Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi (Priya Darshini) 1917- political leader and Prime Minister, 1966-67. Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamla Nehru, she was born at Allahabad on 19 November 1917. She was educated at Visva Bharati University, and at Oxford, and became involved in political life almost from childhood. In 1942, she married Feroze Gandhi (d. 1960) a young Congress leader. She and her husband both were arrested soon after their marriage and sentenced to 13 months imprisonment. She became a member of the Congress Working Committee in 1955 and was elected President in 1959. After the death of her father, she became a member of the Cabinet of Lal Bhadur Shastri as information minister. On the sudden death of Shastri (January 1966) she was made the Prime Minister. Her leadership was under attack from the Congress right wing, and though in the election of 1967 she failed to win an absolute majority, she and her party literally swept the polls in 1971. After India’s victory over Pakistan which lead to the creation of Bangla Desh, Indira Gandhi again had a landslide victory. She pursued several radical politics, including nationalization of banks, and the stoppage of the privy purse of the maharajas, and closer relations with socialist countries. However, opposition continued to develop against her policies. On 12 June 1975, the Allahabad High Court set aside her election on technical grounds, but she responded by proclaiming emergency on 27 June 1975, drastically changed the Constitution, suppressed individual freedom and the freedom of the press, and adopted draconic measures for family planning and control of smuggling, and put most of the opposition leaders behind the bars. However, in March 1977, she lost the election (21 March 1977) and her party was completely routed at the polls in most of the states of northern India. She resigned from the prime minister ship soon after.
She has two children, Rajiv and Sanjay. Sanjay Gandhi made himself particularly distasteful by his overbearing attitude during the emergency, and he also lost the election. She was arrested on 3 October 1977 by the new government, though released the next day.
For many years before becoming the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, had been the official hostess of her father, and had accompanied him on all his foreign tours, and had well studied the international political situation. Letters written to her by her father from jail have been published.
