During
1959 and 1960, Gandhi ran for and was elected the President
of the Indian National Congress. Her term of office was uneventful.
She also acted as her father's chief of staff. Nehru was known
as a vocal opponent of nepotism, and she did not contest a seat
in the 1962 elections.
After the death of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri
became Prime Minister and at the urgings of the new Prime
Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi contested elections
and joined the Government, being immediately appointed Minister
for Information and Broadcasting. She went to Madras when
the riots over Hindi becoming the national language broke
out in non-Hindi speaking states of the south. There she spoke
to government officials, soothed the anger of community leaders
and supervised reconstruction efforts for the affected areas.
Shastri and senior Ministers were embarrassed, owing to their
lack of such initiative. Minister Gandhi's actions were probably
not directly aimed at Shastri or her own political elevation.
She reportedly lacked interest in the day-to-day functioning
of her Ministry, but was media-savvy and adept at the art
of politics and image-making.
While the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 was ongoing, Gandhi was
vacationing in the border region of Srinagar. Although warned
by the Army that Pakistani insurgents had penetrated very
close to the city, she refused to relocate to Jammu or Delhi
and instead rallied local government and welcomed the media
attention. Shastri died in Tashkent, hours after signing the
peace agreement with Pakistan's Ayub Khan, mediated by the
Soviets.
After Lal Bahadur Shastri's untimely death in 1966, she was
selected as prime minister by party bosses within the Congress
Party as a compromise candidate. Her candidature was opposed
by Morarji Desai, a veteran nationalist and prime ministerial
aspirant himself. The Congress bosses were apparently looking
for a leading figure acceptable to the masses, who could not
only command general support during the next general election
but who would also acquiesce to their guidance.
The Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was then instrumental
in making Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister, despite the opposition
from Morarji Desai who was later defeated by the members of
the Congress Parliamentary Party,where Indira Gandhi beat
Morarji Desai by 355 votes to 169 to become the fourth Prime
Minister of India and the first woman to hold that position.
In her initial days as Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi encountered
numerous problems such as Mizo tribal uprisings in the northeast;
famine, labour unrest, and misery among the poor in the wake
of rupee devaluation; and agitation in Punjab for linguistic
and religious separatism.
In the fourth general elections held in 1967, Congress suffered
a major setback. Congress majority was greatly reduced in
parliament and non-Congress ministries were established in
Bihar, Kerala, Orissa, Madras, Punjab, and West Bengal. This
forced Mrs. Indira Gandhi to become assertive and opt for
a series of choices that pitted her directly against the Congress
Party high command, which had previously been built up by
her father. Seeking to eradicate poverty, Mrs. Gandhi pursued
a vigorous policy in 1969 of land reform and placed a ceiling
on personal income, private property, and corporate profits.
She also nationalized the major banks, a bold step amidst
a growing rift between herself and the party elders. The Congress
expelled her for "indiscipline" on November 12,
1969, an action that split the party into two factions: the
Congress (O)-for Organisation led by Morarji Desai, and the
Congress (I)--for Indira-led by Indira Gandhi.
Indira Gandhi campaigned fiercely on the slogan of "Garibi
Hatao" (eliminate poverty) during the fifth general elections
in March 1971 and won an unprecedented two-third majority.
Her leadership qualities came to the fore during India-Pakistan
war in 1971 that resulted in liberation of Bangladesh. India
achieved decisive victory over Pakistan in the face of diplomatic
opposition from both China and the United States and a lack
of international support from almost every other nation except
the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries. Indian victory
over Pakistan led to a great surge in Indira Gandhi's popularity
and she was compared to Goddess Durga by ordinary Indians.
Expectations raised by the Garibi Hatao campaign and India's
victory over Pakistan in 1971 led to great disappointment
and political difficulties in the mid-1970s. Enormous economic
cost of 1971 war, increase in world oil prices and, drop in
industrial output added to the economic hardships. During
this time J.P.Narayan initiated a civil disobedience movement
against Indira Gandhi. In June 1975, amidst all this crises
Allahabad High Court invalidated her 1971 election on the
grounds of electoral malpractices. Instead of resigning, Indira
Gandhi declared an Emergency in the country and jailed al
her political opponents. The Emergency lasted till March 1977
and in the general election held afterwards she was defeated
by a coalition of parties called Janta Morcha.
Factionalism among coalition partners led to the collapse
of Janta government and Indira Gandhi came back to the power
once again in 1980. But her second innings was beset with
difficulties and personal tragedies. Her younger son Sanjay
Gandhi died in an air crash. Her government was confronted
with serious challenges to its ability to maintain law and
order as conflicts between religious and ethnic groups broke
out in different parts of the country. After the army had
invaded the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the chief shrine of
the Sikhs, which had been held as an armed camp by a group
of militant Sikhs, she became the target for Sikh anger and
on 31 October 1984 she was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguard.
