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Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi is elected as the first female P...
Indira Gandhi is elected as the first female Prime Minister of India 
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindustani: [ˈɪnːdɪrə ˈɡaːnd̪ʱi] ( listen); née Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was the third Prime Minister of India and a central figure of the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi, who served from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, is the second-longest-serving Prime Minister of India and the only woman to hold the office.
 
Indira Gandhi was the only child of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. She served as the Chief of Staff of her father's highly centralized administration between 1947 and 1964 and came to wield considerable unofficial influence in government. Elected Congress President in 1959, she was offered the premiership in succession to her father. Gandhi refused and instead chose to become a cabinet minister in the government. She finally consented to become Prime Minister in succession to Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966.
 
As Prime Minister, Gandhi became known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralisation of power. She presided over a period where India emerged with greater power than before to become the regional hegemon of South Asia with considerable political, economic, and military developments. Gandhi also presided over a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 during which she ruled by decree and made lasting changes to the constitution of India. She was assassinated in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star.
In 2001, Gandhi was voted the greatest Indian Prime Minister in a poll organised by India Today. She was also named "Woman of the Millennium" in a poll organised by the BBC in 1999.[1]
 
Early life and career
Indira Nehru was born on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad.[2] Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, led India's political struggle for independence from British rule, and became the first Prime Minister of the Union (and later Republic) of India.[3] She was an only child (a younger brother was born, but died young),[4] and grew up with her mother, Kamala Nehru, at the Anand Bhavan; a large family estate in Allahabad.[5] Indira had a lonely and unhappy childhood.[6] Her father was often away, directing political activities or being incarnated in prison, while her mother was frequently bed-ridden with illness, and later suffered an early death from tuberculosis.[7] She had limited contact with her father, mostly through letters.[8]
 
Indira was mostly taught at home by tutors, and intermittently attended school until matriculation in 1934.[nb 1] She went on to study at the Viswa Bharati University in Calcutta.[12] A year later, however, she had to leave university to attend to her ailing mother in Europe.[13] While there, it was decided that Indira would continue her education at the University of Oxford in Britain.[14] After her mother passed away, she briefly attended the Badminton School before enrolling at Somerville College in 1937 to read history.[15] Indira had to take the entrance examination twice; having failed at her first attempt, with a poor performance in Latin.[15] At Oxford, she did well in history, political science and economics, but her grades in Latin—a compulsory subject—remained poor.[16][17]
 
 
During her time in Europe, Ms. Indira was plagued with ill-health and was constantly attended by doctors. She had to make repeated trips to Switzerland to recover, disrupting her studies. She was being treated by the famed Swiss doctor Auguste Rollier in 1940, when the Nazi armies rapidly conquered Europe. Indira tried to return to England through Portugal but was left stranded for nearly two months. She managed to enter England in early 1941, and from there returned to India without completing her studies at Oxford. The university later conferred on her an honorary degree. In 2010, Oxford further honored her by selecting her as one of the ten Oxasians, illustrious Asian graduates from the University of Oxford.[18]
During her stay in the UK, young Indira frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. The marriage took place in Allahabad according to Adi Dharm rituals though Feroze belonged to a Parsi family of Gujarat.[19]
 
Economic policy
Gandhi presided over three Five-Year plans as Prime Minister.[49] All but one of them succeeding in meeting the targeted growth.[49]
There is considerable debate regarding whether Gandhi was a socialist on principle or out of political expediency.[50] S. K. Datta-Ray described her as "a master of rhetoric...often more posture than policy", while the The Times journalist, Peter Hazelhurst, famously quipped that Gandhi's socialism was "slightly left of self-interest."[51] Critics have focused on the contradictions in the evolution of her stance towards communism; Gandhi being known for her anti-communist stance in the 1950s with Meghnad Desai even describing her as "the scourge of [India's] Communist Party."[52] Yet, she later forged close relations with Indian communists even while using the army to break the Naxalites. In this context, Gandhi was accused of formulating populist policies to suit her political needs; being seemingly against the rich and big business while preserving the status quo in order to manipulate the support of the left at times of political insecurity, such as the late 1960s.[53][54]
 
Although Gandhi came to be viewed in time as the scourge of the right-wing and reactionary political elements of India, leftist opposition to her policies emerged. As early as 1969, critics had began accusing her of insincerity and machiavellism. The Indian Libertarian wrote that: "it would be difficult to find a more machiavellian leftist than Mrs Indira Gandhi...for here is Machiavelli at its best in the person of a suave, charming and astute politician."[55] Rosser wrote that "some have even seen the declaration of emergency rule in 1975 as a move to suppress [leftist] dissent against Gandhi's policy shift to the right."[50] In the 1980s, Gandhi was accused of "betraying socialism" after the beginning of Operation Forward, an attempt at economic reform.[56] Nevertheless, others were more convinced of Gandhi's sincerity and devotion to socialism. Pankaj Vohra noted that "even the late prime minister’s critics would concede that the maximum number of legislations of social significance was brought about during her tenure...[and that] she lives in the hearts of millions of Indians who shared her concern for the poor and weaker sections and who supported her politics."[57]
In summarizing the biographical works on Gandhi, Blema S. Steinberg concluded she was decidedly non-ideological.[58]
 
Only 7.4% (24) of the total 330 biographical extractions posit ideology as a reason for her policy choices.[58] Steinberg noted Gandhi's association with socialism was superficial; only having a general and traditional commitment to the ideology, by way of her political and family ties.[58] Gandhi personally had a fuzzy concept of socialism. In one of the early interviews she had given as Prime Minister, Gandhi had ruminated: "I suppose you could call me a socialist, but you have understand what we mean by that term...we used the word [socialism] because it came closest to what we wanted to do here – which is to eradicate poverty. You can call it socialism; but if by using that word we arouse controversy, I don't see why we should use it. I don't believe in words at all."[58] Regardless of the debate over her ideology or lack of thereof, Gandhi remains a left-wing icon. She has been described as the "arguably the greatest mass leader of the last century."[57] Her campaign slogan, Garibi Hatao (Eng: Remove Poverty), has become the iconic motto of the Indian National Congress. To the rural and urban poor, untouchables, minorities and women in India, Gandhi was "Indira Amma or Mother Indira."[59]
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