death_date children nationality birth_date signature term_end alma_mater death_place term_start spouse image name deputy predecessor birth_place president party relatives office parents successor religion article_title birth_name
31 october 1984 rajiv gandhi sanjay gandhi indian 19 november 1917 indira-gandhi-signature-transparent . png 31 14 march 1969 15 january 1982 20 december 1975 4 october february 1973 27 june 1970 1966 1984 24 march 1977 31 october 1984 somerville college , oxford new delhi , delhi , india 14 22 august 1967 14 january 1980 30 november 1975 27 january june 1970 16 july 1969 1964 1980 24 january 1966 9 march 1984 feroze gandhi indira gandhi 1977.jpg indira gandhi morarji desai charan narasimha rao m. c. chagla chidambaram subramaniam sardar swaran singh singh yashwantrao chavan morarji desai satya narayan sinha gulzarilal nanda -lrb- acting -rrb- p. v. allahabad in uttar pradesh , india -rrb- , united provinces , british india -lrb- now neelam v. v. giri fakhruddin ali ahmed sanjiva reddy zail singh sarvepalli radhakrishnan zakir hussain indian national congress nehru -- gandhi family 4th minister of defence minister of home affairs minister of finance prime minister of information and broadcasting minister of india minister of external affairs jawaharlal nehru kamala nehru rajiv venkataraman bansi lal uma shankar dikshit yashwantrao chavan kodardas kalidas gandhi shah morarji desai rajiv gandhi dinesh singh r. hinduism indira gandhi
 indira priyadarshini nehru
indira gandhi

indira priyadarshini gandhi -lrb- ; née nehru ; 19 november 1917 -- 31 october 1984 -rrb- was the fourth prime minister of india , the first woman prime minister of india and central figure of the indian national congress party .
gandhi , who served from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984 , is the second-longest-serving prime minister of india and the only woman to hold the office .
indira gandhi was the only child of the first indian prime minister , jawaharlal nehru .
she served as the chief of staff of her father 's highly centralised administration between 1947 and 1964 and came to wield considerable unofficial influence in government .
she was elected congress president in 1959 .
upon her father 's death in 1964 , gandhi refused to enter congress party leadership contest and instead chose to become a cabinet minister in the government led by lal bahadur shastri .
in congress ' party parliamentary leadership election held in early 1966 upon the death of shastri , she defeated her rival , morarji desai , to become leader and thus succeed shastri as the prime minister of india .
as the prime minister of india , gandhi was known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralisation of power .
she went to war with pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in east pakistan , which resulted in an indian victory and the creation of bangladesh , as well as increasing india 's influence to the point where it became the regional hegemon of south asia .
gandhi also presided over a controversial state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 during which she ruled by decree .
she was assassinated in 1984 by her sikh bodyguards a few months after she ordered the storming of the harmandir sahib in amritsar to counter the punjab insurgency .
