There is no doubt that Indira Gandhi, the first lady Prime Minister of India, was a powerful and feisty lady. She was also someone who was always surrounded by controversies. In fact, right from her birth, her life had been a roller coaster ride. This biography of Indira Gandhi by Pupul Jayakar provides an intense and detailed description of the life of the Iron Lady of India.
Pupul Jayakar has beautifully engraved all the major incidents of Indira Gandhi’s life: Indira Gandhi’s relationship with her Father (Jawaharlal Nehru), her relationship with her husband – Feroze Gandhi, and her sons – Sanjay and Rahul Gandhi, her life as a Prime Minister, and more.
As per the author, this book is not a political biography which is true to an extent. I would say that it is not completely a political biography. The book focuses more on Indira’s life, her personal opinions, and how she handled the different situations. The biography contains some crucial political events that have been detailed very clearly while some others have just been touched upon. Separating Indira Gandhi from politics is like taking away the identity of a person.
I feel that such a book would have been made possible only by someone close to her.
Pupul Jayakar
Pupul Jayakar was a very close friend of Indira Gandhi. She was born in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, in 1915. She was not just a friend of Indira Gandhi but also her confidante. But, Pupul Jayakar was not an ordinary lady.
She held different portfolios in the Indian Government during that time. She was Chairman of All India handicraft board, Chairman of the Governing Body of the National Institute of India. That is not all. She was also the Chairman of Handicrafts and Handloom Exports Corporation of India, Chairman of Crafts Museum of India, and more.
Pupul Jayakar died in 1997 which means she was there when Indira Gandhi breathed her last. The interesting part is that Indira Gandhi approached Pupul to write her biography. Another important point to note is that Pupul Jayakar was able to interview Indira Gandhi only twice as she was assassinated later.
Indira Gandhi – An Introduction
Pupul Jayakar created this biography using the noted conversations she had with Indira Gandhi over the years.
The biography starts with everything you need to know about Indira Gandhi. Right from her birth to childhood to her relationship with her grandfather, mother, father, etc.; everything is detailed. Once you read the initial chunk of the book, you will start to feel like stepping inside Indira Gandhi’s shoes. You will be able to relate to what all she had to go through from childhood and how her life changed every day.
Indira, a Kashmiri pandit, was born on 19th November 1917 in Prayagraj (also called Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh). She was the daughter of Kamala Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India).
The biggest boost in her political career was when she worked as a Minister of Information and Broadcast under Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet between 1964 and 1966. She was also appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha or Upper House after Jawaharlal’s death.
Indira Gandhi was the 3rd Prime Minister of India when she took oath in 1966 after Lal Bahadur Shastri’s untimely and suspicious death at Tashkent, Soviet Union. She served three terms as the Prime Minister i.e. between 1966-1971, 1971-1977, and 1980-1984.
It is true that initially, she gained her identity and popularity because of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. But, it is also true that Indira was a self-made woman and created her own identity. She was called the Iron Lady of India for a reason. BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee compared her with the goddess “Durga” based on what she did and achieved in her political tenure.
Indira Gandhi and relationship with family
Jayakar has laid the importance of Indira Gandhi’s early life in the book. The biography highlights how Indira Gandhi was fond of her grandfather, Motilal Nehru. She was also close to her mother, Kamala Nehru, and her father. The book narrates incidences where Indira was troubled with Kamala’s eternal illness (tuberculosis), and how Kamala was troubled by the fact that if Indira took care of her at such a young age, there would be an impact on her studies.
Indira was devastated when Kamala Nehru died at the age of just 37.
Her relationship with her father was transparent. Even in jail, Jawaharlal used to write letters to her and they both communicated with each other in whatever way possible. Jawaharlal Nehru died on 27 May 1964 leaving behind a huge void in Indira’s life.
In another instance, she reveals her relationship with her aunt Vijayalaxmi Pandit. Indira Gandhi says:
“From my childhood, she did everything to destroy my confidence; she called me ugly, stupid. This shattered something within me…”
The other important mention would be Feroze Gandhi. Feroze Gandhi (originally, Feroze Ghandy) took an active part in the Indian Freedom Struggle. He was fond of Indira from the early years. Though he married her in March in 1942, Feroze proposed Indira in 1933 when his proposal was initially rejected. Their marriage was not as successful as it should have been. A lot of differences from the early days created an unending distance between them. They lived separately before Feroze Gandhi died in 1960 due to a heart attack.
Indira Gandhi and Congress
Indira had been working with Congress since 1938. She is quoted in the book
“I was brought up to believe that politics is not a career, it is not a job. Politics is certain world trends, where humanity is going, what it is doing. That is what interests me, for politics is the centre of everything.”
When Jawaharlal Nehru died, as a courtesy, Indira was asked to take the post of Prime Minister, but she was clear in her thoughts. Lal Bahadur Shastri became the next Prime Minister of India. Shastri persuaded Indira Gandhi to at least hold a post in his cabinet. After much thought, Indira Gandhi accepted. She became the Minister of Information and Broadcast in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet.
In 1966, when Shastri died, due to internal politics, the key stakeholders in Congress decided to make Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister. The idea was to make her the bait and manipulate her while they enjoyed the power from the backend. But their plan backfired as Indira was able to garner much support within Congress. She independently dented the intentions of Congress Leaders and took full command of the situation.
In 1969, Indira Gandhi was expelled from Congress (because she broke the party’s discipline as per the leaders) after which she formed her own party INC(I) while the Congress was called INC(O), where O stood for “Organization”.
Indira Gandhi and major events
Indira Gandhi was the epicenter of many controversies and was also part of some of the major events in the history of Independent India. The biography clearly states that some Congress leaders accused Indira Gandhi of making several independent decisions without involving anyone from the party. Thus, she also made it into the bad books of some leaders.
For readers, the book creates ambiguity about whether to treat her as a great leader or a selfish individual. In the end, if a woman could come out winning from so many ups and downs, she is surely a fighter.
She was a people’s Prime Minister. Here is an excerpt from the book:
She started seeing, every morning, before she went to office, a vast number of people from all over the country. She would go around, meet people individually, listen to their sorrows and troubles,….”
In one of the chapters, Indira Gandhi is stated as saying:
“The basic problem is poverty. If that is solved, nothing else matters.”
Whether it was her tactic or a feature of a good Prime Minister, it is said that she listened to people, got her secretary to take notes, and acted on them.
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Haryana
Indira Gandhi took the decision to partition Punjab and create Haryana. This was done due to rising differences between the Punjabi-speaking community (Sikhs) and Hindi-speaking community. Punjab was given to Sikhs while Hindi speaking population became part of Haryana. It is said that riots happened because of this decision as the Hindi-speaking community did not want a separate state.
Nationalization of Banks
It was under her tenure that 14 commercial banks of the country were nationalized and were brought under the control of the Central Government in 1969. As per Indira Gandhi, this was done to counter poverty. The private owners of the commercialized banks were accused of draining the money of poor people for their business needs. Indira Gandhi took the matter into her own hands and initiated the Nationalization of banks. An event that brought relief for the poor.
Bangladesh Liberation War
Another big event under Indira Gandhi’s tenure was the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan. Indira was very aggressive and wanted to start a war with Pakistan to end the misery of the people of East Pakistan and to control the refugee influx in India. She was determined to free East Pakistan from West Pakistan’s cruelty and was proactive in discussing the possibilities of war with the then Commander-in-Chief Sam Manekshaw.
Manekshaw addressed the issue of going into immediate war with Pakistan and advised her to wait until the monsoon gets over. She waited, and later when the conditions were permissible, she allowed the Indian Army to go ballistic against West Pakistan forces.
The end result is known. Creation of “Bangladesh”. Sheikh Mujib-ur Rehman, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh praised Indira Gandhi for the help she provided and for the fact that Bangladesh was liberated because of the Indian forces and Mukti-Bahini.
Emergency
The Emergency is considered one of the biggest blots in India’s history. The emergency was imposed from 1975 to 1977. This happened when Indira Gandhi was debarred from holding any office for 6 years due to unfair practices.
While Indira was broken and adamant on resigning, her close colleagues primarily Siddharth Shankar Ray gave her the idea of going with the Emergency. Sanjay Gandhi, Indira’s son, supported Ray’s idea. Both Ray and Sanjay knew that if Indira would resign, she would not be able to come back to power. Of course, there were vested interests.
The very moment when the emergency was announced on 25 June 1975, Opposition leaders were arrested, press rights were restricted, and civil liberties were suspended.
Pupul Jayakar, in her book, has indicated that Emergency was not something Indira Gandhi wanted but due to certain situations, she acted on the advice of Sanjay Gandhi and Siddharth Shankar Ray.
Here is an excerpt from the book where Indira Gandhi is in conversation with Siddhartha Shankar Ray after the proclamation of the Emergency:
…when she returned Siddhartha noticed that her eyes were red and that she had been weeping. “Something very hard has happened.” She told him, “Siddhartha, the electricity to the newspapers will not be cut and the high courts will remain open.”
Back in power in 1980
Indira Gandhi lost elections in 1977 to Janata Party after the Emergency was removed.
However, she and Congress(I) came out victorious in the 1980 elections when the leadership of the Janata Party was in shambles. She became the Prime Minister for the third time. This was a remarkable result considering the Emergency was a cruel act against democracy and was opposed severely.
The book talks about Indira winning the 1980 elections and Janata Party losing them. She was relieved by the results. The book also states that Indira Gandhi had an intuition that leadership of the Janata Party was not strong enough to sustain.
Operation Blue Star and the Assassination
The book briefly focuses on Operation Blue Star which acted as a precedent for Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The information is limited. As a reader, I was expecting more information on Bhindranwale and how he gained access to the Golden Temple for his operations. The narration brings out Indira’s reactions, speeches, and thought processes rather than Operation Blue Star’s detailed inception.
On one hand, it seems OK as the book is meant to focus on Indira Gandhi, but on the other hand, you feel that the book is incomplete without the detailed description of Operation Blue Star as it was the event that changed the destiny of Indira Gandhi.
On 31 October 1984, four months after Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi was assassinated. She was killed by her own Sikh security guards, a direct consequence of the operation in Golden Temple. For the next 3 days, the country’s capital New Delhi burned with the riots against Sikhs.
Operation Blue Star and Anti-Sikh riots are both considered dark patches in the history of Independent India. The events bring out the chills when talked about.
Conclusion
I did not read this book with any preconceived notions. After finishing the book, my first reaction was a mixed one. “Controversial”, yes! At times I felt that Indira Gandhi was right in what she said and did, and in some cases, she gave away her inherent personality. She was too soft when it came to Sanjay Gandhi and he did take advantage of her being the Prime Minister.
Overall, I liked the book. The author has tried her best to bring out the emotions of Indira Gandhi in various situations, but the narrative seems a bit soft, which I guess is OK as the author was a close friend of Indira Gandhi.
With that said, I would also say that the author has highlighted the strong character and identity of Indira Gandhi which matched her being referred to as the Iron Lady of India. Over the years I have heard my friends and people saying that she was not the worth that she was treated with. After reading the book, I would say I will not completely accept or deny that thought.
What do I expect in the future?
All I can say is that I would love to read about the wrong side of Indira Gandhi in the future which is a normal perception. I am totally happy if she is regarded as cunning. To be frank, I guess that is what politics has always been. People wanted to hurt her, but she fought, made her choices, and no matter how and what she did, she came out stronger than everybody else.
Anyways, a big thumbs up for “Indira Gandhi – A Biography”. I totally recommend it. Worth a read. I guess no other piece will give you so many insights into Indira Gandhi’s life as this book. I hope you enjoy it too.
Drop your thoughts in the comments section below. I would love to hear your perspective on this book.
Happy Reading!!
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CURATED & WRITTEN BY
AYUSH PANDYA
(AUTHOR- THE UNPRECEDENTED CULT)
