Born: 19 November 1917, India
Died: 31 October 1984
Country most active: India
Also known as: Indira Nehru
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
India’s first woman prime minister came to power in part through her family legacy as the only child of the first prime minister of the independent India, and granddaughter of a prominent independence activist. But while many politicians benefit from family connections, Indira Gandhi wasn’t just a nepo baby—she was also a dictator. Born in 1917, she joined her father’s Congress Party in 1938 and often acted as his political hostess and joined him when he traveled. She became a member of the party’s working committee in 1955 and in 1959 was elected to the position of party president, though this role is largely honorary.
Yet, it wasn’t until 1964, the year her father died, that she was made a member of the Indian Parliament’s upper house, the Rajya Sabha and Lal Bahadur Shastri, her father’s successor as prime minister, appointed her minister of information and broadcasting. Only two years later, when Shastri himself died, Gandhi was named leader of the Congress Party and therefore prime minister, as the party controlled Parliament at the time. She would serve for three consecutive terms, from 1966 to 1977, and was serving a fourth from 1980 until she was assassinated in 1984 (she in turn was succeeded by her own son, Rajiv Gandhi, who held the role of prime minister until 1989).
The 1960s were a turbulent time, and in 1969, she was expelled from the party—so she led a mass defection and, with a majority of the party’s members, formed a “New” Congress Party, which won a definitive victory in the 1971 Lok Sabha (the Parliament’s lower house) elections. The same year, Gandhi sent troops to support Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan and became the first government leader to recognize the new country’s independence. This in turn contributed to landslide victories for the New Congress Party in state legislature elections in early 1972. Controversy arose when she was accused by a defeated opponent of violating election laws; the Supreme Court allowed her to retain her prime ministership but rescinded her privileges as a member of Parliament, including her vote in parliamentary matters.
Far more controversial, however, were her dictatorial actions during the 21 months of The Emergency. Acting on Gandhi’s advice, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declared a state of emergency across the country in June 1975. Gandhi used her emergency powers to imprison her political enemies, censor the press and cinema, enact laws limiting personal freedoms, impose mass sterilizations, crack down on labor rights and unions, and displace thousands after ordering demolitions in New Delhi. Even decades later, various films about this period would be censored, both partially and in their entirety. After The Emergency finally ended in early 1977, federal elections that had been put off during that time were finally held and Gandhi and her party were resoundingly defeated. She was briefly imprisoned on charges of corruption yet won a seat in the Lok Sabha in late 1978, and by 1980, she was back in the prime minister’s seat. In 1984, she met violence with violence as Sikh separatists occupied the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex at Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, and Gandhi ordered the army to attack, badly damaging the shrine and killing hundreds (according to government officials) or thousands (according to many Sikhs). Within months, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her own Sikh guards.
The following is republished from the US National Archives. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi; née Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984 was an Indian politician, stateswoman and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. Despite her surname Gandhi, she is not related to the family of Mahatma Gandhi. She served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father.
Gandhi served as her father’s personal assistant and hostess during his tenure as Prime Minister between 1947 and 1964. She was elected Congress President in 1959. Upon her father’s death in 1964 she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. In the Congress Party’s parliamentary leadership election held in early 1966 (upon the death of Shastri), she defeated her rival, Morarji Desai, to become leader, and thus succeeded Shastri as Prime Minister of India.
As Prime Minister, Gandhi was known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralisation of power. She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh, as well as increasing India’s influence to the point where it became the regional hegemon of South Asia. Citing fissiparous tendencies and in response to a call for revolution, Gandhi instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 where basic civil liberties were suspended and the press was censored. Widespread atrocities were carried out during the emergency. In 1980, she returned to power after free and fair elections. She was assassinated by her own bodyguards and Sikh nationalists in 1984.