indira gandhi a biography pdf

Indira Gandhi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 10, 2019 | Original: November 9, 2009

The only daughter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was destined for politics. First appointed prime minister in 1966, she garnered widespread public support for agricultural improvements that led to India’s self-sufficiency in food grain production as well as for her success in the Pakistan war, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. After serving three terms, Gandhi was voted out of office for her increasingly authoritarian policies, including a 21-month state of emergency in which Indians’ constitutional rights were restricted. In 1980, however, she was reelected to a fourth term. Following a deadly confrontation at the Sikh’s holiest temple in Punjab four years later, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards on October 31, 1984, ushering her son Rajiv into power and igniting extensive anti-Sikh riots.

Indira Gandhi: Early Life and Family

Born on November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, India, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was the sole child of Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru . As a member of the Indian National Congress, Nehru had been influenced by party leader Mahatma Gandhi, and dedicated himself to India’s fight for independence. The struggle resulted in years of imprisonment for Jawaharlal and a lonely childhood for Indira, who attended a Swiss boarding school for a few years, and later studied history at Somerville College, Oxford. Her mother passed away in 1936 of tuberculosis.

Did you know? One of Indira Gandhi’s most unpopular policies during her time in office was government-enforced sterilization as a form of population control.

In March 1942, despite the disapproval of her family, Indira married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer (unrelated to Mahatma Gandhi), and the couple soon had two sons: Rajiv and Sanjay.

Indira Gandhi: Political Career and Accomplishments

In 1947, Nehru became the newly independent nation’s first prime minister, and Gandhi agreed to go to New Delhi to serve as his hostess, welcoming diplomats and world leaders at home and traveling with her father throughout India and abroad. She was elected to the prominent 21-member working committee of the Congress Party in 1955 and, four years later, was named its president. Upon Nehru’s death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the new prime minister, and Indira took on the role of Minister of Information and Broadcasting. But Shastri’s leadership was short-lived; just two years later he abruptly died and Indira was appointed by Congress Party leaders to be prime minister.

Within a few years Gandhi gained enormous popularity for introducing successful programs that transformed India into a country self-sufficient in food grains—an achievement known as the Green Revolution.

In 1971, she threw her support behind the Bengali movement to separate East from West Pakistan, providing refuge for the ten million Pakistani civilians who fled to India in order to escape the marauding Pakistan army and eventually offering troops and arms. India’s decisive victory over Pakistan in December led to the creation of Bangladesh, for which Gandhi was posthumously awarded Bangladesh’s highest state honor 40 years later.

Indira Gandhi: Autocratic Leadership

Following the 1972 national elections, Gandhi was accused of misconduct by her political opponent and, in 1975, was convicted of electoral corruption by the High Court of Allahabad and prohibited from running in another election for six years. Instead of resigning as expected, she responded by declaring a state of emergency on June 25, whereby citizens’ civil liberties were suspended, the press was acutely censored and the majority of her opposition was detained without trial. Throughout what became referred to as the “Reign of Terror,” thousands of dissidents were imprisoned without due process.

Anticipating that her former popularity would assure her reelection, Gandhi finally eased the emergency restrictions and called for the next general election in March 1977. Riled by their limited liberties, however, the people overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Janata Party and Morarji Desai assumed the role of prime minister.

Within the next few years, democracy was restored, but the Janata Party had little success in resolving the nation’s severe poverty crisis. In 1980, Gandhi campaigned under a new party—Congress (I)—and was elected into her fourth term as prime minister.

Indira Gandhi: Assassination

In 1984, the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, was taken over by Sikh extremists seeking an autonomous state. In response, Gandhi sent Indian troops to regain the temple by force. In the barrage of gunfire that ensued, hundreds of Sikhs were killed, igniting an uprising within the Sikh community.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated outside her home by two of her trusted bodyguards, seeking retribution for the events at the temple.

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Early life and rise to prominence

First period as prime minister, fall from power and return to office.

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Indira Gandhi (born November 19, 1917, Allahabad, India—died October 31, 1984, New Delhi) was an Indian politician who was the first female prime minister of India , serving for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term from 1980 until she was assassinated in 1984.

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

Indira Nehru was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru , who was one of the chief figures in India’s struggle to achieve independence from Britain, was a top leader of the powerful and long-dominant Indian National Congress (Congress Party), and was the first prime minister (1947–64) of independent India. Her grandfather Motilal Nehru was one of the pioneers of the independence movement and was a close associate of Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi . She attended , for one year each, Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan (now in Bolpur, West Bengal state) and then the University of Oxford in England . She joined the Congress Party in 1938.

In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi (died 1960), a fellow member of the party. The couple had two children, Sanjay and Rajiv . However, the two parents were estranged from each other for much of their marriage. Indira’s mother had died in the mid-1930s, and thereafter she often acted as her father’s hostess for events and accompanied him on his travels.

The Congress Party came to power when her father took office in 1947, and Gandhi became a member of its working committee in 1955. In 1959 she was elected to the largely honorary post of party president. She was made a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper chamber of the Indian parliament) in 1964, and that year Lal Bahadur Shastri —who had succeeded Nehru as prime minister—named her minister of information and broadcasting in his government.

On Shastri’s sudden death in January 1966, Gandhi was named leader of the Congress Party—and thus also became prime minister—in a compromise between the party’s right and left wings. Her leadership, however, came under continual challenge from the right wing of the party, led by former minister of finance Morarji Desai . She won a seat in the 1967 elections to the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the Indian parliament), but the Congress Party managed to win only a slim majority of seats, and Gandhi had to accept Desai as deputy prime minister.

Tensions grew within the party, however, and in 1969 she was expelled from it by Desai and other members of the old guard. Undaunted, Gandhi, joined by a majority of party members, formed a new faction around her called the “New” Congress Party. In the 1971 Lok Sabha elections the New Congress group won a sweeping electoral victory over a coalition of conservative parties. Gandhi strongly supported East Pakistan (now Bangladesh ) in its secessionist conflict with Pakistan in late 1971, and India’s armed forces achieved a swift and decisive victory over Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh. She became the first government leader to recognize the new country .

In March 1972, buoyed by the country’s success against Pakistan, Gandhi again led her New Congress Party group to landslide victories in a large number of elections to state legislative assemblies. Shortly afterward, however, her defeated Socialist Party opponent from the 1971 national election charged that she had violated the election laws in that contest. In June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad ruled against her, which meant that she would be deprived of her seat in the parliament and would be required to stay out of politics for six years. She appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court but did not receive a satisfactory response. Taking matters into her own hands, she declared a state of emergency throughout India, imprisoned her political opponents, and assumed emergency powers . Many new laws were enacted that limited personal freedoms. During that period she also implemented several unpopular policies, including large-scale sterilization as a form of birth control .

Public opposition to Gandhi’s two years of emergency rule was vehement and widespread, and after it ended in early 1977, the released political rivals were determined to oust her and the New Congress Party from power. When long-postponed national parliamentary elections were held later in 1977, she and her party were soundly defeated, whereupon she left office. The Janata Party (precursor to the Bharatiya Janata Party ) took over the reins of government, with newly recruited member Desai as prime minister.

In early 1978 Gandhi and her supporters completed the split from the Congress Party by forming the Congress (I) Party—the “I” signifying Indira. She was briefly imprisoned (October 1977 and December 1978) on charges of official corruption. Despite those setbacks , she won a new seat in the Lok Sabha in November 1978, and her Congress (I) Party began to gather strength. Dissension within the ruling Janata Party led to the fall of its government in August 1979. When new elections for the Lok Sabha were held in January 1980, Gandhi and Congress (I) were swept back into power in a landslide victory. Her son Sanjay, who had become her chief political adviser, also won a seat in the Lok Sabha. All legal cases against Indira, as well as against Sanjay, were withdrawn.

Sanjay Gandhi’s death in an airplane crash in June 1980 eliminated Indira’s chosen successor from the political leadership of India. After Sanjay’s death, Indira groomed her other son, Rajiv, for the leadership of her party. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that had been begun by her father. She established closer relations with the Soviet Union , depending on that country for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan.

During the early 1980s Indira Gandhi was faced with threats to the political integrity of India. Several states sought a larger measure of independence from the central government, and Sikh separatists in Punjab state used violence to assert their demands for an autonomous state. In 1982 a large number of Sikhs, led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale , occupied and fortified the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex at Amritsar , the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. Tensions between the government and the Sikhs escalated, and in June 1984 Gandhi ordered the Indian army to attack and oust the separatists from the complex. Some buildings in the shrine were badly damaged in the fighting, and at least 450 Sikhs were killed (Sikh estimates of the death toll were considerably higher). Five months later Gandhi was killed in her garden in New Delhi in a fusillade of bullets fired by two of her own Sikh bodyguards in revenge for the attack in Amritsar. She was succeeded as prime minister by her son Rajiv , who served until 1989.

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Indira Gandhi

Date of Birth : 19 November 1917 

Place of Birth : Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

Parents : Jawaharlal Nehru (father) and Kamala Nehru (mother)

Spouse : Feroze Gandhi

Children : Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi

Education : International School of Geneva, Vishwabharati University, Shantiniketan; Somerville College, Oxford

Association : Indian National Congress

Movement : Indian Independence Movement

Political Ideology : Right winged, Liberal

Religious views : Hinduism

Publications : My Truth (1980), Eternal India (1981)

Passed Away : 31 October 1984

Memorial : Shakti Sthal, New Delhi

Indira Gandhi was an Indian politician and the only female Prime Minister of the country. Born in the famous Nehru family, she was perhaps destined for an illustrious political career. She served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. As Prime Minister, Indira was known for centralisation of power and political ruthlessness. Her political career was littered with controversies as well as allegations of highhandedness, corruption and nepotism. She clamped a state of emergency in India from 1975 to 1977. She was also criticized for carrying out the Operation Blue-Star in Punjab that eventually scripted her assassination on 31 October 1984. Indira Gandhi left behind her a lasting political legacy and her family became one of the most prominent political names in India.

Childhood & Early Life

Indira Gandhi was born Indira Nehru on 19 November, 1917, in Allahabad to Kamala and Jawaharlal Nehru. Indira's father, Jawaharlal was a well-educated lawyer and an active member of the Indian Independence Movement. She passed her Metric from Pune University and went to Shantiniketan in West Bengal. She later went on to study in Switzerland and Oxford University in London. Indira then stayed for a few months in Switzerland with her ailing mother. In 1936, after her mother, Kamala Nehru succumbed to tuberculosis, she returned to India. At the time of Kamala's death, Jawaharlal Nehru, was languishing in Indian jails.

Marriage & Family Life

In 1941, despite his father's objections, she married Feroze Gandhi. In 1944, Indira gave birth to Rajiv Gandhi followed two years later by Sanjay Gandhi. During the 1951-52 Parliamentary Elections, Indira Gandhi handled the campaigns of her husband, Feroze, who was contesting from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. After being elected an MP, Feroze opted to live in a separate house in Delhi.

Feroze soon became a prominent force against the corruption in the Nehru led government. He exposed a major scandal involving prominent insurance companies and the Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari. The Finance Minister was considered to be a close aide of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Feroze had emerged as a noted figure in the country's political circle. He, with a small coterie of supporters and advisors continued to challenge the Central government. On 8 September 1960, Feroze died after a major cardiac arrest.

Political Career

Early Entry into Politics

Since the Nehru family was the centre of national political activity, Indira Gandhi was exposed to politics from a young age. A leader like Mahatma Gandhi was among the frequent visitors to the Nehru house in Allahabad. After his return to the country, Indira showed keen interest in the national movement. She also became a member of the Indian National Congress. Here, she met Feroze Gandhi, a journalist and key member of the Youth Congress - the youth wing of the Congress Party. After independence, Indira Gandhi's father Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi decided to shift to Delhi to assist his father. Her two sons remained with her but Feroze decided to stay back in Allahabad. He was working as an editor of ‘The National Herald’ newspaper founded by Motilal Nehru.

Indira as Congress President

In 1959, Indira Gandhi was elected as the President of the Indian National Congress Party. She was one of the political advisors of Jawaharlal Nehru. After the death of Jawaharlal Nehru on 27 May 1964, Indira Gandhi decided to contest elections and eventually got elected. She was appointed as in-charge of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry under Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri

It was believed that Indira Gandhi was adept at the art of politics and image-making. This is corroborated by an event that took place during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. While the war was on, Indira Gandhi went on a holiday trip to Srinagar. Despite repeated warnings by the security forces that Pakistani insurgents had entered very close to the hotel she was staying, Gandhi refused to move. The incident fetched her huge national and international media attention.

First Term as Prime Minister of India

Following the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri on 11 January 1966, in Tashkent, the race to the coveted throne of the Prime Minister began. After much deliberation, Indira was chosen as the Prime Ministerial candidate by the Congress high command solely because they presumed that she could be easily manipulated. She contested and emerged victorious during the interim elections of 1966. Post-election, Mrs. Gandhi showed extraordinary political prowess and elbowed the Congress stalwarts out of power. Some of the most notable achievements of her stint as PM were proposals for the abolition of Privy Purse to former rulers of the Princely states and the 1969 nationalization of the fourteen largest banks in India along with four premium oil companies. She took constructive steps towards food shortage of the country and led the country into the nuclear age with its first underground detonation in 1974.

Indo-Pakistan War in 1971

The 1971 Indo-Pakistan war was the direct after-effect of the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan, which was brought by the Awami League led by Mujibar Rahman against the military brutality launched by the Pakistan President Yahya Khan. The military specifically targeted the Hindu minority population and committed atrocious acts of torture throughout the country. As a result, about 10 million East Pakistani citizens fled the country and sought refuge in India. The overwhelming refugee situation prompted Indira Gandhi to support Awami League’s struggle for freedom against West Pakistan. India provided logistical support and also sent troops to fight against West Pakistan. The war concluded on 16 December 1971 in Dhaka, after the Eastern Command of the Pakistani Armed Forces signed the Instrument of Surrender and that marked the birth of the new nation of Bangladesh. India's triumph in the war of 1971 against Pakistan enhanced the popularity of Indira Gandhi as a shrewd political leader.

Imposition of Emergency

In 1975, the Opposition parties and social activists staged regular demonstrations against the Indira Gandhi-led Central government over rising inflation, the poor state of economy and unchecked corruption. The same year, Allahabad High Court ruled that Indira Gandhi had used illegal practices during the last election and this added fuel to the existing political fire. The verdict ordered her to vacate her seat, immediately. The agitation and anger of the people intensified. Mrs. Gandhi instead of resigning declared "an emergency, due to the turbulent political situation in the country" on 26 June, 1975.

During the state of emergency, her political foes were imprisoned, constitutional rights of the citizens were abrogated, and the press was placed under strict censorship. The Gandhian socialist, Jaya Prakash Narayan and his supporters sought to unify students, peasants and labor organizations in a 'Total non-violent Revolution' to transform Indian society. Narayan was later arrested and jailed.

Fall from Power and Role as Opposition

During the state of emergency, her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, began to run the country with full-authority and ordered forceful removal of slum dwellings, and started a highly unpopular forced sterilization program, which was aimed at curbing India's growing population.

In 1977, confident that she has snuffed the opposition, Indira Gandhi called for elections. She was thrashed by the emerging Janata Dal combine, led by Morarji Desai and Jai Prakash Narayan. Congress managed to win only 153 Lok Sabha seats, as compared to 350 seats it had grabbed in the previous Lok Sabha. 

Second Term as Prime Minister of India

With so little in common among the allies of the Janata Party, the members were busy in internal strife. In an effort to expel Indira Gandhi from the Parliament, the Janata government ordered to arrest her. However, the strategy failed disastrously and gained Indira Gandhi sympathy from the people who had considered her as an autocrat just two years back. In the 1980 elections, Congress returned to power with a landslide majority and Indira Gandhi returned as Prime Minister of India once again. Experts viewed the victory of the Congress as a result of inefficient and ineffective "Janata Party".

Operation Blue Star 

In September 1981, a Sikh militant group demanding "Khalistan" entered into the premises of the Golden Temple, Amritsar. Despite the presence of thousands of civilians in the Temple complex, Indira Gandhi ordered the Army to barge into the holy shrine to carry out Operation Blue Star. The army resorted to heavy artillery including tanks and cannons which although led to subduing of the militant threat, also claimed lives of innocent civilians. The act was viewed as an unparalleled tragedy in the Indian political history. The impact of the onslaught increased the communal tensions in the country. Many Sikhs resigned from the armed and civil administrative office and also returned their government awards in protest. Indira Gandhi’s political image was tarnished heavily.

Assassination

On 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi's bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh fired a total of 31 bullets on Indira Gandhi from their service weapons as a revenge of the Golden Temple assault at her residence - 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi and she succumbed to her injuries.

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Exclusive pre-publication extracts of the book - indira gandhi: a biography by pupul jayakar, pupul jayakar's indira gandhi: a biography is of seminal importance: an inside look at india's most important post-independence figure. india today presents exclusive pre-publication extracts..

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The book seeks clues to her life through access to the many personalities that lay hidden within her. And, if possible, to uncover and reveal Indira Gandhi's thoughts and feelings, her hates and prejudices, her insights and her ignorance, and her loves and the emotional entanglements that generated action."

Jayakar is uniquely qualified to do this. To discover what were the private memories, what the complexes that imparted to Indira Gandhi's public life a demonic energy, an impenetrable persona, a sweeping charisma.

Jayakar knew Indira Gandhi from the 1930s when they were growing up in Allahabad together. Later in the '50s she became a close confidante of Mrs Gandhi's and remained so till the very end, a veritable repository of her most personal confidences.

As Indira grew older, she would seek to be alone, away from the din and turmoil, away from the crowded house. She would disappear into the garden, a thin long-legged gawky child, dressed like her father in a white hand-spun kurta and pyjama with a Gandhi cap worn at a slant; she was nimble of feet and could climb trees with ease. The thick foliage hid her from curious eyes. "From childhood I looked upon trees as lifegiving and a refuge. I loved climbing and hiding there, in a little place which was my own."

Within the house her room provided a retreat. The space was special, it belonged to her. It was here that she could bring her imaginary world to life, play with her dolls, re-enact stories of the freedom struggle; by turn, her dolls became heroes and heroines, policemen and jail wardens. She loved to fantasise; to create a play and enact it, to design costumes and dress up.

At times she became Alice, the child who walks through the looking glass. As Alice she defied the imperious Queen of Hearts, faced a trial where she saw the court collapse like a pack of cards. Yet again, she would be Joan of Arc or the Rani of Jhansi leading her people to battle and death. She was always at the centre of the stage; all the action revolved around her.

It was in her own room that she learnt to interiorise her fears; and, as she grew older, it was here she read her father's letters written to her from prison. When she closed the doors to her room, she was able to escape the turmoil as well as the anxiety and tensions that lay dormant in the empty house when Jawaharlal and Motilal were away in prison....

Indira was only six, an age when she could sense her mother's desperation, though the complexities of her mother's problems and the nature of the tangled relationship still eluded her. She had overheard "the mean remarks" of Bibi Amma and her aunt Vijayalakshmi. Defiant, Indira had at first rushed to her mother' s defence. She had argued with her grandmother and great-aunt, spoken excitedly to her grandfather and father.

Then, as she realised that her words had little effect on her grandmother and grandfather, and that the adored father was deaf to words he did not want to hear, she grew angry and turned away. It was at this time that Indira learned to cover up her emotions and to grow silent. She was growing aware that silence was a powerful weapon, to be used to help her mother; it could also, when it held strong emotions, exasperate her elders.

The seeds of a child's revolt were sown. She had begun to feel that there were two dark fairies whose acts thwarted harmony in the Motilal family. Indira identified them with her aunt Vijayalakshmi and her great-aunt Bibi Amma....

At Anand Bhavan, the old tensions and jealousies long held at bay by Motilal Nehru's presence, re-surfaced. Those were dark days for Indira. A remark by Sarup (Vijayalakshmi) made casually 'and repeated - "She (Indira) is ugly, stupid" - was overheard by Indira. Anand Bhavan was a home of beautiful people, sophisticated and quick in intelligence. To be called ugly and stupid devastated the 13-year-old.

It was around the same time that Feroze Gandhi wrote to propose to her. Indira was 16 and the admiration of men was an experience that found her vulnerable and insecure.

"I wept and wept because I was so terrified at the very idea of marriage." Yet when Indira wrote back, her letter was free of emotion, she told Feroze that she had no intention of marrying him or anyone else. They were all involved in the freedom struggle and during a battle no serious person could even think of such frivolities....

Feroze visits an ailing Kamala in Switzerland, and probably speaks to her about his love for Indira. Later in England, the romance blooms.

Kamala was cremated at Lausanne in Switzerland, in a small ceremony with very few people present. Nehru and his 18-year-old daughter went to Montreaux to be alone together, to face and to share, if possible, the agony of Kamala's death. Indira's grief was silent, its depths could not be fathomed. She had loved her mother with a passion and a protective feeling that were instinctual.

Unable to come to terms with her mother's life, in particular with, the manner in which she had been treated by her father's family, and the neglect she had suffered from Nehru, Indira withdrew from the situation to spin invisible threads that would enclose her pain and shield her from the world.

Thirty-five years later, a woman journalist asked Indira whether it took her a long time to recover from Kamala's death. Indira replied: "I don't know. I don't like the word 'recover' because I think that a wound like this never heals. The scar and the effect of it are always there in some way...I do think of her as if she were here quite often."....

Prior to entering school she spent several months in London sharing a flat, 24 Fairfax Avenue, with Shanta Gandhi, an old friend from Poona. It was at this stage that Feroze entered Indira's life, to become the counterpoint to her father's world. He was everything that Indira was not: outgoing, exuberant, warm, public, where she was inward-looking, secretive and private.

Feroze introduced Indira to the world of classical music; taught her to tune her ear, to listen, to allow sound to fill her. This was a new experience for Indira. The Nehrus were not musical, they neither sang nor played any musical instrument, nor were there any musical soirees in their home in Allahabad, even in the old days of luxurious living....

After Indira left London, Feroze began confiding in Shanta; he spoke with bitterness of Kamala's last days and how she was neglected and hurt by the Nehru pride. He saw in Indira traces of this pride, which he felt occasionally affected their relationship. He told Shanta that the Nehru connection was fraught with many dangers.

When Shanta asked him what he meant, he told her: "If my relationship with Indira continues as at present, I see many difficulties ahead." He did not have many illusions; they discussed Indira's incapacity to completely surrender herself to anyone. She could take but not give. She was not prepared, he thought, to merge or lose her separate identity, even for a moment.

A little over a year after her mother's death, Indira flew to India, eager to share with her father her confidences and the contradictions which she felt only he could help her to understand. Highly sensitised by her separation and sorrow, she needed her father's companionship and his total attention. But the man she had come to meet had undergone vast changes. Nehru was preoccupied. A gesture, a word, a look revealed to Indira that her father's attention was fragmented.

Half-a-century later, I asked Vijayalakshmi Pandit of Nehru's relationship with Padmaja Naidu. "Didn't you know, Pupul?" she replied. "They lived together for years - for years." Questioned further as to why he had not married Padmaja, she replied: "He felt that Indu had been hurt enough. He did not want to hurt her further."...

Oxford was a daunting experience for Indira. With hardly any academic preparation to fall back on, she did not know whether to study History or Politics, Philosophy and Economics - a combination then offered at Oxford. A passing mark in Latin was essential at the time.

Indira was also young and self-consciously shy. It was not easy to separate the elements out of which her self-conscious diffidence was compounded. Certainly she did not find words easy and froze in the articulate and argumentative company of her fellow students.

But more than that, as a young girl she and her mother had felt cruelly excluded by the brilliance and the good looks that set her father and Vijayalakshmi apart in the admiring glances of the people around her in Allahabad. She had been driven into herself by feelings of inferiority, feelings which remained with her all her life, and were very alive during the years at Oxford.

It was Feroze, warm-hearted and gregarious, who continued to draw her out of herself. And even though she had been receptive to Feroze's proposal of marriage, her commitment to Feroze was not communicated to Nehru, but remained something she held within her, perhaps because somewhere in her she hoped that as a result of Oxford she might succeed and so gain the approbation of her father.

Nehru conceals his disappointment, and Indira and Feroze marry in 1942. The marriage begins to founder as Indira decides to join her father as his aide.

Indira had begun to add up the cost to the family of her father's dedication to the larger cause. Throughout his younger days, she felt, Nehru had found neither place nor time in his life for affection and care of Kamala; little time for the daughter who sought his confidence. She began to question the traditions of the family, to evaluate a dedication to larger causes against the love of home and family.

For his daughter to turn away from her obligations and lead a life filled with trivialities was totally unacceptable to him. In his diary Nehru wrote: "She is - or it seems to me - so immature perhaps to take things superficially, yet she must have depth. She will reach them slowly. I hope the pressure is not too rigid or else there may be shocks."

Indira's resolve to leave Anand Bhavan and Allahabad, to leave her husband and to respond to her father's need, was a momentous decision. She seldom acted in haste. Her sense of isolation and loneliness had been building up for some time. She discussed the situation with Feroze. He encouraged her to go.

Tensions between Indira and Feroze had already started. In reply to a letter from Frank Oberdorf in early 1946, after a silence of nine years, she wrote: "In March of 1942 I got married. Unlike you I have not been able to have any domestic life.

Now I have a small son and he will soon be two years old...We are still leading very busy lives - with a great deal of travelling all over the country. All of us never seem to be in the same town at the same time. As you see from the above address, I am now living in my father's house."

Indira went to Delhi with her little son Rajiv to act as her father's hostess; Nehru, as interim prime minister, had an official residence at 17, York Road. The niche which Nehru had kept vacant, was now hers by right....

Meanwhile, Feroze moved to Lucknow to take charge of the National Herald , a daily founded by Nehru in 1937. Feroze had a flair for journalism. Those who worked for him on the Herald and later in Delhi, where he became an active journalist for the Indian Express , found him meticulous in his research and reporting. "He could have risen to the top position in the newspaper world of this country."

In Lucknow, separated from Indira, Feroze soon became entangled with a woman from one of Lucknow' s prominent Muslim landed families. Rumours of Feroze seeking solace elsewhere reached Indira while she was with her father. She was pregnant and awaited the arrival of her baby, due in late December 1946.

Feroze came to Delhi and was present when the family gathered at 17, York Road to await the new arrival....

Matters worsen between husband and wife. Both grow politically, but the personal and political disagreements mount. And then Feroze dies.

Shanta had never seen him in such a mood. He had always been full of fun. The sneering tone in which he spoke, puzzled her. She asked him what had happened. He replied: "That which was to happen, has happened."

She could tell that he resented having to stay in the prime minister's house. Feroze turned to Shanta and asked her what she felt about the whole house. She said: "How can you live here? It is a museum, not a house to live in."

Indira was upset, spoke back sharply. "Everyone is not as lucky as you are. You have to take things as they are." There was an abruptness and sharpness in her voice. Shanta could tell that the relationship between Indira and Feroze was under severe strain.

Indira, as the first lady, had pride of place at the prime minister's dinner table. Feroze was low in protocol and often found himself below the salt. Humiliated and angry, after a time he refused to attend any of the official functions and before long shifted to an official house as an MP where he cultivated roses and held his own durbars. He had a vast number of friends in Parliament and in the newspaper world.

In the morning he held a Diwan-e-Aam (open house) where journalists and radical young MPs would gather to discuss politics and events, to gossip, to intrigue and to laugh. In the evening would be the Diwan-e-Khas (special audience) where Feroze met his special friends, amongst them a number of women. Gossip filled the coffeehouses and the drawing-rooms of Delhi that Feroze sought solace away from his wife. They were now rarely seen together....

IN September 1958, Indira Gandhi accompanied her father on a visit to Bhutan. There were no planes; no restorable roads and the prime minister's party had to travel on horseback along steep mountain paths. The air was exhilarating and Indira, after many years, was temporarily free from political and domestic turmoil. Halfway on their journey, an urgent message reached them that Feroze had suffered a heart attack.

By the time Indira returned to Delhi, her husband was already out of danger. There was a reconciliation, old memories that bound them close, were revived. They took the boys with them on a month's holiday and spent it on a houseboat in Nagin Bagh in Srinagar. Indira nursed her husband with care and affection but the sense of togetherness they discovered foundered when they returned to Delhi.

Indira's name was proposed as the new president of the Congress Party. Feroze saw this as the final assault on their relationship. He gathered all his cronies around him, retreated to his home and stopped his visits to the prime minister's house. Indira Gandhi was unanimously elected Congress president on February 2,1959. She was 41. She was the third Nehru to be elected to this supreme position....

Nehru, who over the years had not developed a close relationship with his son-in-law, was amazed to see the large number of people, from all walks of life, who came to pay homage to the young MP. Feroze died four days short of his 48th birthday. Indira blanked out. A great darkness descended on her, she felt totally disoriented.

The death of Feroze awakened memories of her mother and of those early years when, with Feroze by her side, she learnt to face her mother's death. Through the years they had quarrelled fiercely, had separated, had fought on every issue, but had shared too many memories that returned, filling Indira's mind with dark depression.

She felt deeply indebted to Feroze.' 'When my mother died and at all times of stress and difficulty, he was by my side even if he had to travel across continents to get there. I feel I am alone in the midst of the unending sandy water.''

BY December she felt a new awakening. "The fits of dark despair and depression do come, but that is something I have always had - but on the whole I have got over that awful self-pity and preoccupation with my own sorrow." Feroze's name disappeared from her letters. She rarely referred to him when we were together, nor did she mention his name in later years when we dined together with the family. No photograph of Feroze appeared in her bedroom or study.

The year had transformed Indira. She was no longer the shy young woman who walked two steps behind her father, seemingly seeking his protection. Her year as Congress president and the way she had to face her loneliness after the death of Feroze, had given her confidence....

Indira becomes prime minister. She displays the enigmatic and relentless skills that make her a formidable presence at home and abroad.

Indira Gandhi's silences had intrigued the world of diplomacy and challenged her friends and her opponents. Vijayalakshmi Pandit reminisced: "Michael McDonald, former British high commissioner, was on a mission to India with a letter from Harold MacMillan addressed to Indira Gandhi."

In a meeting with her: "McDonald observed that Indira Gandhi's greatest weapon was her silence. He waited for an answer to his prime minister's letter. Though Indira saw him several times, she continued to keep silent."

The silences of Indira Gandhi became famous. Silences which could be opaque, would presage ruthless responses and silences that were limpid like clear, sweet lake water, that could assuage and welcome....

The crucial meeting of the CPB to select a name for the future President of India was held in Bangalore in April 1969. The meeting started in a grim atmosphere: various names were proposed, discussed and finally it came to a choice between Neelam Sanjiva Reddy and Jagjivan Ram. When the votes were finally counted, Jagjivan Ram, who was Indira's candidate, lost by one vote. Y.B. Chavan, at the last moment, had deserted Indira and voted against her. Indira left the meeting in a very grave mood.

The Syndicate was jubilant. With Sanjiva Reddy as President, a situation could be created whereby the President could ask for Indira's resignation and instal a new leader of the Congress Party who, in turn, would assume the office of prime minister.

To the press who awaited her reaction, Indira Gandhi made an ominous comment; she said that the senior members of the Congress who had voted for Sanjiva Reddy, would have to face the consequences. It was, she said, "an assault on her office and attitudes".

The aides who had accompanied her to Washington in 1971 were aware of her rage and were apprehensive about the outcome of the meeting between Nixon and her. She was quick to sense a slight condescension in the President's opening speech of welcome. He had referred sympathetically to recent floods that had devastated parts of India, but was silent on the main purpose of her visit.

She responded: "To the national calamities of drought, flood and cyclone has been added a man-made tragedy of vast proportions. I am haunted by the tormented faces in our overcrowded refugee camps reflecting the grim events which have compelled the exodus of these millions from East Bengal. I have come here looking for a deeper understanding of the situation in our part of the world, in search of some wise impulse...."

Nixon and Indira Gandhi met in the White House. He refused to recognise the dimensions of the human tragedy being enacted in East Pakistan. In an attempt to transform the human problem into a political abstraction, he spoke of time-frames and peace initiatives which, by their very nature, would make solutions increasingly difficult.

Indira's outward demeanour remained icy in its withdrawal. There was a fierce pride, that she was the head of a democratic country with a vast population, a country of the poor, yet behind her stretched a millennia of civilisation.

Nixon spoke uninterruptedly of his assessment of the situation. Indira listened without a single comment, creating an impregnable space so that no real contact was possible. To ease the situation, Kissinger joined in the conversation, suggesting various options - the posting of UN observers; a meeting between Indira Gandhi and President Yahya Khan; mild pressure to be used by the US to defuse the imminent conflict. Towards the end of the meeting Indira said that she would give thought to the many suggestions made and give her reply the next day.

According to Seymour M. Hersh, the President kept Indira waiting in the ante-room for 45 minutes before he appeared. If this report is true, one can well understand Indira's fury when the President and she met. It was the turn of Indira to talk.

She decided to deliberately ignore any question relating to the Indo-Pak dispute or suggest any solution to the refugee problem. Instead she spoke of Vietnam, praised Nixon's role and asked questions on the general world situation. Obviously her refusal to respond to Nixon's suggestions of the previous day was, for the President, unforgiveable....

A triumphant Indira, liberator of Bangladesh, begins to come under the spell of Sanjay. The Emergency is declared. Indira's dark side comes to the fore.

THE monsoons failed again in 1973. International oil prices rose sharply and inflation in India registered an all-time high of 20 per cent. An immense unrest swept the country. Indira made every effort to control prices. Government expenditure was cut drastically, a limit on company dividends was imposed, a compulsory deposit scheme on all salaries and incomes was levied, a major drive was directed against smugglers.

With the tough measures taken by the government, vested interests in the country went all out to oppose the prime minister. She would have succeeded in convincing the people of India of her right intentions but, unfortunately, rumours of increasing corruption around her, and her arrogance, alienated many of her admirers.

Traits within her which had been dormant surfaced. "She had always listened to gossip, but now she kept people uncertain, intimidated them. Her difficulty was she could not communicate with people." Her assistants who had worked with her over the years found her imperious.

"She would brook no criticism, nor was she prepared to be questioned. She never trusted anyone completely - now she grew secretive, never divulged her mind, never changed it whether she was right or wrong.

She would keep people guessing, wanted people to ask favours of her. It was one way of expressing her power. Sometimes I feel that she lost her balance after Bangladesh. Sanjay was in complete control. She would have been a great prime minister had Sanjay not been there," N.K. Seshan told me.

One of her chief political opponents, Atal Behari Vajpayee, then president of the Jana Sangh, an extreme right-wing party, commented: "She was unable to take criticism, saw in every opposition move a foreign hand. She felt everyone whispering against her - something going on behind the bush, on the other side of the wall."

I met her one evening during the period when Sanjay and his Maruti company were under serious attack. I found her angry and distressed. She felt that the Opposition was trying to destroy her through Sanjay and it was not fair. The young man should have a chance.

Suddenly, she spoke of the time when, immediately after marriage, she had gone with her father to Kulu. At the home of the Roerichs she had met a Cossack priest, an adventurer called Father Constantine. He later built a plane in two garages in Bombay, and would take up his friends for a joy ride. She said: "If he could build a plane, why can't Sanjay build a car?"...

Inder Kumar Gujral, a suave, soft-spoken politician, was minister of state for i&b. He was woken up at 2 a.m. on the morning of June 26 by the cabinet secretary, who informed him that a cabinet meeting had been called for 6 a.m. at 1, Akbar Road, Indira Gandhi's personal office.

He found K.C. Pant and Swaran Singh, senior ministers, walking on the lawns. They were unaware of what was happening and felt that the emergency meeting had been called to announce Indira's decision to resign as prime minister.

Indira Gandhi was a little late in entering the cabinet room. She was accompanied by Om Mehta. They sat down, she turned to her cabinet colleagues and said: "Gentlemen, Emergency has been declared and JP and Morarjibhai and other leaders have been arrested." The secret had been very well kept.

Gujral explained that till the news bulletins were broadcast they were secret documents. She understood, but suggested that a man might be specially posted to bring the bulletins to the house of the prime minister. Gujral returned home, determined to resign.

He was soon called back to the prime minister's residence. Sanjay was there. Indira had left for her office. Sanjay was rude, and said the prime minister's morning broadcast had not been on all the wave-lengths. Gujral lost his temper.

He told Sanjay:' 'If you want to talk to me, you will learn to be courteous. You are younger than my son and I owe you no explanation." He went home more determined than ever to submit his resignation, but he was pre-empted by Indira Gandhi who called him and transferred him to another ministry. V.C. Shukla took over the i&b. Tough censorship laws were promulgated; one by one, representatives of the foreign press were asked to leave the country.

From August 15, 1975 it became difficult to enter into a dialogue with Indira. She continued to meet me but her eyes were shadowed and she was wary of what she said. I could sense, at times even touch, her storm-swept mind and the nature of her conflicts. But she was not prepared to face herself or acknowledge a heritage that had straightened her spine, given her resilience and an inviolable dignity.

She was on the defensive, there was a fierce refusal to probe. No one, including Indira, looked on Sanjay as little more than a child. Yet her need for support from someone she could trust totally, made her turn to him on all matters for advice and sustenance.

During this period there was little contact between Indira and Rajiv, her elder son, who had strongly opposed the Emergency. He came to know of Indira's decisions and travel plans through the newspapers. He and his close friends were critical of the provisions of the Emergency and spoke against it, at times openly....

Fighting back, Indira returns to power in 1980. Her euphoria is shattered by the sudden death of Sanjay. Rajiv comes into the picture. The end is near.

The Janata Party was determined that Indira leave 1, Safdarjung Road. It was a small house, but to the Janata Party it was a symbol of power and Prime Minister Morarji Desai was determined to use it as his official residence. For a time Desai was ambivalent and under advice from JP did not actually ask Indira to quit but his government demanded from her a very high rent.

When she refused, they grudgingly agreed to give her alternative accommodation at 12, Willingdon Crescent. They insisted on charging her the market rent. For 30 years Indira had had little time for her personal affairs. The house was crowded with piles of books, papers, gifts, luggage, clothes. She was reluctant to destroy anything; every book, every gift and paper held a memory.

The atmosphere at 1, Safdarjung Road grew turgid; seeking solitude Indira would come unannounced to my house. On her first visit she said "I have come, Pupul, to sit quietly,'' and I left her to herself. The house held silence and I could sense her need to be in an atmosphere free from fear and tension.

On June 28, five days after Sanjay's death, Khushwant Singh, editor of The Hindustan Times and a close friend of Sanjay and Maneka, deeply moved by the stricken figure of Maneka, wrote a signed column in his newspaper which was to have far-reaching consequences and create grave misunderstandings between Maneka and Indira.

"The only possible inheritor of the Sanjay cult figure is Maneka. She is like her late husband, utterly fearless when aroused, the very reincarnation of Durga astride a tiger."

Indira took me to her room that evening. She spoke to Maneka haltingly. She had heard, she said, that some talk had started of Maneka leaving the house. But Maneka's mother was against it. According to Indira, it was she who was behind Khushwant Singh's article. She asked me whether I had read it. I could see that it had hurt and disturbed Indira. I realised that the symbolism of Durga riding a tiger was most unfortunate. There could not be two Durgas riding tigers under one roof.

I returned to Delhi in July to find tensions mounting in Indira's house. At first Indira understood Maneka's despair. She was anxious to find something that would occupy Maneka's time and in a surge of compassion for the young widow suggested that Maneka become her secretary and travel with her. This upset Sonia. Letters were exchanged between Sonia and Indira, and Indira, realising her need for Rajiv and his family, withdrew her offer to Maneka.

In any other circumstances Indira would have given solace to the stricken young girl and helped to assuage her pain but her own sorrow had blinded her to another's grief. Isolated and anxious, the 23-year-old started to work on a photographic book on Sanjay. Indira was to write the foreword.

Rajiv's friends gathered to discuss his future. Sonia was vehemently opposed to her husband joining politics. She threatened to leave him if he did so. But his friends intervened, spoke of Indira Gandhi's isolation and her need for support. Rajiv had hesitated to approach Indira with an offer of help. His relationship to his mother was entirely different from Sanjay's.

It was based on a deep affection, but clothed with a formality which rarely permitted close and intimate encounters. He felt that she should make the first move. Her pride and ambivalence made this difficult. In her conversations with me she spoke of Sanjay in a special tender way. "No one can take Sanjay's place. He was my son, but was like an elder brother in his support." Sanjay's loss was a physical one.

She appeared a little hesitant about Rajiv, was not sure how he would take the brutalities and ruthlessness of politics. "Rajiv lacks Sanjay's dynamism and his concerns, yet he could be a great help to me. But so long as he is a government servant it will be difficult for him to help me. If he gives up the job, how will he support himself?" "Sanjay," she said, "was very frugal, but Rajiv and his wife need certain comforts."

She was growing aware of how entangled her life had been with that of her younger son. Without him there was a vacuum surrounding her. Who would fill it, she was asking herself. Apart from needing someone whom she could trust totally, who would act strongly and swiftly, and keep the windows to the outer world open for her, she needed physical closeness and support.

To fill this need, she turned to Sonia. From the autumn of 1980, Soma's relationship with Indira changed dramatically from that of a daughter-in-law to the role of a daughter. And for comfort, she gathered her three grandchildren close to her.

To the press and her political colleagues Indira was sphinx-like in her silence on Rajiv's future. "I am not going to talk about it. It is for Rajiv to decide." But it soon became clear that Rajiv would be persuaded to enter politics and a vast number of MPs and newspapermen started to visit him.

By July, according to reports, "verbal instructions went out to all party headquarters that the 'induct Maneka' campaign should be aborted. The instructions also contained the message that Maneka should not be invited for an official function without the express permission of Mrs Gandhi. The result was electric. Suddenly Maneka's supporters were singing a different tune"....

"Can you go back to sleep?" I asked.

"The moment I close my eyes, the woman is there. I have been receiving secret reports of tantric rituals and black magic rites being performed to destroy me and my sanity."

I let her speak, did not interrupt. When she was quiet, I went and sat next to her.

"Over the years you have suffered great sorrow. From your childhood you have pushed all your hates, your angers, your sorrows into crevices within you, covering them over, never letting them come into the open. Can the surfacing of these dark presences be mind-born, moving out from within to return in the form of dream and dread?"

"Do you accept that there are malignant forces that can be released through tantric rites?"

"Possibly. Even if true, why do you react? You only strengthen these dark forces."

"Do I disregard all the reports I receive every day? What do I do?" There was a touch of desperation in her voice....

"You remember, Pupul," she asked me (when I went to meet her on October 26, 1984), "that ancient Chinar tree in Beejbihara? I have just heard that it had died." She spoke as if she was referring to an old friend.

"Once again," she said, "a feeling is arising in me. Why am I here?" And now "I feel I have been here long enough." I had rarely seen her in such a mood, her thoughts entangled with death. "Papu used to love rivers, but I am a daughter of the mountains and my heart is free of care.

I have told my sons (for an instant she appeared to forget that Sanjay was dead) that when I die, to scatter my ashes over the Himalayas." It was a strange remark, strangely made. "Why do you speak of death?" I asked. "Isn't it inevitable?" she replied. Just then P. V. Narasimha Rao, her home minister, came in and I got up to leave....

Indira was cremated on the land next to Shantivan - Nehru and Sanjay's cremation sites - on November 3. Rajiv Gandhi, sworn in as prime minister on the evening of October 31, 1984, performed Indira's last rites on a brick platform heaped with fragrant logs of sandalwood. There were no blue flames in the fire that leapt towards the setting sun; red, saffron and gold were her colours and saffron and gold were the flames.

Those essences that at the moment of death enter the cave of the heart, departed to their natural habitat; speech entered fire, the breath entered into air, the eyes into the sun, the mind into the moon, blood into water, listening to the quarters, the self entered the ether, her hair into herbs and trees.

Indira Nehru Gandhi, the conservationist, would have approved.

Today, undulating grass meadows, reminiscent of the park lands of Indira's ancestral home Kashmir, surround her cremation site Shakti Sthal - the abode of energy. Groves of trees interspersed with boulders collected from every state in the country, appear on mounds and along the pathways.

On the site where Indira was cremated, a weathered rock of jasper with veins of iron ore rises over 15 ft into the sky. In India, crude iron ore is the symbol of Shakti, an energy without end. Jasper, blood red when polished, is a rock harder than granite; iron ore when smelted is fluid fire.

Indira Gandhi: A Biography by Pupul Jayakar Viking (Penguin India); Rs 295; Pages: 560 Publishing date: November 6

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Indira : the life of Indira Nehru Gandhi

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