Indira Gandhi – Born on November 19,1917 in Nehru Family, Indira Gandhi was the first woman Prime Minister of India. She lead the country for 11 long years continuously and again regained the power in 1980. She is the longest serving Prime Minister after her father, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. Not only this but she had a lot more feathers attached to her cap. She was actively involved in the freedom struggle. At a very young age, she founded the ‘Bal Charkha Sangh’ and in 1930, the ‘Vanar Sena’ of children to help the Congress party during the Non-Cooperation Movement. And this shows that she was truly a warrior since childhood.

Education and Qualification

Not many know about the academic background of Indira Gandhi. She went to array of prestigious schools across globe. She studied in institutions like Ecole Nouvelle, Bex (Switzerland), Ecole Internationale, Geneva, Pupils’ Own School, Poona and Bombay, Badminton School, Bristol, Vishwa Bharati, Shantiniketan and Somerville College, Oxford. She also got a citation of distinction from the Columbia University.

Political Journey

In 1955, Mrs. Gandhi became a member of Congress Working Committee and Central election of the party. After three years, in 1958, she was appointed as a member for Central Parliamentary board of Congress. In 1959 and 1960, she was the president of Congress and she again resumed her office as the President of congress party in January 1978. After the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri, former Prime Minister of India, She took the hold of the position of Prime MInister and headed the country for 11 long years. Concurrently, she was the Minister for Atomic Energy from September 1967 to March 1977. She also held the additional charge of the Ministry of External Affairs from September 5, 1967 to February 14, 1969. Smt. Gandhi headed the Ministry of Home Affairs from June 1970 to November 1973 and Minister for Space from June 1972 to March 1977. From January 1980 she was Chairperson, Planning Commission. She again chaired the prime Minister’s Office from January 14, 1980 till 31st October 1984.

Contributions

She had contributed a lot to the nation. Some of her contributions have been discussed below:

1. Nationalisation of Banks

During her tenureship as Prime Minister, Indira introduced Nationalisation in India. She Nationalised 14 banks which proved to be a great step. Earlier commercial banks were managed by big business houses and poor people couldn’t even access the facility provided by banks. The lending policy of the commercial banks was highly discriminatory. They did not grant credit for the interest of the nation or for the development of the priority sectors. Today, we see banks in every village and so many schemes for poor, it wouldn’t have been possible without Nationalisation. The nationalization of the Reserve Bank in 1949 was the first step in this movement.

2. Abolishment of Privy Purses

With the passage of Indian Independence Act, 1947, the British Government granted independence to India but royal states never came under the British control. Royal states like Bhopal, Hyderabad had the choice of being an Independent nation. To save India from getting divided into myriads of parts, government of India signed instrument of accession in which it was agreed that a specified sum will be paid to rural states if they agree to be part of India which was known as ‘Privy of Purses’.. It was in 1971, Indira Gandhi decided to abolish ‘Privy Purses’ on the basis of equal rights to all the citizens. It was successfully implemented and know as 26th amendment to the Constitution of India.

3. Creation of Bangladesh

The woman who gave Bangladesh its identity is none other than Indira Gandhi. Fed up by the behavior of Pakistan, East Pakistan (Bangladesh) was struggling hard to build a separate country for themselves. Indira Gandhi extended unequivocal support to the people of former East Pakistan by fighting a battle (Bangladesh Liberation Act, 1971) against Pakistan and winning it. Under her leadership, India provided shelter, food, medicines to almost 10 million people who fled from their country to India.

Criticism and downfall

National Emergency

Indira Gandhi was majorly criticised for imposing National Emergency. She ordered the arrest of the most of the leaders of the opposition party. On June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared 21 month of State of Emergency which is still known as the ‘darkest phase of Indian Democracy’ It was for the third time that National Emergency was imposed in India. The first two were during the Indo-China War 1962 and Indo-Pak War 1971 respectively. All the fundamental rights were suspended and whoever opposed the government was either detained or arrested without the right to appeal to courts.

Returning Back To Power

After National Emergency, Congress lost the elections and no one thought that it will ever come to power again. But in 1980, Indira Gandhi won the elections and regained her crown as Prime Minister. It was a massive victory. How she regained the power is a tale of its own.

In 1977,in Belchi district one very serious massacre took place. Backward Kurmis had burnt 11 landless Dalits in Belchhi, the spark being a dispute over land. Indira immediately ran to Belchi. Many people recommended her not to visit the place as it was rainy season and Belchi was already cutoff by other districts.

But Indira was adamant to help these people which was neglected by the then government. As no vehicles could go in there, she rode on an elephant to get past waist-deep water and slushy roads. After this incident, she gained the sympathy of various indians as a leader.

Achievements

She had many achievements to her credit. Some of them are listed below:

• recipient of Bharat Ratna in 1972

• Mexican Academy Award for Liberation of Bangladesh (1972)

• 2nd Annual Medal, FAO (1973)

• Sahitya Vachaspati (Hindi) by Nagari Pracharini Sabha in 1976.

• Mothers’ Award, U.S.A. in 1953

• Islbella d’Este Award of Italy for outstanding work in diplomacy

• Yale University’s Howland Memorial Prize

Assassination

In 1984, Sikh extremists overtook the Golden Temple in Amritsar and demanded it as an autonomous state. In response, Mrs. Indira Gandhi ordered Indian troops to gunfire and regain the temple by force which resulted in the death of hundreds of sikhs.

And on October 31st, 1984, Indira Gandhi was shot by her bodyguards, seeking retribution for the events happened in Golden Temple.