Indira

Priyadarshini Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917. She was assassinated on October 31, 1984

She was the Prime Minister of India from January 19, 1966 to March 24, 1977, and from January 14, 1980 until her assassination on October 31, 1984
Her

father Jawaharlal Nehru was a well-educated lawyer and was a popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement.

Indira

created the Vanara Sena movement for young girls and boys which played a small but notable role in the Indian Independence Movement

In 1959 and 1960, Indira was elected the President of the Indian National Congress. She was elected Minister of Information and Broadcasting after the death of her father, by Lal Bahadur Shastri. Indira was hailed as the "only man in a cabinet full of women when the Indo-Pakistani war broke out in 1965. Among Indira's many supporters was Congress President Kumaraswami Kamaraj. In a vote of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Indira won against Morarji Desai, 355 to 169, the first woman to hold the position of Prime Minister in the world's most populous democracy.

Domestic Policy: When Mrs. Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966 the Congress was split in two factions, the socialists led by Mrs. Gandhi, and the conservatives led by Morarji Desai.

Devaluation of the Rupee: During the late 1960s, Indira's administration decreed a 40% devaluation in the value of the Indian Rupee from 4 to 7 to the US Dollar to boost trade.

Foreign policy: She was invited by the new Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit and signed the Shimla Agreement, which bound the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute by negotiations and peaceful means.

Indira Gandhi with Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

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War with Pakistan in 1971: Indira Gandhi declared war on Pakistan, helping the East Pakistanis gain their independence. The United States under Richard Nixon supported Pakistan, and mooted a UN resolution warning India against going to war. Indira signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, resulting in political support and a Soviet veto at the UN. India was victorious in the 1971 war, and Bangladesh was born.

Another one of her reforms was the Nationalization of all the country's banks. The move reflected the anger of ordinary people at the time as several private banks had collapsed, bankrupting depositors.

Green Revolution in India.

India's poor always believed she empathised with them.

 Nuclear

weapons program:

Started in 1967, in response to the nuclear threat from the People's Republic of China.

To establish India's stability and security interests as independent from those of the nuclear superpowers.
In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named Smiling Buddha, near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan.

Describing the test as for peaceful purposes, India became the world's youngest nuclear power.

Garibi Hatao (Stop Poverty) was the theme for Gandhi's 1971 bid. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. Verdict of electoral malpractice: On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of electoral malpractice. Protests and civil disobedience: When Indira appealed the decision and declared she would continue to serve the people "till her last breath", the opposition parties and their supporters, eager to gain political capital from the situation, rallied en masse calling for her resignation.

Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency.

Rule by decree :Within a few months, President's Rule was imposed on the two opposition party ruled states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thereby bringing the entire country under direct Central rule. Police were granted powers to impose curfews and indefinitely detain citizens . Inder Kumar Gujral, a future prime minister himself, resigned as Minister for Information and Broadcasting to protest Sanjay Gandhi's interference in his work.

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Impending legislative assembly elections were indefinitely postponed.

Indira used the emergency provisions to grant herself extraordinary powers.

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Elections : After extending the state of emergency twice, in 1977 Indira Gandhi called for elections, to give the electorate a chance to vindicate her rule. She was opposed by the Janata Party led by her long-time rival, Desai and with Jai Prakash Narayan as its spiritual guide. Indira's Congress party was beaten soundly. Indira and Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats, and Congress was cut down to 153 seats (compared with 350 in the previous Lok Sabha). Corruption charges: In 1975, Gandhi was found guilty of corruption. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was barred from holding office for six years after she was found guilty of electoral corruption.

 Controversies:

Indira Gandhi, late Prime Minister of India, implemented a forced sterilization programme in the 1970s. This program is still remembered and criticized in India, and is blamed for creating a wrong public aversion to family planning, which hampered Government programmes for decades.

Re-election: President Reddy dissolved Parliament in the winter of 1979. In elections held the following January, Congress was returned to power with a landslide majority.
In the 1980s, the Indira Gandhi Government provided money, weapons and military training to LTTE and other Tamil millitant groups in Sri Lanka. Currency crisis: During the early 1980s, Indira's administration failed to arrest the 40 percent fall in the value of the Indian Rupee from 7 to 12 to the US Dollar.

In September 1984, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale 's separatist Sikh militant group took up positions within the precincts of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine. Gandhi ordered the Army into the shrine in an attempt to clear it of the militants.

After her death, sectarian unrest created by congress politicians loyal to Indira Gandhi engulfed New Delhi and several other cities in India, including Kanpur, Asansol and Indore, leading to the death of thousands of Sikhs.