Short Essay on Indira Gandhi in English

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was born on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad, United Provinces, and British India. Indira Gandhi was born into the politically influential Nehru Family. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru and her mother was Kamala Nehru. It is a common myth to relate the name Gandhi with Mahatma Gandhi, but her surname is from her marriage to Feroze Gandhi. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and the first Prime Minister of Independent India.

In 1934–35, after finishing school, Indira joined Shantiniketan, a school set up by Rabindranath Tagore, who gave her the name Priyadarshini. Subsequently, she went to England and sat for the University of Oxford entrance examination, but she failed, and spent a few months at Badminton School in Bristol, before clearing the exam in 1937 and joining Somerville College, Oxford. During this period, she was frequently meeting Feroze Gandhi, whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. She married Feroze in 1942.

Returning to India in 1941, she became involved in the Indian Independence movement. In the 1950s, she served her father unofficially as a personal assistant during his tenure as the first Prime Minister of India. After her father’s death in 1964 she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. When Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966, the Congress was split in two factions, the socialists led by Gandhi, and the conservatives led by Morarji Desai. Rammanohar Lohia called her Gungi Gudiya which means ‘Dumb Doll’. In the same year, in July 1969 she nationalized banks.

On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi’s bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, assassinated her with their service weapons in the garden of the Prime Minister’s residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi as she was walking past a wicket gate guarded by Satwant and Beant. She was to be interviewed by the British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. According to information immediately following the incident, Beant Singh shot her three times using his side-arm, and Satwant Singh fired 30 rounds using a Sten submachine gun. Beant Singh and Satwant Singh dropped their weapons and surrendered.

Gandhi died on her way to the hospital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated on her. She was cremated on 3 November near Raj Ghat. Her funeral was televised live on domestic and international stations including the BBC. The Indira Awaas Yojana, a programme of the central government to provide low-cost housing to rural poor, is named after her. The international airport at New Delhi is named as the Indira Gandhi International Airport in her honor.

Indira Gandhi enjoys widespread popularity in Russia and other former Soviet states like Ukraine and Georgia as a symbol of feminism. Many girls in these countries have been named Indira.