Indian politician: the P.M. of India 1966-1977. The daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, she grew up with the impassioned politics of India’s struggle for independence. Raised in the political goldfish bowl as the daughter of India’s first prime minister, she was given an excellent education, studying history at Oxford and speaking excellent French all her life. In 1942, she married Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mahandas Gandhi) against her father’s wishes. They both went to prison for 13 months for political activism. Feroze, a shopkeeper’s son, turned out to be an alcoholic and womanizer as well as a parliamentarian and journalist. His early death in 1960 enabled Gandhi to enter politics as a widow and not a divorcee.
In spite of Mohandas Gandhi’s crusade of peaceful change, India’s birth of independence was accompanied by chaos and bloodshed. Indira Gandhi traveled to the villages and countryside with grassroots politics. When Nehru served as the first Prime Minister, she acted as his hostess.
Gandhi followed her dad’s lead into politics in 1966, serving as P.M. for 11 years until she was voted out; she later returned to political power. Of her two sons, Sanjay, who was being groomed for politics, was killed in plane crash, and her older son, Rajiv, was the one to succeed her.
Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi on 10/31/1984, 2:00 PM.
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