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INDIRA GANDHI (1917-1984) |
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The
only woman Prime Minister
of India, Indira Priyadarshini was born
on November 19, 1917. Indira came from a very
famous family. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, and
grandfather Motilal Nehru, were prominent leaders
of the Indian freedom struggle. Her early education
was interrupted, though she attended a school
at Poona and later went to the Badminton School
in Bristol, England.
In 1937, when she was twenty years old, she studied
at Shantiniketan under the tutelage of Rabindranath
Tagore, and later went to Oxford University where
she studied history, anthropology and administration.
She returned to India without completing her
university education and plunged straight into
politics.
In 1942, she
married Feroz Gandhi. They had two sons-Rajiv
and Sanjay. Her husband died in 1960.
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She was elected to the parliament
in 1964, when she became the Information and Broadcasting
Minister in the Lal Bahadur Shastri cabinet.
In 1966, after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri,
she was elected prime minister.
Her
initial years as a prime minister were not so
good, and as a result the Congress Party Fared
badly in the 1967 elections. However, in 1971,
she came back to power with a landslide victory.
She brought about a number of social and economic
reforms.
In
1977, the Congress Party was defeated in the general
elections. After this debacle, she reorganized
the Congress-I Party with her loyalists. She came
back to power in 1980.
She continued to be the prime minister till her
assassination, by two of
her security guards, in 1984.
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