The third Prime Minister of Independent India and the first and the only Lady Prime Minister of the nation, Indira Gandhi was born on 19th November 1917 in Allahabad to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and Kamla Nehru. She was the only child of her parents and was called Priyadarshini by her father. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru and grandfather Motilal Nehru were at the forefront of Indian freedom struggle. Her mother Kamla Nehru, although less involved politically, was subject to political arrest by the British. Indira Gandhi had a lonely childhood, with some of her most vivid remembrances being the entry into her home of British police officers. Since her parents did not want to send her to any of the British schools in India, Indira Gandhi received her education at different schools in India as well as with a quite a few private tutors interspersed between periods at school. She had spent a part of her childhood in Allahabad, where the Nehru family had their family residence, and a part in Switzerland, where her mother Kamla convalesced from her periodic illnesses. She received her college education at Somerville College, Oxford. Although she was not actively involved in the freedom struggle, she came to know the entire Indian political leadership from her father. After India attained independence, and the ascendancy of Jawaharlal Nehru, now a widower, to the office of the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi managed the official residence of her father, and accompanied him on several of his foreign trips. She was married in 1942 to Feroze Gandhi, who rose to some eminence as a parliamentarian and politician of integrity but found himself disliked by his more famous father-in-law. He died in 1960 before he could consolidate his own political forces. In the year 1964, Indira Gandhi was for the first time elected to Parliament, and she was Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the government of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack less than two years after assuming office. The numerous contenders for the chair of Prime Minister, unable to agree among them, picked Indira Gandhi as a compromise candidate, and each thought that she would be easily manipulable. However, she showed extraordinary political skills and tenacity. She held the office of the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977. She was riding the crest of popularity after India's triumph in the war of 1971 against Pakistan, and the explosion of a nuclear device in 1974 helped to improve her reputation among the middle-class Indians as a tough and shrewd political leader. However, by 1973, Delhi and north India was rocked by demonstrations of anger at high inflation, the poor state of the economy, rampant corruption, and the poor standards of living. In June 1975, the High Court of Allahabad found her guilty of using illegal practices during the last election campaign, and ordered her to vacate her seat. There were demands for her resignation. Mrs. Gandhi's response was to declare a state of emergency, under which her political foes were imprisoned, constitutional rights abrogated, and the press placed under strict censorship. Meanwhile, the younger of her two sons, Sanjay Gandhi, started to run the country as though it were his personal fiefdom, and earned the fierce hatred of many whom his policies had victimized. He ordered the removal of slum dwellings, and in an attempt to curb India's growing population, initiated a highly resented program of forced sterilization. In early 1977, confident that she had debilitated her opposition, Mrs. Gandhi called for fresh elections, and found herself trounced by a newly formed coalition of several political parties. Her Congress party lost badly at the polls. Many declared that she was a spent force; but, three years later, she was to return as Prime Minister of India. The same year, however, her son Sanjay was killed in an airplane crash. In the second, post-Emergency, period of her Prime Ministership, She was preoccupied by efforts to resolve the political problems in the state of Punjab. In her attempt to crush the secessionist movement of Sikh militants, led by Jarnail Singh Bindranwale, she ordered an assault upon the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar, called the "Golden Temple.” It is here that Bindranwale and his armed supporters had holed up, and it is from the Golden Temple that they waged their campaign of terrorism not merely against the Government, but against moderate Sikhs and Hindus. "Operation Bluestar", waged in June 1984, led to the death of Bindranwale, and the Golden Temple was stripped clean of Sikh terrorists; however, the Golden Temple was damaged, and Mrs. Gandhi earned the undying hatred of Sikhs who bitterly resented the desacralization of their sacred space. In November of the same year, two of her own Sikh bodyguards, who claimed to be avenging the insult heaped upon the Sikh nation, assassinated Mrs. Gandhi, at her residence. Mrs. Gandhi acquired a formidable international reputation as a "statesman", and there is no doubt that she was extraordinarily skilled in politics. She was prone, like many other politicians, to thrive on slogans, and one -- Garibi Hatao, "Remove Poverty" -- became the rallying cry for one of her election campaigns. She had an authoritarian streak, and though a cultured woman, rarely tolerated dissent; and she did, in many respects, irreparable harm to Indian democracy. Apart from her infamous imposition of the internal emergency, the use of the army to resolve internal disputes greatly increased in her time; and she encouraged a culture of sycophancy and nepotism. Birth: 19th November 1917 Assassination: October 31, 1984
