Indira Gandhi (November19,1917-October 31,1984)
Indira Priyadarshini (the second name means ”Dearly Beloved”) was born Nov. 19, 1917 in, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru and his wife, Kamala, in Allahabad in northern India. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, who own the house in which they lived, was a brilliant lawyer who unnecessary a lucrative practice to ally himself with Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Congress Party in the independence movement.
By all accounts, the child’s early years were glaringly lonely. The house served as a command center for the freedom struggle; her parents were frequently taken off to jail; the police were continually there.
”My public life started at the age of 3,” she said. ”I have no recall of games, children’s parties or playing with other children. My beloved occupation as a very small child was to deliver thunderous speeches to the servants, standing on a high table. All my games were political ones – I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.
”I was very headstrong. The whole house was always in a state of tension that nobody had a normal life. There were police raids, arrests and so on, the physical and mental strain. And all the time it was in public.”
What made her childhood even more difficult was the condescending treatment given her mother, Kamala, by the far more Westernized and sophisticated women of the Nehru family. Mrs. Gandhi in later life indicated that her own fluency in Hindi, far better than her father’s, and her ”Indianness,” or ability to think and feel as a Hindu Indian, were largely a legacy of her mother. When asked once about the impact of Kamala Nehru on her personality, Mrs. Gandhi replied, ”I saw her being hurt and I was determined not to be hurt.”
The most outstanding of women in modern India’s was Indira Gandhi who from her early years was active in the national liberation struggle. During the 1930 movement, she formed the ‘Vanar Sena’. A children’s brigade to help freedom fighters.
She became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1938. Soon after her return to India in March 1941, she plunged into political activity.
Her public activity entered a new phase with India’s Independence in 1947. She took over the responsibility of running the Prime Minister’s House. The Congress, which had been her political home ever since her childhood, soon drew her into leading political roles, first as member of the Congress Working Committee in 1955 and later as member of the Central Parliamentary Board in 1958. In 1959, she was elected President of the Indian National Congress. She oriented Congress thinking and action towards basic issues confront Indian society and enthused the younger creation the task of nation-building.
In the eventful years of her leadership as Prime Minister, Indian society underwent profound changes. She was incessant in her endeavor for the unity and solidarity of the nation. A staunch defender of the secular ideals of the Constitution, she worked tirelessly for the social and economic development of the minorities. She had a vision of a modern self-reliant and energetic economy.
She fought boldly and heartily beside communalism, obscurantism, and religious fundamentalism of all types. She repeatedly warned the nation that communalism and obscurantism were the tools employed by the forces of deterioration. She laid down her life in defense of the ideals on which the unity and integrity of the Republic are founded. The martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi for upholding the unity of India will reverberate across the centuries.
Rarely in history has one single individual come to be identified totally with the fortunes of a country. She became the indomitable symbol of India’s self-respect and self-confidence. Death came to her when she was at her peak, when her stature and control were acclaimed the world over.
Women have a special place of pride and honour in the Indian Society. Their role in nation building is also well standard. Like men they too have excelled in every walk of life. If we turn the pages of History we come athwart great women rulers, queen warrior, women leaders, women Freedom Fighters, women saints, scholars, writers, social workers and what have you? The country remembers them and honours them and brings out celebration postage stamps in their fond memory even after they are gone.
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