Indira Gandhi

[[File:USSR stamp I.Gandhi 1984 5k.jpg|upright|thumb|right|165px|Indira Gandhi on a 1984 stamp from the Soviet Union.]]{{IndianPolitics}}[[File:NehruGandhiTree.png|300px|right|]]{{cquote|My father was a saint. I'm not.|||Indira Gandhi<ref>[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/09/18/indiras-coup/ Indira's Coup] by Oriana Fallaci (September 18, 1975) ''The New York Review of Books''.</ref>}}
'''Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi''' (Hindi: इन्दिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गाँधी) was the 3<sup>rd</sup> Prime Minister of [[India]] and the [[Margaret Thatcher]] of India (albeit much more respected). She held the office from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984. Indira was the daughter of {{wpl|Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru}}, India's first Prime Minister.

==Administration and policies==
The time she spent in the office was controversial, involving the formal establishment of India as the regional hegemon of {{wpl|South Asia}}. The 1971 India-[[Pakistan]] war that led to the liberation of [[Bangladesh]] happened under her reign.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2519000/2519133.stm  1971: Pakistan intensifies air raids on India, 3 December 1971, BBC]</ref> India conducted its first nuclear detonation in 1974.<ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-chi003atoms220070119213645-photo.html Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi examined a rock at a nuclear test site in southeastern India in 1974. Chicago Tribune]</ref>

Even before she became dictator, Indira was fairly notorious for her authoritarian rule from her majority government between 1967 and 1971. One famous case came when the {{wpl|Supreme Court of India|Supreme Court}} ruled that the Parliament could not amend the Constitution if it affected basic issues such as fundamental rights; thus safeguarding the Constitution's basic structure. Indira's parliament, dominated by her party, passed the {{wpl|Twenty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India|24th Amendment}} in 1971, which nullified the ruling. Her party members quickly realized that their progress within the ranks depended solely on their loyalty to Indira and her family, and ostentatious displays of sycophancy became routine. In the coming years, Indira's influence was such that she could install hand-picked loyalists as chief ministers of states, rather than being elected by the {{wpl|Indian National Congress|Congress}} legislative party.

She was so popular because she was very helpful to the poor. She nationalized several major banks in July 1969, abolished the privy purse in September 1970, and doctored [[New Deal]]-esque socialist policies that made her the darling of the poor, women, {{wpl|Dalits}} (the untouchables in the Indian caste system), and minorities of the subcontinent. Her secularism was especially well-liked. However, as one might expect, these policies were often done suddenly, via ordinance, to the universal shock of her opponents. You know how, from [[Vladimir Putin]] and [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]], to [[Deng Xiaoping]] and [[Xi Jinping]], pseudo-dictators manage to keep power by making sure the voters have money in their wallets? Indira Gandhi perfected it long before any of them even conceived of it. Defeating [[Pakistan]] and separating [[Bangladesh]] from it also helped her popularity.

On the other hand, ever since she took charge as prime minister in 1966, Indira's government faced a total of ''ten no-confidence votes'' in the {{wpl|Lok Sabha}}. After the {{wpl|Allahabad High Court}} on 12 June 1975, found her guilty of election malpractice, she got the then President, {{wpl|Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed}}, to declare a state emergency on claims of a conspiracy against her.<ref>[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/1975-indira-gandhi-found-guilty/1/155592.html 1975: Region Of Terror, India Today, 2 July 2007]</ref> The state emergency mechanism allows the government to sidestep several constitutional restrictions and deny basic rights to citizens.

In 1974, the opposition-led protests and strikes caused widespread disturbance in many parts of the country and badly affected the government and the economy. On 25 June 1975 following an adverse court decision against her, Indira Gandhi declared a national emergency, delayed elections, censored the press, dismissed several government officials, imprisoned dissident leaders, and suspended some constitutional freedoms in the name of national security.

One of her more infamous policies included a forced mass sterilisation campaign spearheaded by {{wpl|Sanjay Gandhi}}, her son, who feared overpopulation would wrangle his country. In 1976–1977, the program counted 8.3 million sterilizations, up from 2.7 million the previous year. She [[Godi media|made use of public and private media institutions]], like the national television network {{wpl|Doordarshan}}, for government propaganda, destroyed the slum and low-income housing in the {{wpl|Turkman gate demolition and rioting|Turkmen Gate}} and {{wpl|Jama Masjid, Delhi|Jama Masjid}} area of the {{wpl|Old Delhi}}, and arrested 140,000 people (about 40,000 of which were [[Sikhs]]) without trial during the twenty months of Indira's Emergency.

After January, the Sikhs remained virtually alone in their active resistance to the regime. Hailed by opposition leaders as "the last bastion of democracy", they continued to come out in large numbers each month on the day of the new moon, symbolizing the night of Indian democracy, to court arrest.

This period lasted until 1977, and has been frequently described as a dictatorship.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140518070255/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917627,00.html Indira Gandhi's Dictatorship Digs In, Time, 14 July 1975 (archived from May 18, 2014)]</ref><ref name=death>[http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1119.html Assassination in India: A Leader of Will and Force; Indira Gandhi, Born to Politics, Left Her Imprint on India, 1 November 1984, The New York Times]</ref> On 18 January 1977, Gandhi called fresh elections for March and released all political prisoners. The Emergency officially ended on 23 March 1977, and Indira lost her seat in the general election; the rest of her party suffered huge losses as well. A tribunal was held, but the overly complex nature of the trial ended up with very few convictions, least of all Indira herself, who got off eventually.

The {{wpl|Janata Party}} had become intensely unpopular due to its internecine warfare, and the fact that it offered no leadership on solving India's serious economic and social problems. Consequently, Indira returned in 1980 as Prime Minister. In June 1984, under her authorization, the Indian army launched an operation on the {{wpl|Golden Temple}} of {{wpl|Amritsar}} to flush out (i.e. massacre) [[Indian alt-right glossary#Khalistani|Khalistani]] terrorists who had taken residence there since 1982 and who had heavily fortified the complex. The operation was called Operation Blue Star. On 31 October, Indira Gandhi was shot dead by two of her Sikh bodyguards. This was followed by anti-Sikh riots across India, including large-scale organised pogroms in and around {{wpl|Delhi}}.<ref>[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23514583 Why 1984 Golden Temple raid still rankles for Sikhs by Poonam Taneja, 1 August 2013, BBC]</ref> Modern [[Hindutva]] proponents online like to point to {{wpl|Operation Blue Star}} and the anti-Sikh pogroms in 1984 as examples of brutality by the [[Indian alt-right glossary#Sickular|sickular]] Congress Party to try and [[Two wrongs make a right|excuse]] the numerous similar communal riots committed in the name of their ideology, or at least try to minimise their significance.

==Belief in woo==
Although her father was a [[rationalist]],<ref>[http://m.financialexpress.com/news/column-from-nehru-s-temples-to-just-temples/1156900/  Column: From Nehru's temples to just temples by Jaithirth Rao, The Financial Express, 19 August 2013]</ref> she was reported to be a firm believer in [[woo]]. She gave her patronage to a [[yoga]] guru called {{wpl|Dhirendra Brahmachari}} and an [[astrologer]] called {{wpl|Chandraswami}}. Dhirendra Brahmachari has been compared to [[Rasputin]].<ref>[http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/ravi_shankar/My-kingdom-for-a-goat/2013/05/12/article1585948.ece  My kingdom for a goat by Ravi Shankar, The New Indian Express, 12 May 2013]</ref>

==Conspiracy theories==
There are several [[conspiracy theories]] built around her. A few notable ones have been listed below.

* ''She was a Muslim'': There are several people who claim that she and all her descendants are [[Muslims]], as she converted when she married {{wpl|Feroze Jehangir Gandhi}}.<ref>[http://www.savehinduism.in/stories/article/635.html Indira Gandhi? No… ‘Maimuna Begum’!, Save Hinduism]</ref> However, during a legal dispute between her and her daughter-in-law, {{wpl|Maneka Gandhi}}, regarding the inheritance of Indira's dead son Sanjay's estate, Maneka had argued that Indira was a [[Zoroastrianism|Parsi]] by marriage. She was also denied entry to the {{wpl|Jagannath Temple, Puri|Jagannath Temple}} at {{wpl|Puri}} which allows entry only to the orthodox and pure [[Hinduism|Hindus]].<ref>[http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/controversies-over-jagannath-temple-s-entry-rules/article1-907457.aspx Controversies over Jagannath Temple's entry rules], 3 August 2012, Hindustan Times</ref>

* ''She killed her son'': People claim that she got one of her sons, Sanjay Gandhi, killed.<ref>[http://conspiracytheoryindia.blogspot.in/2013/05/conspiracy-theory-india-death-of-sanjay-gandhi.html  Conspiracy Theory India - Death of Sanjay Gandhi]</ref> Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash on 23 June 1980. There are claims of growing rifts between him and his mother, with one incident being where he allegedly slapped her due to some issue regarding the guru Dhirendra Brahmachari.<ref>[http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/just-people/2011/01/04/sanjays-men-and-women/ Sanjay’s men and women by Kumkum Chadha, 4 January 2011, Hindustan Times]</ref> According to US embassy cables leaked in 2013, he was a prominent figure during the emergency and had already faced three assassination attempts by September 1976.<ref>[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Three-attempts-were-made-to-kill-Sanjay-Gandhi-WikiLeaks/articleshow/19485275.cms Three attempts were made to kill Sanjay Gandhi: [[WikiLeaks]], 11 April 2013, The Times of India]</ref>

* ''She had a paramour'': There are claims that Sanjay Gandhi was fathered by {{wpl|Mohammad Yunus (diplomat)|Mohammad Yunus}}, a diplomat, and not Feroze, which had made him and his descendants Muslims.<ref>[http://www.savehinduism.in/stories/article/646.html Mystery of Sanjay Gandhi, Save Hinduism]</ref> {{wpl|Katherine Frank}}, the author of the book ''Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi'', has claimed {{wpl|M. O. Mathai}}, {{wpl|Dinesh Singh}} (a cabinet minister) and Dhirendra Brahmachari were also her paramours.<ref>[http://www.outlookindia.com/article/The-Truth-About-Indira/211665 The Truth About Indira, 21 May 2001, Outlook India]</ref><ref>[http://www.outlookindia.com/article/The-Wonder-That-Was-Indira/211281 The Wonder That Was Indira, {{wpl|Khushwant Singh}}, 9 April 2001, Outlook India] </ref>

==References==
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[[Category:Authoritarianism]]
[[Category:Chickenhawks]]
[[Category:Dictators]]
[[Category:Government incompetence]]
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[[Category:Indian politicians]]
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Categories: Authoritarianism, Chickenhawks, Dictators, Government incompetence, Hindus, Indians, Indian politicians, Socialists