Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi इंदिरा गांधी
3rd Prime Minister of India
In office 14 January 1980 – 31 October 1984
President	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Zail Singh
Preceded by	Charan Singh
Succeeded by	Rajiv Gandhi
In office 24 January 1966 – 24 March 1977
President	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Zakir Hussain Varahagiri Venkata Giri (Acting) Mohammad Hidayatullah (Acting) Varahagiri Venkata Giri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Basappa Danappa Jatti (Acting)
Deputy	Morarji Desai
Preceded by	Gulzarilal Nanda (Acting)
Succeeded by	Morarji Desai
Minister of External Affairs
In office 9 March 1984 – 31 October 1984
Preceded by	Narasimha Rao
Succeeded by	Rajiv Gandhi
In office 22 August 1967 – 14 March 1969
Preceded by	Mahommedali Currim Chagla
Succeeded by	Dinesh Singh
Minister of Defence
In office 14 January 1980 – 15 January 1982
Preceded by	Chidambaram Subramaniam
Succeeded by	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
In office 30 November 1975 – 20 December 1975
Preceded by	Sardar Swaran Singh
Succeeded by	Bansi Lal
Minister of Home Affairs
In office 27 June 1970 – 4 February 1973
Preceded by	Yashwantrao Chavan
Succeeded by	Uma Shankar Dikshit
Minister of Finance
In office 16 July 1969 – 27 June 1970
Preceded by	Morarji Desai
Succeeded by	Yashwantrao Chavan
Personal details
Born	19 November 1917(1917-11-19) Allahabad, United Provinces, British India
Died	31 October 1984(1984-10-31) (aged 66) New Delhi, India
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Feroze Gandhi
Relations	Jawaharlal Nehru (father) Kamala Nehru (mother)
Children	Rajiv Sanjay
Alma mater	Somerville College, Oxford
Religion	Hinduism
Signature

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: इंदिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गांधी Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī  listen (help·info); 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician who served as prime minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). She was assassinated by Sikh extremists. Gandhi was the second female to hold the office of prime minister (after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka) and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2011.^[1]

Gandhi was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that had been begun by her father. Gandhi established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan. 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.

Early life and career

Indira Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917 into the politically influential Nehru Family. Indira Gandhi's father was Jawaharlal Nehru and her mother was Kamla Nehru. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence moveer of Independent India.

In 1934–35, after finishing school, Indira joined Shantiniketan,^[2] a school set up by Rabindranath Tagore. Subsequently, she went to England and sat for the University of Oxford entrance examination, but she failed,^[3] 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 Feroz Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. Indira married Feroz in 1942. Nehru eventually accepted the marriage. But, for political gains, Indira manipulated the spelling of Feroze's last name from "Ghandhy" to Hindu-sounding "Gandhi" ^[4]. She had no relation to Mohandas K. Gandhi, either by blood or marriage.

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.^[5]

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 killed on 31 October 1984 in retaliation for this operation by her bodyguards.

Legislative career

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'.^[6] 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.

War with Pakistan in 1971

Main article: Indo-Pakistan War of 1971

The Pakistan army conducted widespread atrocities against the civilian populations of East Pakistan.^[7][8] An estimated 10 million refugees fled to India, causing financial hardship and instability in the country. The United States under Richard Nixon supported Pakistan, and mooted a UN resolution warning India against going to war. Nixon apparently disliked Indira personally, referring to her as a "witch" and "clever fox" in his private communication with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (now released by the State Department).^[9] Indira signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, resulting in political support and a Soviet veto at the UN. India was victorious in the 1971 war, and Bangladesh was born.

Foreign policy

Gandhi invited the late Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit. After the near-failure of the talks, the two national leaders eventually signed the Shimla Agreement, which bound the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute by negotiations and peaceful means. Due to her antipathy for Nixon, relations with the United States grew distant, while relations with the Soviet Union grew closer.

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.

Nuclear weapons program

Gandhi contributed and further carried out the vision of Jawarharalal Nehru, former Premier of India, to develop the program. Gandhi gave authorization of developing nuclear weapons in 1967, in response to the Test No. 6 by People's Republic of China. Gandhi saw this test as Chinese nuclear intimidation, therefore, Gandhi promoted the views of Nehru to establish India's stability and security interests as independent from those of the nuclear superpowers.

The program became fully mature in 1974, when dr. Raja Ramanna reported to Gandhi that India has ability to test the first nuclear weapon. Gandhi gave verbal authorization of this test, and preparations were made in a long-constructed army base, the Indian Army Pokhran Test Range. In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as "Smiling Buddha", near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. As the world was quiet by this test, a vehement protest came forward from Pakistan. Great ire was raised in Pakistan, Pakistan's Prime minister Zulfi Ali Bhutto described this test as "Indian hegemony" to intimidate Pakistan. Gandhi directed a letter to Bhutto and, later to the world, describing the test as for peaceful purposes and India's commitment as to develop its programme for industrial and scientific use.

Green Revolution

Main article: Green Revolution

Special agricultural innovation programs and extra government support launched in the 1960s finally transformed India's chronic food shortages into surplus production of wheat, rice, cotton and milk, the success mainly attributed to the hard working majority Sikh farmers of Punjab. Rather than relying on food aid from the United States – headed by a President whom Gandhi disliked considerably (the feeling was mutual: to Nixon, Indira was "the old witch"),^[9] the country became a food exporter. That achievement, along with the diversification of its commercial crop production, has become known as the "Green Revolution". At the same time, the White Revolution was an expansion in milk production which helped to combat malnutrition, especially amidst young children. 'Food security', as the program was called, was another source of support for Gandhi in the years leading up to 1975.^[10]

Established in the early 1960s, the Green Revolution was the unofficial name given to the Intense Agricultural District Program (IADP) which sought to insure abundant, inexpensive grain for urban dwellers upon whose support Gandhi—as indeed all Indian politicians—heavily depended.^[11] The program was based on four premises: 1) New varieties of seed(s), 2) Acceptance of the necessity of the chemicalization of Indian agriculture, i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, weed killers, etc., 3) A commitment to national and international cooperative research to develop new and improved existing seed varieties, 4) The concept of developing a scientific, agricultural institutions in the form of land grant colleges.^[12]

1971 election victory and second term

Indira's government faced major problems after her tremendous mandate of 1971. The internal structure of the Congress Party had withered following its numerous splits, leaving it entirely dependent on her leadership for its election fortunes. Garibi Hatao (Eradicate Poverty) was the theme for Gandhi's 1971 bid. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. This would allow her to bypass the dominant rural castes both in and of state and local government; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight.

The programs created through Garibi Hatao, though carried out locally, were funded, developed, supervised, and staffed by New Delhi and the Indian National Congress party. "These programs also provided the central political leadership with new and vast patronage resources to be disbursed... throughout the country."^[13] Scholars and historians now agree as to the extent of the failure of Garibi Hatao in alleviating poverty – only about 4% of all funds allocated for economic development went to the three main anti-poverty programs, and precious few of these ever reached the 'poorest of the poor' – and the empty sloganeering of the program was mainly used instead to engender populist support for Gandhi's re-election.

Corruption charges and verdict of electoral malpractice

Gandhi meeting with Shah of Iran Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi and Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi during the latters' State visit to India in 1970.

On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of electoral malpractice. In an election petition filed by Raj Narain (who later on defeated her in 1977 parliamentary election from Rae Bareily), he had alleged several major as well as minor instances of using government resources for campaigning.^[14] The court thus ordered her to be removed from her seat in Parliament and banned from running in elections for six years. The Prime Minister must be a member of either the Lok Sabha (Lower house in the Parliament of India) or the Rajya Sabha (the Higher house of the Parliament). Thus, this decision effectively removed her from office. Mrs Gandhi had asked one of India's best legal minds and also one of her colleagues in government, Mr Ashoke Kumar Sen to defend her in court. It has been written that Mrs Gandhi was told she would only win if Mr Sen appeared for her^{[citation needed]}.

But Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. The verdict was delivered by Mr Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha at Allahabad High Court. It came almost four years after the case was brought by Raj Narain, the premier's defeated opponent in the 1971 parliamentary election. Gandhi, who gave evidence in her defence during the trial, was found guilty of dishonest election practices, excessive election expenditure, and of using government machinery and officials for party purposes.^[15] The judge rejected more serious charges of bribery against her.

Indira insisted the conviction did not undermine her position, despite having been unseated from the lower house of parliament, Lok Sabha, by order of the High Court. She said: "There is a lot of talk about our government not being clean, but from our experience the situation was very much worse when [opposition] parties were forming governments". And she dismissed criticism of the way her Congress Party raised election campaign money, saying all parties used the same methods. The prime minister retained the support of her party, which issued a statement backing her. After news of the verdict spread, hundreds of supporters demonstrated outside her house, pledging their loyalty. Indian High Commissioner BK Nehru said Gandhi's conviction would not harm her political career. "Mrs Gandhi has still today overwhelming support in the country," he said. "I believe the prime minister of India will continue in office until the electorate of India decides otherwise".

State of Emergency (1975–1977)

Main article: Indian Emergency (1975-1977)

Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency, because of the disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on 26 June 1975.

Rule by decree

Within a few months, President's Rule was imposed on the two opposition party ruled states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thereby bringing the entire country under direct Central rule or by governments led by the ruling Congress party.^[16] Police were granted powers to impose curfews and indefinitely detain citizens and all publications were subjected to substantial censorship by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Inder Kumar Gujral, a future prime minister himself, resigned as Minister for Information and Broadcasting to protest Sanjay Gandhi's interference in his work. Finally, impending legislative assembly elections were indefinitely postponed, with all opposition-controlled state governments being removed by virtue of the constitutional provision allowing for a dismissal of a state government on recommendation of the state's governor.

Indira Gandhi used the emergency provisions to grant herself extraordinary powers.

"Unlike her father Jawaharlal Nehru, who preferred to deal with strong chief ministers in control of their legislative parties and state party organizations, Mrs. Gandhi set out to remove every Congress chief minister who had an independent base and to replace each of them with ministers personally loyal to her...Even so, stability could not be maintained in the states..."^[17]

It is alleged that she further moved President Ahmed to issue ordinances that did not need to be debated in the Parliament, allowing her to rule by decree.

Simultaneously, Gandhi's government undertook a campaign to stamp out dissent including the arrest and detention of thousands of political activists; Sanjay was instrumental in initiating the clearing of slums around Delhi's Jama Masjid under the supervision of Jag Mohan, later Lt. Governor of Delhi, which allegedly left thousands of people homeless and hundreds killed, and led to communal embitterment in those parts of the nation's capital; and the family planning program which forcibly imposed vasectomy on thousands of fathers and was often poorly administered.

Elections

After extending the state of emergency twice, in 1977 Indira Gandhi called for elections, to give the electorate a chance to vindicate her rule. Gandhi may have grossly misjudged her popularity^{[citation needed]} by reading what the heavily censored press wrote about her. In any case, she was opposed by the Janata Party. Janata, led by her long-time rival, Desai and with Jai Prakash Narayan as its spiritual guide, claimed the elections were the last chance for India to choose between "democracy and dictatorship." Indira's Congress party was crushed soundly in the elections which followed. Indira and Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats, and Congress was cut down to 153 seats (compared with 350 in the previous Lok Sabha), 92 of which were in the south.

Removal, arrest, and return

Mrs. Gandhi with Mrs. Nandini Satpathy a very close friend & CM of Orissa year 1974

Mrs. Gandhi with M.G. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In the post-emergency elections in 1977, only the Southern states returned Congress majorities.

1984 USSR commemorative stamp

The downfall of Indira Gandhi began after India won the war against Pakistan in 1971. The Allahabad High Court found Indira Gandhi guilty with electoral corruption for the 1971 elections. In 1975, Indira Gandhi called a State of Emergency under Article 352 in which she ordered the arrest of her opposition, who later joined together and formed the Janata Party In 1977, Indira Gandhi and her party, Indian National Congress, lost the election to the Janata Party, a coalition of virtually all of Indira opponents. After the elections, Gandhi found herself without work, income or residence. The Congress Party split during the election campaign of 1977: veteran Gandhi supporters like Jagjivan Ram and her most loyal Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy ,the three were compelled to part ways and form a new political entity CFD (Congress for Democracy) primarily due to intra party politicking and also due to circumstances created by Sanjay Gandhi.The prevailing rumour was that Sanjay had intentions of dislodging Indira and the trio stood between that.

Once the Janata Party came into power, they aimed to return all Indian citizens the freedoms taken away when Indira Gandhi declared the State of Emergency. The leader of the Janata Party was Jayaprakash Narayan who kept the party united. The other party leaders of the Janata Party were Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Raj Narain and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Unable to govern owing to fractious coalition warfare, the Janata government's Home Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, ordered the arrest of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi on several charges, none of which would be easy to prove in an Indian court. The arrest meant that Indira was automatically expelled from Parliament. These allegations included that Indira Gandhi “‘had planned or thought of killing all opposition leaders in jail during the Emergency’”.^[18] However, this strategy backfired disastrously. Her arrest and long-running trial, however, gained her great sympathy from many people who had feared her as a tyrant just two years earlier.The Janata coalition was only united by its hatred of Indira (or "that woman" as some called her). With so little in common, the government was bogged down by infighting and Gandhi was able to use the situation to her advantage. She began giving speeches again, tacitly apologizing for "mistakes" made during the Emergency. Jayaprakash Narayan died on 8 October 1979, which broke the unity of the Janata Party and Desai took his place. Desai resigned in June 1979, and Charan Singh was appointed Prime Minister by Reddy after Gandhi promised that Congress would support his government from outside.

After a short interval, she withdrew her initial support and President Reddy dissolved Parliament in the winter of 1979. In elections held the following January, Congress was returned to power with a landslide majority.

Currency crisis

During the early 1980s, Indira failed to arrest the 40 percent fall in the value of the Indian Rupee from 7 to 12 against the US Dollar. However, it is argued that the Reserve Bank of India had decided to devalue to rupee to make Indian exports more competitive.^{[citation needed]}

Operation Blue Star and her death

Indira Gandhi's blood-stained sari and her belongings at the time of her death, preserved at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi.

Main articles: Operation Blue Star, 1984 anti-Sikh riots, and Death of Indira Gandhi

In July 1982, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the head of the Sikh religious institution the Damdami Taksal based in the northern Indian state of Punjab, led a campaign for the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution for greater rights to the Sikhs. In response to this, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian army to shoot Bhindrawale. The State of Punjab was closed to international media, its phone and communication lines shut. To this day the events remain controversial with a disputed number of victims; Sikhs seeing the attack as unjustified and Bhindrawale being declared the greatest sikh martyr of the 21st century by Akal Takht (Sikh Political Authority) in 2003.

On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, shot her with their service weapons in the garden of the Prime Minister's residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi as she was walking past a wicket gate guarded by Satwant and Beant. She was to be interviewed by the British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. According to information immediately following the incident, Beant Singh shot her three times using his side-arm, and Satwant Singh fired 30 rounds.^[19] Beant Singh and Satwant Singh dropped their weapons and surrendered. Afterwards they were taken away by other guards into a closed room where Beant Singh was shot dead. Kehar Singh was later arrested for conspiracy in the attack. Both Satwant and Kehar were sentenced to death and hanged in Tihar jail in Delhi.

Mrs Indira Gandhi was brought at 9.30 AM to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated on her.She was declared dead at 2.20PM. The postmortem examination was conducted by team of Doctors headed by Dr T D Dogra. He stated that as many as 30 bullets were sustained by Mrs Indira Gandhi, from two sources, a SLR and a Pistol.The assailants had fired 31 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body while seven were trapped inside.Dr T D Dogra extricated bullets to establish the identity of the weapons and to correlate each weapon with the bullets recovered by ballistic examination. The bullets were matched with respective weapons at CFSL Delhi. Subsequently Dr T D Dogra appeared in the court of Shri Mahesh Chandra as an expert witness (PW-5), the testimony lasted several sessions. The cross examination was conducted by Shri P N Lekhi, the defense counsel.^[20] She was cremated on 3 November near Raj Ghat. Her funeral was televised live on domestic and international stations including the BBC. Following her funeral thousands of Sikhs were burnt alive (govt. estimates`5000) and millions rendered homeless. On a live TV show Rajiv Gandhi said about the carnage that 'when a big tree falls the earth shakes' with the tree being a reference to Indira.

Family and personal life

Initially, her younger son Sanjay had been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident in June 1980, his mother persuaded a reluctant elder son Rajiv Gandhi to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981. Over a decade later, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.

Indira was known for her closeness with her personal yoga guru, Dhirendra Brahmachari, who not only helped her in making certain decisions but also executed certain top level political tasks on her behalf, especially from 1975 to 1977 when Gandhi "dissolved Parliament, declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties."^[21][22]

Legacy

The Indira Awaas Yojana, a central government low-cost housing programme for the rural poor, is named after her. The international airport at New Delhi is named Indira Gandhi International Airport in her honour.

A negative legacy Mrs. Gandhi will be associated with is that of fostering a culture of nepotism.^[23][24]

See also

• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Rajiv Gandhi
• Sanjay Gandhi
• List of assassinated Indian politicians
• List of Prime Ministers of India
• Nehru-Gandhi Family
• Operation Blue Star
• The State of Emergency in India 1975–77

References

1. ^ "Oxford University's famous south Asian graduates#Indira Gandhi". BBC News. 5 May 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/oxford/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8661000/8661776.stm. 
2. ^ Gandhi, Indira Priyadarshini(nee Nehru). S9.com (1942-03-26). Retrieved on 18 June 2011.
3. ^ Katherine Frank, p.116: Indira got her results and learned that she had failed, with a particularly bad performance in Latin.
4. ^ (Youtube) Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, interview in 1992
5. ^ Gandhi, Indira. (1982) My Truth
6. ^ Katherine Frank, p. 303. Also lists other put-downs commonly used to describe the forty-year-old Indira Gandhi, both in the press and by her Congress colleagues. Lyndon Johnson referred to her as 'this girl'.
7. ^ U.S. Consulate (Dacco) Cable, Sitrep: Army Terror Campaign Continues in Dacca; Evidence Military Faces Some Difficulties Elsewhere, March 13, 1971, Confidential
8. ^ East Pakistan: Even the Skies Weep, Time Magazine, 25 October 1971.
9. ^ ^{a b} Nixon's dislike of 'witch' Indira, BBC News, 29 June 2005. BBC News (2005-06-29). Retrieved on 18 June 2011.
10. ^ "India's Green Revolution". Indiaonestop.com. http://indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm. Retrieved 31 October 2008. 
11. ^ Katherine Frank, p. 295
12. ^ Farmer, B.H., Perspectives on the 'Green Revolution' Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 20 No.1 (February, 1986) p. 177
13. ^ Rath, Nilakantha (1985). "'Garibi Hatao': Can IRDP Do It?". Economic and Political Weekly 20 (6): 238–246. JSTOR 4374060. 
14. ^ Katherine Frank, p. 372
15. ^ "1975: Gandhi found guilty of corruption". BBC News. 12 June 1975. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/12/newsid_2511000/2511691.stm. 
16. ^ Kochanek, Stanely, Mrs. Gandhi's Pyramid: The New Congress, (Westview Press, Boulder, CO 1976) p. 98
17. ^ Brass, Paul R., The Politics of India Since Independence, (Cambridge University Press, England 1995) p. 40
18. ^ Malhotra, Inder. Indira Gandhi. New York: Coronet Books, 1991.
19. ^ html^{[dead link]}
20. ^ Dr. T D Dogra’s Expert Evidence in trial of assassination of Late Mrs Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (Witness No. PW 5) Raina Anupuma, Lalwani Sanjeev, Dogra TD, Dept. of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, AIIMS, N. Delhi. Indian Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology,Year : 2009, Volume : 7, Issue : 4
21. ^ Dhirendra Brahmachari, Yoga Master, 7, NY times, 10 June 1994
22. ^ Mrs G's String of Beaus, Outlook India, 26 March 2001
23. ^ Adina Campu (2009). "History as a marker of otherness in Rohinton Mistry's "A fine balance"". Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov. Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies 2 (51): 47. http://but.unitbv.ro/BU2009/BULETIN2009/Series%20IV/BULETIN%20IV%20PDF/08_Campu_A.pdf. 
24. ^ Vijay Sanghvi (1 January 2006). The Congress, Indira to Sonia Gandhi. Gyan Publishing House. pp. 24–. ISBN 9788178353401. http://books.google.com/books?id=npdqD_TXucQC&pg=PA24. Retrieved 18 June 2011. 

Further reading

• Ved Mehta, A Family Affair: India Under Three Prime Ministers (1982) ISBN 0-19-503118-0
• Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (1992) ISBN 9780679424796
• Katherine Frank, Indira: the life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (2002) ISBN 0-395-73097-X
• Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (2007) ISBN 978-0-06-019881-7
• Inder Malhotra, Indira Gandhi: A personal and political biography (1991) ISBN 0-340-53548-2
• Indira Gandhi - Iron Lady of India by Dr Sulakshi Thelikorala

External links

• Indira Gandhi at the Open Directory Project
• Rare pictures of Indira Gandhi

Party political offices
Preceded by Uchharangrai Navalshankar Dhebar	President of the Indian National Congress 1959	Succeeded by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Preceded by Dev Kant Baruah	President of the Indian National Congress 1978–1984	Succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi
Political offices
Preceded by Gulzarilal Nanda Acting	Prime Minister of India 1966–1977	Succeeded by Morarji Desai
	Chairperson of the Planning Commission 1966–1977
Preceded by Mahommedali Currim Chagla	Minister of External Affairs 1967–1969	Succeeded by Dinesh Singh
Preceded by Morarji Desai	Minister of Finance 1969–1970	Succeeded by Yashwantrao Chavan
	Minister of Home Affairs 1970–1973
Preceded by Sardar Swaran Singh	Minister of Defence 1975	Succeeded by Bansi Lal
Preceded by Charan Singh	Prime Minister of India 1980–1984	Succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi
	Chairperson of the Planning Commission 1980–1984
Preceded by Chidambaram Subramaniam	Minister of Defence 1980–1982	Succeeded by Ramaswamy Venkataraman
Preceded by Narasimha Rao	Minister of External Affairs 1984	Succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi

Persondata
Name	Gāndhī, Indira Priyadarśinī
Alternative names	इन्दिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गान्धी (Devanāgarī)
Short description	Prime Minister of India
Date of birth	19 November 1917(1917-11-19)
Place of birth	Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Date of death	31 October 1984(1984-10-31)
Place of death	New Delhi, India