Indira Gandhi (1917 - 1984) was an Indian politician who served as Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. [1] The only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, she remains the country's only female head of government. [2] Her tenure encompassed the Green Revolution, the war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, India's first nuclear test, and the twenty-one-month Emergency in which civil liberties were suspended. [3]
Early life and education
Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was born on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad, now Prayagraj, into a family at the centre of the Indian independence movement. [1] She was educated in India, Switzerland and England, attending Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, where Rabindranath Tagore taught, the Badminton School in Bristol, and Somerville College, Oxford, which she left without completing a degree. [1]
Entry into politics
After independence in 1947 she acted as her father's hostess, confidante and travelling companion, gaining close exposure to government without holding office. [2] Following Nehru's death in 1964, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri appointed her Minister of Information and Broadcasting.
Shastri's sudden death in January 1966 led Congress leaders to select her as a compromise successor, and she was sworn in as prime minister on 24 January 1966. [1]
First premiership
She moved quickly to establish independent authority, splitting the Congress party in 1969 and building a direct populist appeal around the slogan Garibi Hatao ("abolish poverty"). [3] Agricultural policy supported the Green Revolution, which sharply increased grain output and moved India toward food self-sufficiency. [2] In 1971 India intervened in the crisis in East Pakistan; the resulting war ended in a decisive Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh, bringing her enormous domestic popularity. India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974.
The Emergency
In June 1975 the Allahabad High Court found her guilty of electoral malpractice in her 1971 campaign and barred her from office. [1] Rather than resign, she advised the president to declare a state of emergency, which was proclaimed on 25 June 1975.
During the twenty-one months that followed, opposition leaders were imprisoned, the press was censored, elections were postponed and constitutional amendments expanded executive power. [3] She called elections in 1977 and was heavily defeated by the Janata coalition, losing her own seat; the Emergency is generally regarded as the gravest interruption of democratic government in independent India's history.
Return to office and assassination
The Janata government collapsed within three years, and Congress under her leadership won the 1980 general election, returning her to office in January 1980. [2] Her second term was dominated by separatist militancy in Punjab.
In June 1984 she ordered Operation Blue Star, the army assault on the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar to remove armed militants; the operation killed many people and deeply offended Sikhs worldwide. [1] On 31 October 1984 she was shot dead in the garden of her New Delhi residence by two of her own Sikh bodyguards. Her killing was followed by organised anti-Sikh massacres in Delhi and other cities in which thousands died.
Legacy
Indira Gandhi received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 1971, along with the Lenin Peace Prize and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding. [1] Assessments of her remain sharply divided: she is credited with strengthening India's strategic position, food security and standing among non-aligned states, and criticised for centralising power, weakening party institutions and suspending democratic rule. [3]
