Indira Gandhi : Essay, Biography, Early Life, Speech, Personal Profile
Indira Gandhi Personal Profile
| Personal details | |
|---|---|
| Born | Indira Priyadarshini Nehru 19 November 1917 Allahabad, United Provinces, British India |
| Died | 31 October 1984 (aged 66) New Delhi, India |
| Political party | Indian National Congress |
| Spouse(s) | Feroze Gandhi |
| Relations | See Nehru–Gandhi family |
| Children | Rajiv Gandhi Sanjay Gandhi |
| Parents | Jawaharlal Nehru Kamala Nehru |
| Alma mater | Visva-Bharati University (dropout) Somerville College, Oxford (dropout) |
| Religion | Hinduism |
| Awards | Bharat Ratna (1971) |
Indira Gandhi Essay
Born in the year 1917 on November 19th Indira Gandhi was India’s Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 right up to the time she was assassinated in the year 1984. She was also India’s first and only female Prime Minister.
Indira Gandhi Essay
BioGraphy of Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi Early life, Education and Marriage
Indira Gandhi was born in 1917 to the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamla Nehru in Allahabad and was their only child. She spent a part of her childhood in India, Switzerland and England where she attended Somerville College, in Oxford. She stayed in Switzerland with her mother who passed away due to tuberculosis. She also could not complete her education from Somerville College due to prolonged illnesses and dropped out before getting her degree. However, she was later conferred an honorary degree from the college.
Her Grandfather was Motilal Nehru who was one of the early advocates of Indian Independence and also an ardent supporter of Mahatma Gandhi. Thus being from a mostly politically influenced family she had a lot of opportunities to interact with many of the famous freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, etc.
She married Feroze Gandhi in the year 1942 who was a fellow member of the Indian National Congress amidst opposition from her family. She had two children with him, I.e. Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi who would both go on to have a political career for themselves as well.
Indira Gandhi Political Career
On returning from Oxford, she acted as her father’s assistant while he was the prime minister through the years 1947-1965 and also accompanied him on many of his foreign tours. Even Though she was just considered a personal assistant, she still wielded a considerable amount of power with the government. She was also a part of the then popular Indian Independence movement.
Indira Gandhi was elected to a new 21 member working Committee of the Congress Party in 1955, and within the next four years, she was appointed the President.
Upon her father’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri took over the position of the new Prime Minister and the vacant position of Minister of Information and Broadcasting that he previously held as taken over by Indira Gandhi. After Shastri’s death two years later, she was appointed to be the Prime Minister by the Congress Party Leaders.
During her tenure as the Prime Minister, she introduced many schemes or measures such as the Green Revolution, the victory over Pakistan in the Pakistan war and India’s own nuclear bomb which gained her a huge amount of popularity among the voters.
However during the 1970’s high inflation, poverty and protests over corruption in the elections a state of emergency was declared in the year 1975 where the citizen’s constitutional rights were removed, political opponents were imprisoned, and the press was strictly monitored.
Other policies like large scale mandatory sterilisation too affected her popularity and gave her the reputation of being authoritarian.
End of Political Career of Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi’s conviction in 1975 by the High Court of Allahabad for electoral corruption imposed upon her a ban from competing in the election for the next six years. Indira Gandhi reacted to this by imposing a state of Emergency. She lost the 1977’s election and temporarily dropped out of politics. In the same year, he son Sanjay Gandhi passed away in a plane crash.
However, she returned for a fourth term in the year 1980. Most of the duration of her fourth term was spent to try and resolve the political issues in Punjab. In 1984 she ordered the army to open fire upon the Sikh separatists who were hiding in the Golden Temple. This resulted in a significant number of causalities where at least 450 Sikh’s were reportedly killed, and the Golden Temple too was destroyed.
This act earned her deep hatred among the Sikh Community.
Assassination of Indira Gandhi
Merely five months on October 31st 1984 after the Storming of the golden temple, Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence by her Sikh bodyguards as retribution for attacking the Golden Temple.
She was cremated three days later in a Hindu Ritual.
