India’s first women prime minister Indira Gandhi | Biography, Social Work, Political Activities and Early life and career

Biography, Social Work, Political Activities –

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (19 November 1917 — 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She was India's first and, to date, only female prime minister, and a central figure in Indian politics as the leader of the Indian National Congress (INC). She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, and the mother of Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded her as prime minister. Gandhi's cumulative tenure of 15 years and 350 days makes her the second- longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father. Henry Kissinger described her as an "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her tough personality.

During her father Jawaharlal Nehru's premiership from 1947 to 1964, Gandhi was his hostess and accompanied him on his numerous foreign trips. In 1959, she played a part in the dissolution of the communist-led Kerala state government as then-president of the Indian National Congress, otherwise a ceremonial position to which she was elected earlier that year. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who had succeeded Nehru as prime minister upon his death in 1964, appointed her minister of information and broadcasting in his government; the same year she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. After Shastri's sudden death in January 1966, Gandhi defeated her rival, Morarji Desai, in the INC's parliamentary leadership election to become leader and also succeeded Shastri as prime minister. She was the world's second female prime minister after Sirimavo Bandaranaike when she became Prime Minister of India. She led the Congress to victory in two subsequent elections, starting with the 1967 general election, in which she was first elected to the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha. In 1971, her party secured its first landslide victory since her father's sweep in 1962, focusing on issues such as poverty. But following the nationwide state of emergency she implemented, she faced massive anti-incumbency sentiment causing the INC to lose the 1977 election, the first time in the history of India to happen so. She even lost her own parliamentary constituency. However, due to her portrayal as a strong leader and the weak governance of the Janata Party, her party won the next election by a landslide and she returned to the premiership.

As prime minister, Gandhi was known for her uncompromising political stances and centralization of power within the executive branch. In 1967, she headed a military conflict with China in which India repelled Chinese incursions into the Himalayas. In 1971, she went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the independence of Bangladesh, as well as increasing India's influence to the point where it became the sole regional power In South Asia. Another military operation against Pakistan, codenamed Operation Meghdoot, occurred during her tenure in 1984, which led to India expanding the territory it effectively controlled in the disputed Kashmir region.

Gandhi also played a crucial role in initiating India's first successful nuclear weapon test in 1974. Her rule saw India grow closer to the Soviet Union by signing a friendship treaty in 1971 to ward off perceived geopolitical threat as a result of the U.S. warming up to China. India received military, financial, and diplomatic support from the Soviet Union during its conflict with Pakistan in the same year. Though India was at the forefront of the Non-Aligned Movement, Gandhi made it one of the Soviet Union's closest allies in Asia, each often supporting the other in proxy wars and at the United Nations.

Responding to separatist tendencies and a call for revolution, she instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977, during which she ruled by decree and basic civil liberties were suspended. More than 100,000 political opponents, journalists and dissenters were imprisoned. She faced the growing Sikh separatism movement throughout her fourth premiership; in response, she ordered Operation Blue Star, which involved military action in the Golden Temple and killed hundreds of Sikhs. On 31 October 1984, she was assassinated by two of her bodyguards, both of whom were Sikh nationalists seeking retribution for the events at the temple.

Gandhi is remembered as the most powerful woman in the world during her tenure. Her supporters cite her leadership during victories over geopolitical rivals China and Pakistan, the Green Revolution, a growing economy in the early 1980s, and her anti-poverty campaign that led her to be known as "Mother Indira" (a pun on Mother India) among the country's poor and rural classes. Critics note her cult of personality and authoritarian rule of India during the Emergency. In 1999, she was named "Woman of the Millennium" in an online poll organized by the BBC. In 2020, she was named by Time magazine among the 100 women who defined the past century as counterparts to the magazine's previous choices for Man of the Year.

Early life and career –

Indira Gandhi was born Indira Nehru, into a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad (present-day Prayagraj) in Uttar Pradesh. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a leading figure in the Indian movement for independence from British rule, and became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion (and later Republic) of India. Indira was her parents' only surviving child (she had a younger brother who died while young); she grew up with her mother, Kamala Nehru, at the Anand Bhavan, a large family estate in Allahabad. In 1930, the Nehru family donated the mansion to the Indian National Congress and renamed it Swaraj Bhavan (meaning abode of freedom). A new mansion was built nearby to serve as the family residence and given the name of the old Anand Bhavan. Indira had a lonely and unhappy childhood. Her father was often away, directing political activities or incarcerated, while her mother was frequently bedridden with illness and later suffered an early death from tuberculosis. Indira had limited contact with her father, mostly through letters.

Indira Nehru was taught mostly at home by tutors and attended school intermittently until matriculation in 1934. She was a student at the Modern School in Delhi, St. Cecilia's and St. Mary's Convent schools in Allahabad, the International School of Geneva in Geneva, the Ecole Nouvelle in Bex in Vaud, Switzerland, and the Pupils' Own School in Poona in Maharashtra and in Bombay, which is affiliated with the University of Mumbai. She and her mother moved to the Belur Math headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission where Swami Ranganathananda was her guardian. Indira then studied at the Vishwa Bharati in Santiniketan, which became Visva-Bharati University in 1951. During an interview with Rabindranath Tagore, he named Indira Priyadarshini, which means "looking at everything with kindness" in Sanskrit and she became known as Indira Priyadarshini Nehru. A year later, however, she had to leave university to attend to her ailing mother in Lausanne, Switzerland. There it was decided that Indira would continue her education at the University of Oxford. After her mother died, Indira attended the Badminton School in Bristol, England for a short time period and then enrolled at Somerville College in Oxford in 1937 to study history. She had to take the entrance examination twice, having failed at her first attempt with a poor performance in Latin. At Oxford, she excelled in history, political science, and economics but her grades in Latin—a compulsory subject—remained poor. However she was active socially at the university and was a member of the Oxford Majlis Asian Society.

During her time in Europe, Indira Nehru was plagued with ill health and was constantly attended to by doctors. She had to make repeated trips to Switzerland to recover, disrupting her studies. She was there in 1940, when Germany 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. The university later awarded her an honorary degree. In 2010, Oxford honoured her further by selecting her as one of the ten Oxasians, illustrious Asian graduates from the University of Oxford. During her stay in Britain, Nehru frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi). They were married in Allahabad according to Adi Dharm rituals, although Feroze belonged to a Zoroastrian Parsi family of Gujarat. The couple had two sons, Rajiv Gandhi (born 1944) and Sanjay Gandhi (born 1946).

In September 1942, Indira Gandhi was arrested over her role in the Quit India Movement. She was released from jail in April 1943. “Mud entered our souls in the drabness of prison," she later recalled her time in the jail. She added, "When I came out, it was such a shock to see colors again I thought I would go out of my mind.”

In the 1950s, Indira, now Indira Gandhi after her marriage, unofficially served her father as a personal assistant during his tenure as the first prime minister of India. Near the end of the 1950s, Gandhi served as the president of the Congress. In that capacity, she was instrumental in having the communist-led Kerala state government dismissed in 1959. That government was India's first elected communist government. After her father's death in 1964 she was appointed a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and served in Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. In January 1966, after Shastri's death, the Congress legislative party elected her over Morarji Desai as their leader. Congress party veteran K. Kamaraj was instrumental in Gandhi achieving victory. Because she was a woman, other political leaders in India saw Gandhi as weak and hoped to use her as a puppet once elected: Congress President Kamaraj orchestrated Mrs. Gandhi's selection as prime minister because he perceived her to be weak enough that he and the other regional party bosses could control her, and yet strong enough to beat Desai [her political opponent] in a party election because of the high regard for her father... a woman would be an ideal tool for the Syndicate.