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INIDRAGANDHI

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE

Indira PriyadarshiniGandhi 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.

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LIFE AND CAREER

Indira Gandhi was born into the politically influential

Nehru Family. Her father wasJawaharlal Nehru

andher 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 MotilalNehru, 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 theIndian 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 RajyaSabha (upper house) and became a

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member of LalBahadurShastri's cabinet as Minister of

Information and Broadcasting.[5]

The then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was

instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the PrimeMinister 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.

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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.

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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 fewyears prior to the death of Feroze Gandhi in September

1960.

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PRESIDENT OF INDIAN NATIONAL

CONGRESS

During 1959 and 1960, Gandhi ran for and was electedas 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 1962elections.

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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.

RammanoharLohia called her GungiGudiya 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 LokSabha. 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.

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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 thenear 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.

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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.

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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

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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 Gandhi²as indeed all Indian

politicians²heavily 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 theform 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.

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CORRUPTION CHARGES & VERDICT OF

ELECTORAL MALPRACTICE

Gandhi meeting with Shah of IranMohammad-Reza Pahlavi and QueenFarah Pahlavi

On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared

Indira Gandhi's election to the LokSabha 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]

Thecourt 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 LokSabha (lower house in the Parliament of India)

or the RajyaSabha (the upper house of the Parliament).

Thus, this decision effectively removed her from office.

Mrs Gandhi had asked one of India's best legal mindsand 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.

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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 byRaj 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, LokSabha, 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 dismissedcriticism 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 saidGandhi'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

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Indi ill ntinue in off i e until t e electorate of India

decides ot erwise"

OPERATION BL E TAR &

A A INATION

Indira Gandhi's blood-s

ained saree and her belongings at the time of her assassination, preserved at

the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in Ne¡

Delhi.

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

In June 1984, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale's Si h groupoccupied the Golden Temple.[25] In response, on 6 June

1984, dur ing one of the holiest Si h holidays, enacting

Operation Blue Star, the Indian army opened f ire,

k illing a disputed number of Sikh militants along with

suppor ters of Bhindranwale. The State of Pun jab was

closed to international media, Sikh devotees, human

r ights organi ations, and other groups dur ing the per iod.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 Pr ime

Minister's residence at 1 Safdar jung R oad, New Delhi

as she was walk ing past a wicket gate guarded by

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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, BeantSingh 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 SatwantSingh 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, theAll India

Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated

on her. Official accounts at the time stated as many as19 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.

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