Biography of Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi , Age , Education, Family

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was the first and, to date, only female Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. 

Born: 19 November 1917, Prayagraj

Full name: Indira Priyadarshini Nehru

Spouse: Feroze Gandhi (m. 1942–1960)

Assassinated: 31 October 1984, New Delhi

Prime Minister: Lal Bahadur Shastri

Children: Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi.

In 1999, Indira Gandhi was named "Woman of the Millennium" in an online poll organised by the BBC. In 2020 Gandhi was named by the Time magazine among world's 100 powerful women who defined the last century.

Indira Gandhi was born Indira Nehru into a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a leading figure in India's political struggle for independence from British rule, and became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion (and later Republic) of India. She was the only child (a younger brother died young), and grew up with her mother, Kamala Nehru, at the Anand Bhavan, a large family estate in Allahabad. She had a lonely and unhappy childhood. Her father was often away, directing political activities or incarcerated, while her mother was frequently bedridden with illness, and later suffered an early death from tuberculosis. She had limited contact with her father, mostly through letters.

Her first eleven years serving as prime minister saw Gandhi evolve from the perception of Congress party leaders as their puppet to a strong leader with the iron resolve to split the party over her policy positions or to go to war with Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh. At the end of 1977, she was such a dominating figure in Indian politics that Congress party president D. K. Barooah had coined the phrase "India is Indira and Indira is India."