Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi ( 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India.
Gandhi was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that had been begun by her father. Gandhi established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared state of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated by her bodyguards in retaliation for ordering Operation Blue Star.
Indira Nehru was born on 19 November 1917 at the Anand Bhavan in the historically important town of Allahabad, in what was then the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, into the politically influential Nehru family. Indira Gandhi's father was Jawaharlal Nehru and her mother was Kamla Nehru. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the independence movement of India.
[edit]Early life and career
During her time in Europe, Nehru was plagued with ill-health and was constantly attended by doctors. She had to make repeated trips to Switzerland to recover, disrupting her studies. She was being treated by the famed Swiss doctor Auguste Rollier in 1940, when the Nazi armies rapidly conquered Europe. Nehru tried to return to England through Portugal but was left stranded for nearly two months. She managed to enter England in early 1941, and from there returned to India without completing her studies at Oxford. She had excelled in history, political science and economics but struggled with her Latin, failing in the subject several times. The Oxford university later conferred on her an honorary degree. In 2010, Oxford further honoured Gandhi by selecting her as one of the ten Oxasians, illustrious Asian graduates from the University of Oxford.
Nehru did her pre-schooling at the Modern school in Delhi. She attended primary school in a variety of institutions in India and Europe, including Ecole Internationale in Geneva, Ecole Nouvelle in Bex, St Cecilia's and St Mary's convent schools (both in Allahabad), before graduating from the Pupils' Own School in Poona and Bombay. In 1936, Nehru enrolled at Somerville College, Oxford, University of Oxford in United Kingdom. While preparing for the entrance exam, she suffered a personal tragedy after her mother died from a prolonged battle with tuberculosis in Switzerland. This left her emotionally devastated: she subsequently failed the exam. Despite the setbacks, Gandhi chose to continue studying in England and spent a few months at the Badminton School in Bristol before clearing the Oxford entrance exam in 1937.
During her stay in the UK, Nehru frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. The marriage took place in Allahabad according to Adi Dharm rituals though Feroze belonged to a Parsi family of Gujarat.
In the 1950s, Nehru 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 asMinister of Information and Broadcasting.
Then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister after the sudden demise of Shastri. Nehru soon showed an ability to win elections and outmanoeuvre opponents. She introduced more left-wing economic policies and promoted agricultural productivity. She led India as Prime Minister during the decisive victory of East Pakistan over Pakistan in the 1971 war and creation of an independent Bangladesh. She imposed a state of emergency in 1975. Congress Party and Indira Gandhi herself lost the next general election for the first time in 1977. Indira Gandhi led the Congress back to victory in 1980 elections 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 SikhGurdwara, to remove armed insurgents present inside the temple. She was killed on 31 October 1984 in retaliation for this operation by her bodyguards.
[edit]Legislative career
When Indira 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'.[citation needed] 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 asDeputy 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 nationalised banks.
[edit]War with Pakistan in 1971
The Pakistan army conducted atrocities against the civilian populations of East Pakistan. An estimated 10 million refugees fled to India, causing financial hardship and instability in the country. The United States under Richard Nixon supported Pakistan, and mooted a UN resolution warning India against going to war. Nixon apparently disliked Gandhi personally, referring to her as a "witch" and "clever fox" in his private communication with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (now released by the State Department). Gandhi signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, resulting in political support and a Soviet veto at the UN.
[edit]Foreign policy
Congress was criticised by some for not making the Line of Control (LoC) 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 stabilise and normalise. Trade relations were also normalised, though much contact remained frozen (sealed) for years.
Gandhi invited the Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit. The two national leaders 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.
[edit]Nuclear weapons program
Gandhi contributed and further carried out the vision of Jawarharalal Nehru, former Premier of India to develop the program. Gandhi authorised the development of nuclear weapons in 1967, in response to the Test No. 6 by People's Republic of China. Gandhi saw this test as Chinese nuclear intimidation, therefore, Gandhi promoted the views of Nehru to establish India's stability and security interests as independent from those of the nuclear superpowers.
The program became fully mature in 1974, when Dr. Raja Ramanna reported to Gandhi that India had the ability to test its first nuclear weapon. Gandhi gave verbal authorisation of this test, and preparations were made in a long-constructed army base, the Indian Army Pokhran Test Range. In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as "Smiling Buddha", near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. As the world was quiet by this test, a vehement protest came forward from Pakistan. Great ire was raised in Pakistan, Pakistan's Prime minister Zulfi Ali Bhutto described this test as "Indian hegemony" to intimidate Pakistan. Gandhi directed a letter to Bhutto and, later to the world, describing the test for peaceful purposes and India's commitment to develop its programme for industrial and scientific use.
[edit]Green Revolution
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 the hard working majority Sikh farmers of Punjab. Rather than relying on food aid from the United States – headed by a President Gandhi disliked considerably (the feeling was mutual: to Nixon, Gandhi was "the old witch"), 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.
Bank nationalizations
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. 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, and 4) The concept of developing a scientific, agricultural institutions in the form of land grant colleges.
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In 1969, fourteen major banks were nationalized as a means of encouraging economic development and widening access to banking facilities. Banks were given targets for lending in priority areas (like agriculture) and were directed to offer banking services to poorer members of Indian society who had been neglected by the private banks. Under the nationalization drive, the number of bank branches rose from 8,200 to over 62,000, most of which were opened in the unbanked, rural areas. The nationalization drive not only helped to increase household savings, but it also provided considerable investments in the informal sector, in small and medium-sized enterprises, and in agriculture, and contributed significantly to regional development and to the expansion of India’s industrial and agricultural base.
[edit]1971 election victory and second term
The 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 (Eradicate 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 bypass the dominant 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 theIndian National Congress party. "These programs also provided the central political leadership with new and vast patronage resources to be disbursed... throughout the country.
[edit]Verdict on electoral malpractice
But Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. The verdict was delivered by Mr Justice Jagmohanlal 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.
On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabhavoid 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. 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 theParliament of India) or the Rajya Sabha (the Higher 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.
State of Emergency (1975–1977)
Gandhi 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".
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Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency because of the disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on 26 June 1975.
[edit]Rule by decree
Within a few months, President's Rule was imposed on the two opposition party ruled states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thereby bringing the entire country under direct Central rule or by governments led by the ruling Congress party. Police were granted powers to impose curfews and indefinitely detain citizens and 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.
Indira Gandhi used the emergency provisions to change conflicting party members.
"Unlike her father Jawaharlal 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...
President Ahmed issued a ordinances that did not need to be debated in the Parliament, allowing her to rule by decree.
[edit]Elections
In 1977, after extending the state of emergency twice, Indira Gandhi called elections, to give the electorate a chance to vindicate her rule. Gandhi may have grossly misjudged her popularity by reading what the heavily censored press wrote about her. In any case, she was opposed by the Janata Party. Janata, led by her long-time rival, Desai and with Jai Prakash Narayan as its spiritual guide, claimed the elections were the last chance for India to choose between "democracy and dictatorship." Gandhi's Congress party was crushed soundly in the elections which followed. 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.
[edit]Removal, arrest, and return
A coalition of opposition parties, under the leadership of Morarji Desai, came into power after the State of Emergency was lifted. The coalition parties later merged to form the Janata Party under the guidance of Gandhian leader, Jayaprakash Narayan. The other leaders of the Janata Party Charan Singh, Raj Narain,George Fernandes and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 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 Gandhi was automatically expelled from Parliament. These allegations included that she “‘had planned or thought of killing all opposition leaders in jail during the Emergency’ However, this strategy backfired disastrously. Her arrest and long-running trial, however, gained her great sympathy from many people. The Janata coalition was only united by its hatred of Gandhi (or "that woman" as some called her). With so little in common, the Morarji Desai government was bogged down by infighting. Desai resigned in June 1979 after Charan Singh and Raj Narain formed their own breakaway party. Charan Singh was appointed Prime Minister, by President Reddy, after Gandhi promised Singh that Congress would support his government from outside.
The Congress Party split during the election campaign of 1977: veteran Gandhi supporters like Jagjivan Ram and her most loyal Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy, the three were compelled to part ways and form a new political entity CFD (Congress for Democracy) primarily due to intra party politicking and also due to circumstances created by Sanjay Gandhi. The prevailing rumour was that Sanjay had intentions of dislodging Gandhi and the trio stood between that.
After a short interval, Congress withdrew 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.
In 1979, when she visited Madurai, some hooligans attacked her. Nedumaran saved her from the attacks.
[edit]Operation Blue Star
In the 1977 elections, a coalition led by the Sikh-majority Akali Dal came to power in the northern Indian state of Punjab. In an effort to split the Akali Dal and gain popular support among the Sikhs, Indira Gandhi's Congress helped bring the orthodox religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to prominence in the Punjab politics. Later, Bhindranwale's organisation Damdami Taksal became embroiled in violence with another religious sect called the Sant Nirankari Mission, and he was accused of instigating the murder of the Congress leader Jagat Narain.After being arrested in this matter, Bhindranwale disassociated himself from Congress and joined hands with the Akali Dal. In July 1982, he led the campaign for the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, which demanded greater autonomy for the Sikh-majority state. Meanwhile, a small section of the Sikhs including some of Bhindranwale's followers, turned to militancy in support of theKhalistan movement, which aimed to create a separate sovereign state for the Sikhs. In 1983, Bhindranwale and his militant followers headquarted themselves in the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, and started accumulating weapons. After several futile negotiations, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian army to enter the Golden temple in order to subdue Bhindranwale and his followers. In the resulting Operation Blue Star, the shrine was damaged and many civilians were killed. The State of Punjab was closed to international media, its phone and communication lines shut. To this day the events remain controversial with a disputed number of victims; Sikhs seeing the attack as unjustified and Bhindrawale being declared the greatest sikh martyr of the 21st century by Akal Takht (Sikh Political Authority) in 2003.
[edit]Assassination
The day before her death Indira Gandhi visited Orissa on 30 October 1984 where she gave her last speech:
"I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow. I shall continue to serve till my last breath and when I die every drop of my blood will strengthen India and keep a united India alive.
On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi's bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, shot her with their service weapons in the garden of the Prime Minister's residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi. The shooting occurred as she was walking past a wicket gate guarded by Satwant and Beant. She was to have been interviewed by the British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. Beant Singh shot her three times using his side-arm, and Satwant Singh fired 30 rounds. 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. Kehar Singh was later arrested for conspiracy in the attack. Both Satwant and Kehar were sentenced to death and hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail.
Indira Gandhi delivered her last speech at the then Parade Ground in front of the Secretariat of Orissa. After her death, the Parade Ground was converted to the Indira Gandhi Park which was inaugurated by her son, Rajiv Gandhi.
Indira Gandhi was brought at 9:30 AM to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated on her. She was declared dead at 2:20 PM. The post-mortem examination was conducted by a team of doctors headed by Dr. T D Dogra. Dr. Dogra stated that as many as 30 bullet wounds were sustained by Indira Gandhi, from two sources, a Sten g and a pistol. The assailants had fired 31 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body while 7 were trapped inside her. Dr. Dogra extracted bullets to establish the identity of the weapons and to correlate each weapon with the bullets recovered by ballistic examination. The bullets were matched with respective weapons at CFSL Delhi. Subsequently Dr. Dogra appeared in the court of Shri Mahesh Chandra as an expert witness (PW-5), and his testimony lasted several sessions. The cross examination was conducted by Shri P N Lekhi, the defence counsel.
Gandhi was cremated on 3 November near Raj Ghat. The site where she was cremated is today known as Shakti Sthala.
Family and personal life
Her funeral was televised live on domestic and international stations, including the BBC. Following her cremation, millions of Sikhs were displaced and nearly three thousand were killed in anti-Sikh riots. Rajiv Gandhi on a live TV show said of the carnage, "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes."
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Firstly, her younger son Sanjay had been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident in June 1980, his mother persuaded a reluctant elder son Rajiv Gandhi to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981. Over a decade later, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.
Gandhi's yoga guru, Dhirendra Brahmachari, helped her in making certain decisions and also executed certain top level political tasks on her behalf, especially from 1975 to 1977 when Gandhi "dissolved Parliament, declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties.
[edit]Legacy
Indira Gandhi is associated with fostering a culture of nepotism in Indian politics and in India's institutions.
The Indira Awaas Yojana, a central government low-cost housing programme for the rural poor, is named after her. The international airport at New Delhi is named Indira Gandhi International Airportin her honour. The Indira Gandhi National Open University, the largest university in the world, is also named after her. Indian National Congress established the annual Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 1985, given in her memory on her death anniversary. The Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust also constituted the annual Indira Gandhi Prize.