandhi's guidance led to the creation of Bangladesh. Her popularity was at an alltime high and was followed by Congress victories in the states.

After the 1973 global increase in oil prices, the opposition parties led a countrywide agitation against inflation and corruption. On 12 June 1975 Gandhi was found guilty of corrupt election practices by the Allahabad High Court. On 25 June 1975, Gandhi, using article 352 of the constitution, imposed a State of Emergency.

The State of Emergency was followed by the suspension of the constitution, arrests of opposition leaders, press censorship, and curtailment of the powers of the judiciary; 110,000 political activists were arrested. A twenty-point programme of economic and social reforms was promoted by Gandhi during the Emergency. Gandhi's son, Sanjay Gandhi, established the Youth Congress, which became notorious for its programme of forcible sterilization. The State of Emergency was lifted in March 1977 and elections were held to the national parliament.

The 1977 elections led to a crushing defeat for the Congress, which won only 154 seats, and the election of a Janata government. Gandhi was tried for the excesses of the Emergency but prosecution backfired on the Janata government as it became riven with factional conflict. In 1980 when a national election was called, Gandhi campaigned on a platform of a government that works. She made a successful comeback, winning 351 seats.

Gandhi's final term as Prime Minister was marked by the centralization and personalization of power. Dissent within Congress was not tolerated. Opposition state governments were regularly undermined by the imposition of President's Rule. Following the defeat of Congress in Andhra Pardesh and Karnataka, Gandhi sought to consolidate her support among the Hindu community.

Following the return to power in 1980, Gandhi dismissed the Akali Dal (Sikh Party) led state government in Punjab. This led to a state-wide agitation by the Akali Dal for regional autonomy. Factions within Congress supported the more militant groups among the Sikhs in order to gain party advantage. Between 1981 and 1983 several rounds of negotiations took place between Sikh leaders and the central government, but Gandhi always blocked a deal. As violence in Punjab increased, central rule was imposed. On 4 June 1984 Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to eradicate militant resistance based in the Golden Temple. Operation Blue Star resulted in the deaths of 1,000 people and the permanent alienation of the Sikh community.

Although Operation Blue Star made Gandhi very popular among the Hindu community, it marked the first major use of the Indian army against civilians and was followed by a mutiny of soldiers. Sikh resentment continued to fester and Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguard on 31 October 1984. Her death was followed by massacres of Sikhs in Delhi in which 3,000 lost their lives.

Gandhi is often seen as the practitioner of realpolitik. What she lacked in intellectual ability she compensated for by a ruthless streak gained from a long apprenticeship in politics. Gandhi began the process of deinstitutionalization of Congress with her plebiscitary politics in the early 1970s and the destruction of the old Congress Party. She is best contrasted with her father, Nehru, and is seen as a centralizer who outmanœuvred more experienced contenders for power.

 
Biography: Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (1917-1984), a prime minister of India, was the most effective and powerful politician of her day in that country.

Indira Gandhi was born in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on November 19, 1917. She was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, a dominant figure in the nationalist movement and India's first prime minister. This association placed her at the center of India's struggle for freedom. After independence in 1947, she served as her father's hostess and confidante until his death. Throughout the period of her political association with her father, one of Gandhi's primary interests was social welfare work, particularly children's welfare.

Indira Gandhi attended Santiniketan University and Somerville College, Oxford University, in England. She married Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi) in March 1942. Shortly thereafter they were both imprisoned for a period of 13 months for their part in the nationalist political agitation against British rule. Feroze Gandhi was a lawyer and newspaper executive and became an independent member of Parliament. He died in 1960. They had two sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.

Gandhi became president of the Indian National Congress in 1959. The Congress had led the country to freedom and had then become its major political party. She had joined the Congress in 1938 and subsequently served as a member of its Youth Advisory Board and chairman of its Woman's Department. Prior to assuming the presidency of the organization, Gandhi was named to its 21-member executive Working Committee and was elected with more votes than any other candidate to the powerful 11-member Central Election Board, which named candidates and planned electoral strategy.

In June 1964, following her father's death, Gandhi became minister for information and broadcasting in the Cabinet of Lal Bahadur Shastri and instituted an Indian television system. In January 1966, when Shastri died, she was elected leader of the Congress party in Parliament and became the third prime minister of independent India. She assumed office at a critical time in the history of the country. A truce had ended the 1965 war between India and Pakistan only a week before. The nation was in the midst of a two-year drought resulting in severe food shortages and a deepening economic crisis with rising prices and rising unemployment. The political repercussions of these difficulties were profound. In the fourth general elections of 1967 the Congress retained majority control (and reelected Gandhi as its leader) but lost control in half the state legislatures. After 20 years of political dominance, the Congress party experienced serious difficulty.

Gandhi immediately set about reorganizing the party to make it a more effective instrument of administration and national development. Her goal was to achieve a wider measure of social and economic justice for all Indians. As her left-of-center policies became clear, the Congress party split, with the younger, more liberal elements coalescing around Gandhi and the older, more conservative party leaders opposing her. This division came to a head in July 1969 when she nationalized the country's 14 leading banks in a highly popular move meant to make credit more available to agriculture and to small industry.

The split was formalized when Gandhi's candidate for the presidency of India, V.V. Giri, won over the party's official nominee. Although Gandhi took 228 members of Parliament with her into the New Congress, this was not a majority in the 521-member house, and she held power only with support from parties of the left. In December 1970 when Gandhi failed to get the necessary support to abolish the privy purses and privileges of the former princes, she called on the President to dissolve Parliament. Midterm elections were set for March 1971, one full year ahead of schedule.

A coalition of three parties of the right and an anti-Congress socialist party opposed Gandhi, who made alliances with parties of the left and some regional parties. Her platform was essentially one of achieving social and economic change more rapidly in an effort to improve the quality of life of India's people. Her party won a massive victory with over a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Gandhi faced major problems in the areas of food production, population control, land reform, regulation of prices, unemployment, and industrial production. The problems were exacerbated by the influx of almost 10 million refugees as a result of the civil turmoil in East Pakistan. In November 1971 Indian troops crossed into East Pakistan to fight Pakistani forces. On December 6 Gandhi announced diplomatic recognition of the Bangla Desh government set up by East Pakistani rebel leaders. Ten days later Pakistan's commander in East Pakistan surrendered to India.

In the state elections held in India in March 1972, Gandhi's New Congress party scored the most overwhelming victory in the history of independent India; however, her opponent accused her of violating election laws, and a high court upheld the charge in 1975. Because of this development, as well as domestic unrest, Gandhi declared a state of emergency and postponed elections. In the 1977 elections Gandhi and her party suffered major defeats; Gandhi lost her seat and the premiership.

The following year she headed the Congress party faction as she returned to Parliament. In 1979 she again became Prime Minister. In efforts to prove India's nonalliance in the global community, she visited both the United States and the USSR. Internally, riots broke out among Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh religious sects. Sikh separatists secured weapons within their sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, assuming religious protection. Gandhi ordered government troops to storm the temple, leading to many Sikh deaths. This led to her assassination on the grounds of her own residence and office October 31, 1984, by her own Sikh security guards.

Further Reading

Biographies of Gandhi include Tariq Ali, An Indian Dynasty: The Story of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, Putnam, 1985; and Pupu Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography, Pantheon Books, 1993.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Indira Gandhi
(click to enlarge)
Indira Gandhi (credit: AP)
(born Nov. 19, 1917, Allahabad, India — died Oct. 31, 1984, New Delhi) Prime minister of India (1966 – 77, 1980 – 84). The only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, she studied in India and at the University of Oxford. In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi (d. 1960), a fellow member of the Indian National Congress. In 1959 she was given the largely honorary position of party president, and in 1966 she achieved actual power when she was made leader of the Congress Party and, consequently, prime minister. She instituted major reforms, including a strict population-control program. In 1971 she mobilized Indian forces against Pakistan in the cause of East Bengal's secession. She oversaw the incorporation of Sikkim in 1974. Convicted in 1975 of violating election laws, she declared a state of emergency, jailing opponents and passing many laws limiting personal freedoms. She was defeated in the following election but returned to power in 1980. In 1984 she ordered the army to move into the Golden Temple complex of the Sikhs at Amritsar, with the intent of crushing the Sikh militants hiding inside the temple; some 450 Sikhs died in the fighting. She was later shot and killed by her own Sikh bodyguards in revenge.

For more information on Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, visit Britannica.com.

 
Spotlight: Indira Gandhi

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, November 19, 2005

Indira Gandhi, born on this date in 1917, was Prime Minister of India from 1966-1977 and 1980-1984. The daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, Gandhi was elected as a member of Parliament in her father's Indian National Congress Party after he died in 1964. Reviews of her own two terms as Prime Minister were mixed, and in 1984 Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded her as Prime Minister, only to meet a similar fate in 1991, when he was assassinated by Tamil separatists.
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Gandhi, Indira
(ĭndē'rə gän') , 1917–84, Indian political leader; daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. She served as an aide to her father, who was prime minister (1947–64), and as minister of information in the government of Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964–66). On Shastri's death in 1966, she succeeded as prime minister. Her first administration, marked by her increasing personal control of the Indian National Congress party, led to a party split. Her faction, New Congress, won overwhelming electoral victories in 1971 and 1972. She triumphed in foreign affairs with India's 1971 defeat of Pakistan, which resulted in the establishment of the state of Bangladesh. Found guilty in June, 1975, of illegal practices during the 1971 campaign, she refused to resign, declaring a state of emergency. Her administration arrested opponents and imposed press censorship. In November the Supreme Court overruled her conviction. In 1977 her faction in the Congress party lost the parliamentary elections; she lost both her seat and her position as prime minister. In 1980, she again became prime minister, this time as leader of the Congress (Indira) party, and held the office until assassinated by her security guards in 1984. Her son Rajiv Gandhi succeeded her as prime minister.

Bibliography

See biographies by K. Bhatia (1974) and D. Moraes (1980); T. Ali, Nehru and the Gandhis, (1985); I. Gandhi, Letters to an American Friend, 1950–1984 (1985).

 
History Dictionary: Gandhi, Indira
(in-deer-uh gahn-dee, gan-dee)

An Indian political leader of the twentieth century. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, and she served herself as prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977. Indira connected with the poor and dispossessed of India, and she was instrumental in securing the independence of Bangladesh. Yet her record for helping the dispossessed was marred by the State of Emergency, which she imposed from 1975 to 1977, when democratic norms were suspended and the press censored. She served as prime minister again from 1980 until 1984, when she was assassinated by her own bodyguards.

 
Quotes By: Indira Gandhi

Quotes:

"Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave."

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."

"Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning."

"Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic."

"You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose."

"There are two kinds of people: Those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group because there is less competition there."

See more famous quotes by Indira Gandhi

 
Wikipedia: Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
इंदिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गांधी
Indira Gandhi

In office
15 January 1980 – 31 October 1984
President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Giani Zail Singh
Preceded by Choudhary Charan Singh
Succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi
In office
19 January 1966 – 24 March 1977
President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain, Varahagiri Venkata Giri, Muhammad Hidayatullah, Varahagiri Venkata Giri, and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Preceded by Gulzarilal Nanda
Succeeded by Morarji Desai

In office
9 March 1984 – 31 October 1984
Preceded by Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha
Succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi
In office
21 August 1967 – 14 March 1969
Preceded by Mahommedali Currim Chagla
Succeeded by Dinesh Singh

In office
26 June 1970 – 29 April 1971
Preceded by Morarji Desai
Succeeded by Yashwantrao Chavan

Born 19 November 1917(1917--)
Mughalsarai, United Provinces, British India
Died October 31 1984 (aged 66)
New Delhi, India
Political party Indian National Congress
Spouse Feroze Gandhi
Children Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi
A young Indira Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, during one of the latter's fasts
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A young Indira Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, during one of the latter's fasts

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: इंदिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गांधी) (19 November, 1917 - October 31, 1984) She was the Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977 and for a fourth term from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She was India's first and to date only female prime minister. She is noted for creating a dictatorship by declaring Emergency after a court struck down her election in 1975, and also for her handling of the Operation Blue Star against Sikh militants, which eventually resulted in her assassination.

Born in the politically influential Nehru dynasty, she grew up in an intensely political atmosphere. Her grandfather Motilal Nehru was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Returning to India from Oxford 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 India's first Prime Minister. After her father's death in 1964, she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha by the President of India and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting[1].

Chosen to become Prime Minister by Congress Party insiders after Shastri's death, Gandhi soon showed an ability to win elections and outmanoeuvre opponents through populism. She introduced more left-wing economic policies and promoted agricultural productivity. A crushing victory in the 1971 war with Pakistan was followed by a period of instability that led her to impose a state of Emergency in 1975; she paid for the authoritarian excesses of the period with three years in opposition.

Returned to office in 1980, she became increasingly involved in an escalating conflict with separatists in Punjab that eventually led to her assassination by her own bodyguards in 1984.

Early life of Indira Gandhi

The Nehru family - Motilal Nehru is seated in the center, and standing (L to R) are Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Krishna Hutheesing, Indira, and  Ranjit Pandit; Seated: Swaroop Rani, Motilal Nehru and Kamala Nehru (circa 1927).
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The Nehru family - Motilal Nehru is seated in the center, and standing (L to R) are Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Krishna Hutheesing, Indira, and Ranjit Pandit; Seated: Swaroop Rani, Motilal Nehru and Kamala Nehru (circa 1927).

Indira Priyadarshini, was born on November 19, 1917 to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his young wife Kamala Nehru. The Nehru family can trace their ancestry to the Brahmins of Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi. Indira's grandfather Motilal Nehru was a wealthy barrister of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Nehru was one of the most prominent members of the Indian National Congress in pre-Gandhi times and would go on to author the Nehru Report, the people's choice for a future Indian system of government as opposed to the British system. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru was a well-educated lawyer and was a popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. At the time of Indira's birth, Nehru entered the independence movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

Growing up in the sole care of her mother, who was sick and alienated from the Nehru household, Indira developed strong protective instincts and a loner personality. Her grandfather and father continually being enmeshed in national politics also made mixing with her peers difficult. She had conflicts with her father's sisters, including Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and these continued into the political world.

Indira created the Vanara Sena movement for young girls and boys which played a small but notable role in the Indian Independence Movement, conducting protests and flag marches, as well as helping Congress politicians circulate sensitive publications and banned materials. In an often-told story, she smuggled out from her father's police-watched house an important document in her schoolbag that outlined plans for a major revolutionary initiative in the early 1930s.

In 1936, her mother, Kamala Nehru, finally succumbed to tuberculosis after a long struggle. Indira was 18 at the time and thus never experienced a stable family life during her childhood. She attended prominent Indian, European and British schools like Santiniketan, Badminton School and Oxford, but she showed no incandescence for academics, and was detained from obtaining a degree.[citation needed]

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[2].

In her years in continental Europe and the UK, she met Feroze Gandhi,a Congress activist. Nehru was not happy; Kamala was dead already or dying. Just before the beginning of the Quit India Movement - the final, all-out national revolt launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party. In September 1942 they were arrested by the British authorities and detained without charge. She was ultimately released on 13 May, 1943 having spent over 243 days in jail [3]. In 1944, she gave birth to Rajiv Gandhi with Feroze Gandhi, and followed by Sanjay Gandhi.

During the chaotic Partition of India in 1947, she helped organize refugee camps and provide medical care for the millions of refugees from Pakistan. This was her first exercise in major public service, and a valuable experience for the tumult of the coming years.

The couple later settled in Allahabad where Feroze worked for a Congress Party newspaper and an insurance company. Their marriage started out well, but deteriorated later as Gandhi moved to New Delhi to be at the side of her father, now the Prime Minister, who was living alone in a high-pressure environment at Teen Murti Bhavan. She became his confidante, secretary and nurse. Her sons lived with her, but she eventually became permanently separated from Feroze, though they remained married.

When India's first general election approached in 1951, Gandhi managed the campaigns of both Nehru and her husband, who was contesting the constituency of Rae Bareilly. Feroze had not consulted Nehru on his choice to run, and even though he was elected, he opted to live in a separate house in Delhi. Feroze quickly developed a reputation for being a fighter against corruption by exposing a major scandal in the nationalized insurance industry, resulting in the resignation of the Finance Minister, a Nehru aide.

At the height of the tension, Gandhi and her husband separated. However, in 1958, shortly after re-election, Feroze suffered a heart attack, which dramatically healed their broken marriage. At his side to help him recuperate in Kashmir, their family grew closer. But Feroze died on September 8, 1960, while Gandhi was abroad with Nehru on a foreign visit.

President of the Indian National Congress

Indira and Mahatma Gandhi circa the 1930s
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Indira and Mahatma Gandhi circa the 1930s

During 1959 and 1960, Gandhi ran for and was elected 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.

Nehru died on May 27, 1964, and Gandhi, at the urgings of the new Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, contested elections and joined the Government, being immediately appointed Minister for Information and Broadcasting. She went to Madras when the riots over Hindi becoming the national language broke out in non-Hindi speaking states of the south. There she spoke to government officials, soothed the anger of community leaders and supervised reconstruction efforts for the affected areas. Shastri and senior Ministers were embarrassed, owing to their lack of such initiative. Minister Gandhi's actions were probably not directly aimed at Shastri or her own political elevation. She reportedly lacked interest in the day-to-day functioning of her Ministry, but was media-savvy and adept at the art of politics and image-making.

"During the succession struggles after 1965 between Mrs. Gandhi and her rivals, the central Congress [party] leadership in several states moved to displace upper caste leaders from state Congress [party] organizations and replace them with backward caste persons and to mobilize the votes of the latter castes to defeat its rivals in the state Congress [party] and in the oppositiion. The consequences of these interventions, some of which may justly be perceived as socially progressive, have nevertheless often had the consequences of intensifying inter-ethnic regional conflicts...[4]

When the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 broke out, Gandhi was vacationing in the border region of Srinagar. Although warned by the Army that Pakistani insurgents had penetrated very close to the city, she refused to relocate to Jammu or Delhi. She rallied local government and welcomed media attention, in effect reassuring the nation. Shastri died in Tashkent, hours after signing the peace agreement with Pakistan's Ayub Khan, mediated by the Soviets.

Shastri had been a candidate of consensus, bridging the left-right gap and staving off the popular conservative Morarji Desai. Gandhi was the candidate of the 'Syndicate', regional power brokers of immense influence, who thought that she would be easily led.

Searching for explanations for this disastrous miscalculation many years later, the then Congress President K. Kamaraj made the strange claim that he had made a personal vow to Nehru to make Gandhi Prime Minister 'at any cost'.

With the backing of the Syndicate, in a vote of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Gandhi beat Morarji Desai by 355 votes to 169 to become the fifth Prime Minister of India and the first woman to hold that position.

Prime Minister

Foreign and Domestic Policy and National Security

Dr. Radhakrishnan, the second President of India, administering the oath of office to Indira Gandhi on 24 January 1966.
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Dr. Radhakrishnan, the second President of India, administering the oath of office to Indira Gandhi on 24 January 1966.

When Mrs. Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966 there was no unity in the Congress. Her main party rival, Morarji Desai called her 'Gungi Gudiya' which means 'Dumb Doll'. 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 and Finance Minister. In 1969 after a lot of disagreements with Desai, the Congress split. she ruled with support from Socialist Parties for the next two years. In the same year, she nationalised banks.During the 1971 War, the US had sent its Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal as a warning to India keep away from East Pakistan as a pretext to launch a wider attack against West Pakistan, especially over the disputed territory of Kashmir. This move had further alienated India from the First World, and Prime Minister Gandhi now accelerated a previously cautious new direction in national security and foreign policy. India and the USSR had earlier signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation, the resulting political and military support contributing substantially to India's victory in the 1971 war.

Nuclear Program

But Gandhi now accelerated the national nuclear program, as it was felt that the nuclear threat from the People's Republic of China and the intrusive interest of the two major superpowers were not conducive to India's stability and security. She also invited the new 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. It was Gandhi's stubbornness which made even the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister sign the accord according to India's terms in which Zulfikar Bhutto had to write the last few terms in the agreement in his own handwriting.[citation needed]

Indira Gandhi 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 for years.

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 nevertheless became the world's youngest nuclear power.

Green Revolution

Main article: Green Revolution
Richard Nixon and Indira Gandhi in 1971. They had a deep personal antipathy that coloured bilateral relations.
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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 that had finally resulted in India's chronic food shortages were gradually being transformed into surplus production of wheat, rice, cotton and milk. Rather than relying on food aid from the United States - headed by a President whom Mrs. Gandhi disliked considerably (the feeling was mutual: to Nixon, Indira was "the old witch"[5]), 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 programme was called, was another source of support for Mrs. Gandhi in the years leading up to 1975. [1]

Established in the early 1960s, the Green Revolution was the unofficial name given to the Intense Agricultural District Programme (IADP) which sought to insure abundant, inexpensive grain for urban dwellers upon whose support Gandhi -- as indeed all Indian politicians -- heavily depended. [6] 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. [7]. 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.

Indian Emergency of 1975 - 1977

Gandhi's government faced major problems after her tremendous mandate of 1971. The internal structure of the Congress Party had withered following its numerous splits, leaving it entirely dependent on her leadership for its election fortunes. Garibi Hatao (Abolish Poverty) was the theme for Gandhi's 1971 bid. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. This would allow her to by-pass the dominate rural castes both in and of state and local government; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight.

The programs created through garibi hatao, though carried out locally, were funded, developed, supervised, and staffed by New Delhi and the Congress [party]. "These programs also provided the central political leadership with new and vast patronage resources to be disbursed...throughout the country."[8] All and all, garibi hatao did little and accomplished a bit less: Only about 4% of all funds allocated for economic development went to the three main anti-poverty programs, and precious few of these ever reached the 'poorest of the poor'. But it did help secure Gandhi's election.

Changing Domestic Policy

Gandhi had already been accused of tendencies towards authoritarianism. Using her strong parliamentary majority, she had amended the Constitution and stripped power from the states granted under the federal system. The central government had twice imposed President's Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution by deeming states ruled by opposition parties as "lawless and chaotic", thus winning administrative control of those states. Elected officials and the administrative services resented the growing influence of Sanjay Gandhi, who had become Gandhi's close political advisor at the expense of men like P. N. Haksar, Gandhi's chosen strategist during her rise to power. Renowned public figures and former freedom-fighters like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Acharya Jivatram Kripalani now toured the North, speaking actively against her Government.

Charges

On June 12, 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Gandhi's election invalid on the grounds of corrupt practices in an election petition filed by Raj Narain. Technically, this constituted election fraud, and the court thus ordered her to be removed from her seat in Parliament and banned from running in elections for six years. Since the Prime Minister must be a member of either the Lok Sabha (lower house in the Parliament of India) or theRajya Sabha (the upper house of the Parliament), this decision had the effect of removing her from office.

Gandhi appealed the decision; the opposition parties rallied en masse, calling for her resignation. Strikes by unions and protest rallies paralyzed life in many states. J. P. Narayan even called upon the police to disobey orders if asked to fire on an unarmed public. Public disenchantment combined with hard economic times and an unresponsive government. A huge rally surrounded the Parliament building and Gandhi's residence in Delhi, demanding her to behave responsibly and resign.

A still from Anand Patwardhan's first documentary Waves of Revolution, about the unrest in Bihar, distributed clandestinely within India and smuggled out in sections to create awareness abroad.
Enlarge
A still from Anand Patwardhan's first documentary Waves of Revolution, about the unrest in Bihar, distributed clandestinely within India and smuggled out in sections to create awareness abroad.

State of Emergency

Gandhi advised President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to declare a state of emergency, claiming that the strikes and rallies were creating a state of 'internal disturbance'. Ahmed was a longtime political ally, and it is a strong convention in India that the president acts on the advice of the prime minister. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on June 26, 1975.

Even before the Emergency Proclamation was ratified by Parliament, Gandhi on the night of June 26, 1975 moved to put an end to any and all opposition to order the arrest of all her principal opposition, including those within the Congress Parliamentary Party. Many of these were men who had first been jailed by the British in the 1930s and 1940s.

Rule by Decree

Within a few months, President's Rule was imposed on the two non-Congress (party)-ruled states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thereby bringing the entire country under direct dictorial rule from Delhi. [9] Police were granted powers to impose curfews and infinitely detain citizens, while all publications were subjected to substantial censorship by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Finally, impending legislative assembly elections were indefinitely postponed, with all opposition-controlled state governments being removed by virtue of the constitutional provision allowing for a dismissal of a state government on recommendation of the state's governor.

Gandhi used the emergency provisions to grant herself extraordinary powers.

"Unlike her father [Nehru], who preferred to deal with strong chief ministers in control of their legislative parties and state party organizations, Mrs. Gandhi set out to remove every Congress chief minister who had an independent base and to replace each of them with ministers personally loyal to her...Even so, stability could not be maintained in the states..."[10]

She further utilized President Ahmed, to issue ordinances that did not need to be debated in Parliament, allowing her to effectively rule by decree. Inder Kumar Gujral, a future prime minister himself, resigned as Minister for Information and Broadcasting to protest Sanjay Gandhi's interference in his work of the ministry.

The prime minister's emergency rule lasted nineteen months.

Simultaneously, a draconian campaign to stamp out dissent included the arrest and torture of thousands of political activists; the ruthless clearing of slums around Delhi's Jama Masjid ordered by Sanjay and carried out by Jagmohan, which left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and thousands killed, and led to the permanent ghettoization of the nation's capital; and the family planning program which forcibly imposed vasectomy on thousands of fathers and was often poorly administered, nurturing a public anger against family planning that persists into the 21st century.

Elections

In 1977, Gandhi called elections. One factor was the economic gains, though there may have been political considerations at play. Gandhi may have grossly misjudged her popularity by reading what the heavily censored press wrote about her, or may have feared a military coup had she attempted to rule by decree any longer (There were reports that the Armed Forces would forcibly remove her from power and hold elections. See Tapishwar Narain Raina). In any case, she was roundly defeated by the Janata Party. Janata, led by her long-time rival, Desai and with Narayan as its spiritual guide, claimed the elections were the last chance for India to choose between "democracy and dictatorship." Indira and Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats, and Congress was cut down to 153 seats (compared with 350 in the previous Lok Sabha), 92 of which were in the south.

Removal, Arrest, and Return

Mrs. Gandhi with M.G. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In the post-emergency elections in 1977, only the Southern states returned Congress majorities.
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Mrs. Gandhi with M.G. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In the post-emergency elections in 1977, only the Southern states returned Congress majorities.

Desai became Prime Minister and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the establishment choice of 1969, became President of the Republic. Gandhi found herself without work, income or residence until winning a by-election in 1978. The Congress Party split during the election campaign of 1977 with veteran Gandhi supporters like Jagjivan Ram abandoning her for Janata. The Congress (Gandhi) Party was now a much smaller group in Parliament, although the official opposition.

Unable to govern owing to fractious coalition warfare, the Janata government's Home Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, ordered the arrest of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi on several charges, none of which would be easy to prove in an Indian court. The arrest meant that Indira was automatically expelled from Parliament. However, this strategy backfired disastrously. Her arrest and long-running trial, however, gained her great sympathy from many people who had feared her as a tyrant(which she was) just two years earlier.

The Janata coalition was only united by its hatred of Mrs. Gandhi (or "that woman" as some called her); the government was so bogged down by infighting. She was able to use the situation to her advantage. She began giving speeches again, tacitly apologizing for "mistakes" made during the Emergency. Desai resigned in June 1979, and Charan Singh was appointed Prime Minister by Reddy after Mrs. Gandhi promised that Congress would support his government from outside.

After a short interval, she withdrew her initial support and President Reddy dissolved Parliament in the winter of 1979. In elections held the following January, Congress was returned to power with a landslide majority.

Indira Gandhi was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (for 1983-84).

Operation Blue Star and assassination

Main article: Operation Blue Star
Main article: 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots

Gandhi's later years were bedevilled with problems in Punjab. In September 1981, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the leader of a separatist Sikh religious group and his well-armed followers took up positions within the precincts of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine.[11] Gandhi and president Zail Singh ordered the Army, led by Kuldeep Singh Brar, to the Golden Temple to remove Bhindranwale and his followers on June 3, 1984.

On October 31, 1984, two of Indira Gandhi's own bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, assassinated her with machine guns in the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi. As she was walking to be interviewed by the British actor Peter Ustinov filming a documentary for Irish television, she passed a wicket gate, guarded by Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, where they opened fire with machine pistols before being shot themselves by other bodyguards. One bodyguard was killed and the other wounded.

Gandhi died on her way to the hospital, in her official car, but she was not declared dead until many hours later. She was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated on her and reportedly removed 31 bullets from her body. She was cremated on November 3, near Raj Ghat and the place was called Shakti Sthal.

After her death, sectarian unrest engulfed New Delhi and several other cities in India, including Kanpur, Asansol and Indore, leading to the death of thousands of Sikhs and leaving many homeless. At that time many Gurudwaras were burnt. Some members of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, long accused by human rights activists of a hand in the violence, were tried for incitement to murder and arson many years later; the cases were all dismissed for lack of evidence.

Gandhi's friend and biographer Pupul Jayakar would later reveal Indira's tension, and her premonition about what might happen in the wake of Operation Blue Star.

Personal life

Nehru-Gandhi family

Main article: Nehru-Gandhi Family

Initially Sanjay had been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident, his mother persuaded a reluctant Rajiv Gandhi to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981.

It is during this period that Rajiv Gandhi started influencing decisions in the government. In particular, a large number of contracts after 1980 were awarded to Snamprogetti, often violating tender rules and over the objection of senior administrators[12]. This is widely perceived to have been at the instance of Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman whose family was close to Rajiv's Italian born wife Sonia Gandhi[13]. Quattrocchi would later be involved in the Bofors Scandal which was politically devastating for Rajiv Gandhi.

After Indira Gandhi's death, Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister. In May 1991, he too was assassinated, this time at the hands of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam militants. Rajiv's widow, Sonia Gandhi, led the United Progressive Alliance to a surprise electoral victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

Sonia Gandhi declined the opportunity to assume the office of Prime Minister but remains in control of the Congress' political apparatus; Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, formerly finance minister, now heads the nation. Rajiv's children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, have also entered politics. Sanjay Gandhi's widow, Maneka Gandhi - who fell out with Indira after Sanjay's death and was famously thrown out of the Prime Minister's house[14] - as well as Sanjay's son, Varun Gandhi, are active in politics as members of the main opposition BJP party. At the same time, scandals from Indira Gandhi's final years, including the Ottavio Quattrocchi affair, continue to cast its shadow on Sonia Gandhi[15].

Indira Gandhi in popular culture

  • Although never mentioned by name, Indira Gandhi is clearly the prime minister in A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.
  • In Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, Indira is responsible for the eponymous characters' downfall, referred to throughout the novel as "The Widow." This portrayal of Indira Gandhi raised controversy in some circles for its harsh depiction both of her and of her policies.
  • In Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel, the character of Priya Duryodhani clearly refers to Indira Gandhi.
  • "Aandhi," a Hindi movie directed by Gulzar, is a partly fictionalized adaptation of some events in Indira's life, particularly her (played by Suchitra Sen) difficult relationship with her husband (played by Sanjeev Kumar).

External links

References

  1. ^ Gandhi, Indira. (1982) My Truth
  2. ^ Frank, Katherine. (2001) Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi.
  3. ^ Frank, Katherine. (2001) Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. Page 186
  4. ^ Ibid #2 p. 154
  5. ^ BBC News
  6. ^ Ibid. #3 p. 295
  7. ^ Farmer, B.H.,"Prespectives on the 'Green Revolution'</i<>Modern Asian Studies, xx No.1 (February, 1986) p.177
  8. ^ Rath, Nilakantha, "Garibi Hatao": Can IRDP Do It?"(EWP,xx,No.6) February 1981.
  9. ^ Kochanek, Stanely, "Mrs. Gandhi's Pyramid: The New Congress, (Westview Press, Boulder, CO 1976) p.98
  10. ^ Brass, Paul R., The Politics of India Since Independence,(Cambridge University Press, England 1995) p.40
  11. ^ Ibid, p. 105.
  12. ^ Ashok Malik. "The clue to Mr Q", The Pioneer, March 4 2007. 
  13. ^ "CBI to appeal against court order in Bofors case", The Hindu, Apr 11, 2004. 
  14. ^ Khushwant Singh's autobiography - the Tribune
  15. ^ Sandhya Jain. "Runaway Romans", The Pioneer, March 28, 2007. 

Further reading

  • Ved Mehta, A Family Affair: India Under Three Prime Ministers (1982) ISBN 0-19-503118-0
  • Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (1992) ISBN 9780679424796
  • Katherine Frank, Indira: the life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (2002) ISBN 0-395-73097-X


Preceded by
Mahommedali Currim Chagla
Minister for External Affairs of India
1967–1969
Succeeded by
Dinesh Singh
Preceded by
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao
Minister for External Affairs of India
1984–1984
Succeeded by
Rajiv Gandhi
Preceded by
Morarji Desai
Finance Minister of India
1970–1971
Succeeded by
Yashwantrao Chavan


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