Indira Gandhfemalei

A detailed Summary of Indira Gandhfemalei

Indira Priyadarshini was born on November 19, 1917, she was the only child of Jawaharal Nehru and his wife Kamala in the city of Allahabad in Northern India. The second part of her name Priyadarshini, means"dear to behold." In the Indian tradition, theirs was a joint family, headed by Indira's grandfather, Motilal Nehru, a man with a powerful personality and an enormous passion for life. Allahabad was an upper class town, and Motilal, a self-made man, was one of the most successful barristers in his time. With success came wealth, and the Nehru family lived in a sprawling whitewashed villa, surrounded by lawns, tennis courts, and a swimming pool, and attended by numerous servants. Being the only child in this huge household, Indira was pampered and was the center of her grandfather's attention. Then, when Indira was barely three, the Indian freedom movement entered the Nehru house, changing Indira's life and the course of Indian history (Currimbhoy 25-26).

Jawaharal Nehru had come into contact with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who became the leader of India's freedom struggle. Both Jawaharal and Motilal were drawn to Gandhi. They believed in Gandhi's nonviolent noncooperation. The family also supported Gandhi's policy o

When Indira's father died of a stroke on May 28, 1964, Indira was never seriously considered as India's next prime minister. According to Indian constitution, the prime minister is to be elected by the majority party. In the last years of her father's rule, state chief ministers, as well as party bosses, were becoming increasingly powerful within the Congress party, and jockeying for the position of prime minister had already begun(Jayakar 114).

As in 1971, the entire election centered around Indira Gandhi. The opposition promised a relief from her administration, and her own party had only one performer-herself. Indira did her best. Although suffering from facial herpes-a painful inflammation of nerve endings-she stuck to a rigorous campaign schedule. But this time her rallies were poorly attended, and her audiences often hostile. She pointed in vain to economic gains made during the emergency,

Outwardly, the emergency rule had improved conditions in the country. Fear of strong retaliations had resulted in stricter discipline, and higher production in India's large, bureaucratic public sector. Strikes had been outlawed, and the economy seemed to be functioning smoothly. A large loan from the International Monetary Fund, had stabilized prices of essential goods. Indira was convinced that she would win, and her intelligence reports confirmed her opinions(Malhotra 147).

Gradually Indira became sort of a "first lady". She accompanied her father almost everywhere. At mass meetings she sat quietly behind him, and sometimes, when Nehru couldn't attend, she spoke for him(Currimbhoy 79).

It was to her misfortune, however, that she took on the job at the worst time in India's post independence history. The monsoon had failed for two consecutive years, threatening million with starvation, adding yet another burden to an economy already depleted by two successive wars(Jayakar 136).

The last years of her life, however, were among the stormiest in her checkered career, and in history of the country that she ruled. Barely six months after Indira's victory, her son Sanjay, now a member of Parliament-was killed attempting a daredevil stunt in a small plane above New Delhi. The death of her son devastated Indira(Sahgal 168).

On the day of her death, Indira Gandhi's dearest wish was fufilled-her son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded as her prime minister of India, continuing for the third generation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty(Currimbhoy 6).

It is often said that Indira chose to be with her father because she wished to be near the seat of power. It seems clear, however, that although she probably became politically ambitious in the final years of her father's life, initially she just drifted into her role, drawn by her father's loneliness and need, and pushed by her own unhappiness with her marriage. "What a life I have made for myself," she wrote to a friend in 1955. "Often, I seem to be standing outside myself, watching and wondering if it's all worth the trouble."

Motilal's involvement with the Congress made his home the hub of the freedom movement. It became the place where earnest, khadi-clad men came and went at all hours of the day and night; it became a place that rang with drafts, declarations, and debates. Indira absorbed the tension and excitement of those days and became a quiet, serious child, fired by a sense of mission she did not quite understand(Currimbhoy 31).

The crisis began with the decision of a high court judge in Mrs. Gandhi's native Allahabad, convicting her on two rather minor counts of electoral corruption-using government officials and government jeeps for her campaign. The judgment erased her annulled her election to Parliament and barred her from public office for six years(Currimbhoy 136-138).

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Approximate Word count = 3306
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People