Name | Indira Gandhiइंदिरा गांधी |
---|---|
Office | 3rd Prime Minister of India |
President | Neelam Sanjiva ReddyZail Singh |
Term start | 14 January 1980 |
Term end | 31 October 1984 |
Predecessor | Charan Singh |
Successor | Rajiv Gandhi |
President2 | Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanZakir HussainVarahagiri Venkata Giri (Acting)Mohammad Hidayatullah (Acting)Varahagiri Venkata GiriFakhruddin Ali AhmedBasappa Danappa Jatti (Acting) |
Deputy2 | Morarji Desai |
Term start2 | 24 January 1966 |
Term end2 | 24 March 1977 |
Predecessor2 | Gulzarilal Nanda (Acting) |
Successor2 | Morarji Desai |
Office3 | Minister of External Affairs |
Term start3 | 9 March 1984 |
Term end3 | 31 October 1984 |
Predecessor3 | Narasimha Rao |
Successor3 | Rajiv Gandhi |
Term start4 | 22 August 1967 |
Term end4 | 14 March 1969 |
Predecessor4 | Mahommedali Currim Chagla |
Successor4 | Dinesh Singh |
Office5 | Minister of Defence |
Term start5 | 14 January 1980 |
Term end5 | 15 January 1982 |
Predecessor5 | Chidambaram Subramaniam |
Successor5 | Ramaswamy Venkataraman |
Term start6 | 30 November 1975 |
Term end6 | 20 December 1975 |
Predecessor6 | Sardar Swaran Singh |
Successor6 | Bansi Lal |
Office7 | Minister of Home Affairs |
Term start7 | 27 June 1970 |
Term end7 | 4 February 1973 |
Predecessor7 | Yashwantrao Chavan |
Successor7 | Uma Shankar Dikshit |
Office8 | Minister of Finance |
Term start8 | 16 July 1969 |
Term end8 | 27 June 1970 |
Predecessor8 | Morarji Desai |
Successor8 | Yashwantrao Chavan |
Birth date | November 19, 1917 |
Birth place | Allahabad, British India |
Death date | October 31, 1984 |
Death place | New Delhi, India |
Party | Indian National Congress |
Spouse | Feroze Gandhi |
Relations | Jawaharlal Nehru (father) Kamala Nehru (mother) |
Children | RajivSanjay |
Alma mater | Somerville College, Oxford |
Religion | Hinduism |
Signature | Indira Gandhi Signature-.svg |
Noted for her charismatic authority and political astuteness, Gandhi adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that were begun by her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office.
In 1934–35, after finishing school, Indira joined Shantiniketan, 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, and spent a few months at Badminton School in Bristol, before passing the exam in 1937 and enrolling at Somerville College, Oxford. During this time, she frequently met Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. She married him in 1942.
She returned to India in 1941. 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 Rajya Sabha (upper house) and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.
The then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister after the sudden demise of Shastri. Gandhi soon showed an ability to win elections and outmaneuver 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 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 Sikh Gurdwara, to remove armed insurgents present inside the temple. She was assassinated on 31 October 1984 in retaliation for this operation by her bodyguards.
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. Rammanohar Lohia called her Gungi Gudiya which means 'Dumb Doll'. 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 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.
She was criticized 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 stabilize and normalize. Trade relations were also normalized, though much contact remained frozen (sealed) for years.
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